Archive of Our Own

So, the thing is—

As he’s booking it through the woods surrounding the trailer park, the bottom of his backpack stabs him in the spine with every step he takes because of the absolutely horrendous way he shoved whatever belongings his eyes caught on in there in the few moments he had between realizing there was a sleek black car coming for the trailer and him upending his bed to clamber through the floor hatch leading to the good three feet of space under the trailer—

He really regrets running. 

Not because he basically incriminated himself by leaving his bedroom in, frankly, not much more than the usual mess on his best days (it really could have been worse, let’s not lie to ourselves here), or because of how he very surely, to almost a hundred percent certainty, just threw Uncle Wayne, the only person who ever cared for him in the slightest, who took matters into his own hands when he caught wind of his brother leaving his elementary school aged kid alone for weeks at a time in exchange for Chicago road-trips and Indy benders, and moved him into his trailer without so much as a word, under the bus. 

The CPS bus. Metaphorically, of course. Which was Eddie’s bus. The bus he’s been anxiously waiting for for about half his life, to be eventually picked up for the wonderful voyage through the American childcare system! Past amazing sightseeing spots such as: back to his father, before CPS realized he wasn’t even there to begin with, to a foster home while they searched for his grandparents only to find they don’t want anything to do with their grandson, maybe if he’s lucky even a stop at a foster family that would abuse him with pleasure, before they would once again get lucky, come upon his father at his place for once, give him some kind of CPS requirements that Munson senior would yeah-yeah at, and dump Eddie back with him.

So, yeah, maybe Eddie does regret that one a little bit. Because Wayne’s chances of getting custody of him were low before this, living in a trailer barely able to sustain himself alone and all of that, but now that CPS sniffed them out and Eddie ran away, like that isn’t by far the worst decision he could’ve made in that situation, the chances are basically in the negatives. We don’t need to kid ourselves here.

–The point is, that he doesn’t regret any of this as much, not even close to as much, as running when his stamina has about the same volume as his patience for reading Moby Dick.

No, because, hear him out, you see, there was never something Eddie Munson was ever really good at. Especially not sports. Ditching Phys Ed starts young in the life of a loser – early practice only makes the master, or something like that. Which does not translate for physical activities, in his case. Only the lack thereof. He was kind of getting the hang of playing the guitar for a hot second there in middle school, big thanks to Ms. Mae for that, but oh well. Wouldn’t have been enough to get into band or anything, anyway. So the statement still stands, he’s never really been good at anything.

Which is masterfully showcased by the way he’s tasting sweet, sweet blood in his mouth and in his lungs from exertion while he’s still making a fucking run for it. He’s not even close to the scrapyard yet by a long shot. At this point he’s seriously considering just turning around and turning himself in, because Jesus– how do people like Steve Harrington do this for fun—

But then, he spies it. The rhetorical north star in the sky, the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a van parked at the side of the road he’s seeing from his track star worthy path through the trees a few hundred yards away, and he does not care how much deeper he’s digging his own grave at this point, there’s no turning back either way. Sorry Wayne, love you, but this bad boy is going to make good use of his old man teaching him how to hotwire a car so early on in his life that he can probably do it as mindlessly as riding a bike. 

What’s one more crime in the grand scheme of things, anyway – between legally being a trailer park teen kidnapped by his equal measures trailer park uncle, and selling anything and everything under the umbrella term of drugs out of his goddamn lunchbox at school. Jesus fucking Christ.

Fuck it. Fuck Hawkins, fuck CPS, fuck the police, fuck Chief Hopper and Mrs. Click and Ms. O’Donnel and every other adult that ever made his life even the slightest bit harder than it needed to be. Fuck the jocks and the cheers and the preps, fuck Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins and Nancy Wheeler and Steve Harrington—

Fuck it. Fuck it all to hell and back. There’s nothing left for him here to come back home to.

He’s always wanted to see what the big fuss about Chicago was, anyway.

That was a lie. He couldn’t give less of a shit about Chicago and its fusses.

First of all, there aren’t any fusses. In his humble opinion, there is more fun stuff going on on a Hawkins saturday than there is in a whole Chicago week. At least in Hawkins, he had his connections, he knew where to go to sell, he had a row of regulars and people he knew to hit up if he wanted to make some more money. There are at least two parties to choose between, at any time. Plus, you can actually get around Hawkins without problems.

Chicago is a shithole in comparison. Which is not a sentiment Eddie thought he would ever stand behind with his whole chest.

It’s hard to find footing there. Between scoping out the city for hours on end (because it’s just way too fucking big and he needs to find places to deal and maybe make new connections at), actually finding those places and dealing and making new connections, and staying out of the way of the law that is not as lenient around here as the Chief – which is also a sentiment Eddie never thought he’d have. He misses the Chief and his absolute careless way of doing his job. Who would’ve thought? – between all of that, he barely makes enough money to get through a day. 

It really lowers morale when you have to decide whether you’re spending your pennies on food, hygiene or shelter. There’s only ever one out of three.

Not to mention that his lunchbox stash is very quickly going on depleted and so far he hasn’t even caught one inkling of a connection somewhere. He’s got the feeling that the locals are quite good at clocking him as an outsider and not very fond of that, either. Plus, he’s still a seventeen year old dealer, who probably looks and smells like shit every other day. He wouldn’t tell himself jackshit either, if he were someone else.

He does catch wind of some kind of house party on the weekend while he’s loitering around some rundown, dull looking high school. Which, in his mind, is always a good place for opportunities. Drunk high schoolers are the easiest to overprice. He might be using up the last of his lunchbox leftovers there, but at least he might finally make enough money to get through a few days unperturbed.

Anything’s better than laundromat bathrooms at this point.

Nobody at the party knew him when he set up shop in the basement, but nobody really seemed to care, anyway. Which is just what he’d hoped for. He sold, got away with unbelievably bold overpricing, and even got ahold of a whole bunch of household items he can use for himself. This is some rich people’s home, they can live without a few towels, spare clothes and pantry perishables. Let him have something good once in his life.

Plus, booze.

Maybe getting shitfaced shouldn’t be top of his list after the atrocious time he’s had the last two weeks in his new hometown, but oh well, maybe that’s exactly why it’s top of his list.

So after doing a frankly wonderful job of making money, all things considered, he indulges. Goes through the quickest ways he knows of how to get piss drunk and aces them better than any school tests, ever.

Might also be due to drinking on an empty stomach, but who’s he to judge, he’s no doctor. What he is, in fact, is a homeless kid in Chicago who just sold every last drug he’s had on hand, and is starting a kleptomanic streak by swiping fucking decorative towels. Cut him some slack, man.

He at least tries balancing out the alcohol with some snacks at the makeshift bar— but only after the world starts going a little loose on its axis. Sue him.

He doesn’t know what it is about being drunk and the urge to walk literally everywhere, but he’s no exception to the rule. He thinks it might be the thrill of it, or just the body’s natural reflex to walk off the toxins.

Whatever it is, he still hasn’t found a definitive conclusion when he’s looking at his wristwatch and realizes he’s been walking around a town he doesn’t know nearly well enough yet for at least an hour. Maybe even longer than that. He hasn’t really paid attention to the time when he went on his merry way, but the time span feels like at least an hour in his head. Maybe even two.

Oh well. Time to focus on finding somewhere to crash until it gets light outside and he gets thrown out or shooed away.

He mentally rearranges himself where he stands, looks around for any pointer of where best to go, and finds himself in probably the face scrunchiest, hackles raisiest part of town he could’ve ended up in. It’s dark and there’s cold colors everywhere, metal skeletons of buildings and construction sites dripping night dew and what he can only assume to be rainwater in the best case, sewer slush in the worst.

All in all, it’s really not where he wants to be, but at least it has a vibe. Freaky. Reminds him of yours truly.

 So, shrugging, he wanders it.

Honestly, he doesn’t really feel guilty when he stumbles into some kind of abandoned warehouse situation with fire barrels and makeshift cloth drapings everywhere to make it seem more homey, and his first thought is junkie den.

Because, what the fuck else would it be? Eddie fucking knows his shit. He’s a dealer, goddamnit. Rule number one, don’t sell to kids, rule number two, don’t sell to addicts.

So, color him surprised when, after he surveyed the immediate area and decided nuh-uh, he’s not gonna get involved with that shit, he’s greeted with a very pretty knife and a not so very pretty punk straight to his drunken face as he turns around.

He would like to say he was man enough to not startle, but he isn’t above being honest to himself and admitting that he did, in fact, startle. Like a spooked horse. Hands flying against his heart and all, maybe even an unmanly yelp. Can neither confirm nor deny.

He still doesn’t really feel guilty, after the initial scare passes. About the junkie den thought, that is. Punks are usually not junkies in his experience, but there’s a first time for everything, right? Especially in a shithole like Chicago. And that guy? Manic energy at its best. Takes one to know one, baby.

“You have about ten seconds to plead your case on why I shouldn’t off you right here,” punk friend pointedly waves the blade from left to right once, “right now,” twice. Then, there’s a metallic crash from somewhere a little higher above them, and Eddie can barely look up quick enough to see a girl with a bird’s nest of hair bend herself backwards away from the railing she just bulldozed into to gawk at the situation, guffawing screechily, “It’s discount Kirk Hammett!”

Eddie unfurls his scaredy fists from against his chest and instead presses his palms into it, putting on a choked up face. “First of all, that is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, thank you–“ He turns his gaze back down to punk friend, pointing both index fingers at the blade still in his face, then at the ground between them, swirling them around a little for theatrical flair. “Second of all, the stains would be a bitch to get out of your pristine, wet warehouse concrete, and I’d really like to spare you that specific deep cleaning. Cuz’ I’m nice like that. No other reason.”

Eddie is bluffing straight out of his fucking ass right that instant. About two seconds away from falling to his knees, ready to beg for his life. He might’ve just signed his own death sentence with that, he seriously considers converting to Christianity for a hot moment as he sees punk friend’s eyes narrow because Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please spare my stupid ass life, it’s real embarrassing to die two weeks after running from one shithole town to another, at the hands of a manic punk with a cute ass switchblade no less—

But then the knife falls away, and a crooked grin plasters itself onto punk guy’s face before he snorts, rolling his eyes hard as bird’s nest girl screams with manic laughter, folding herself back over the railing to stare wide-eyed at them.

“I like him, are we keeping him?”

Punk friend twirls the knife next to his hip, a hundred times more harmless position than before, and huffs something unimpressed, if it weren’t for the upside down smile on his face betraying his mask of indifference.

“Well, he for sure lacks enough self-preservation instincts to fit right in. Let’s see what the boss says.”

With relief flooding him, Eddie doesn’t bother hiding the nerves now. He pulls his hands down his face, pushes them into his hair, and then laugh-sobs loudly, self-pitying and hysterical.

“You have a fucking boss, are you shitting me?”

Eddie honestly has no fucking clue why Kali decides to make him part of their ragtag group of criminals.

He’s got literally and figuratively nothing to offer them. He screeches like a little school girl whenever Kali makes him see a life-size gummy bear walk around the corner. It gets him every time. He manages to fumble with Axel’s knives and nicks himself without fail whenever they try playing with them. He cries eyeliner the second Dottie puts it even anywhere close to his eyes.

He’s a walking menace to the group’s integrity.

But they know people. People with connections. And apparently having a dealer amongst them is enough for a group of mentally predisposed young adults to keep him around. Since, y’know, five sixths of their team are wanted criminals. And Eddie is right back in his element as soon as he’s got someone he can buy from. Feels right back at home and slips into the business as if he never left.

So while the A-Team goes bonkers around surrounding states, hunting down former Hawkins Lab workers, Eddie’s on his merry way to ensure they’ve got money, food and supplies at the ready for whenever they come back, as well as enough of every individually preferred drug, of course. He would be a very bad friend to not provide when he’s got ample provisions, wouldn’t he?

Oh, yeah– and the whole Hawkins Lab thing, right. Kali’s mind powers, etcetera, etcetera. He kinda glossed over that just now, didn’t he?

He’s not going to deny the fact that he did kind of very much have a meltdown about it when they explained it to him, what they do and why they do it. And then another one when Kali demonstrated. And then at least a handful more after the reality sank in that that’s his hometown they’re talking about and what the fuck, that is so fucked up, what else might be going on in Hawkins right in this moment?

But after that, he was good. Mostly. Pretending everything’s good always works out for him. More or less.

There is. A child.

There’s a child. In the middle of their lovingly dubbed wet warehouse entrance hall.

It’s weird that the child got here to begin with. In the last few months Eddie’s spent with Kali and the others, they’ve had to become a lot more vigilant about their whereabouts, since they, y’know, were headhunting former government scientists and shit. So, getting into the warehouse isn’t as easy anymore as it was when Eddie drunkenly stumbled into there by complete accident. Mick’s very good security by now.

So, in conclusion, how in the fresh hell did a child just walk in willy-nilly.

“Well, well,” Axel drawls, getting up from his seat next to Eddie and walking around their favorite fire barrel to come stand in front of the intruder, apparently more amused by the situation than concerned, “What do we have here?”

Dottie on his other side knocks into his side with a delighted cackle, always the first one to jump on the opportunity, “What are those, overalls? There aren’t any cows here to milk, kid. Go on back to your farm.”

Eddie kind of forgets to lick the paper he just lifted to his mouth to seal Axel’s frankly disgusting favorite spliff, mixed with Pall Mall Blue out of all things. It’s his number one reason why Eddie identifies as metal and not punk. His personal vendetta against one; people that prefer mixing their weed, two; people that prefer smoking loose tobacco, and three; people that prefer Pall Mall. Especially the blue one. 

He’s not above rolling them for Axel anyway, because he’s nice like that, and he maybe admittedly has found himself very fond of that manic weirdo. Two birds of a feather and so on. And perhaps it also has a little something to do with the way Axel has absolutely no aptitude for rolling his own spliffs – for someone who prefers hand rolling he’s surprisingly terrible at it. Eddie just physically cannot handle watching him roll anything.

“How did you get in here, huh?”

Speaking of watching him. Guy’s got a serious problem with putting cute knives to cute people’s faces. First Eddie, now that kid. (Might be a girl. Eddie’s not about to assume. Curly hair‘s amazing, though. Fit is very grunge leaning, even if his idiot friends are making fun of it. Reminds him a little of Jonathan Byers.) He’s really not helping his case to get an answer out of the kid by doing that.

“Axe, dude–“

Eddie realizes his tongue has gone all cottony from hanging out of his mouth where he was too flabbergasted to lick the paper, so he grimaces, and makes a loud slurping noise as he sucks it back into his mouth, trying to get spit to pool.

The knife to the kid’s face wavers, Axel turning halfway to him with an equally comical grimace. “Ed, what the fuck are you— are you gonna spit at me–“

“Ew, man, no, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, what’s wrong with you?”

“A lot of things, let’s be real– but,” Eddie does a double take then, letting his pretend offense fall away for a delightful epiphany, “you not a fan of  spitting, Axe? Like, huh? What typa punk even are you?”

The knife falls away completely then, and Eddie doesn’t even know why he cares so much about distracting Axel, he was in the same situation as that girl (Eddie’s looked at them enough by now, he’s like eighty percent sure it’s a girl) and Axel is nothing if all bark no bite outside of murdering people for a hobby, so he wasn’t ever really concerned for her in the first place. Axel takes the whole avoid deep cleaning concrete because of bloodstains thing very seriously.

“Edward. Edmund. Edwin,” Dottie interrupts before Axel can get going, and Eddie’s honestly mad impressed at how long she’s held back her haunting, howling demon screech of a laugh in the face of this scene. So impressed, in fact, that he forgets to be appalled about the usage of full names. “Let’s not embarrass ourselves in front of a literal child, here. Axel’s right. Did you get lost, overalls? Need help getting back to your farm, milking cows?”

With that, they all turn back to the kid in unison– even Mick and Funshine, who’ve been tracking the team’s banter with skeptical eyes and frowning mouths while also subtly keeping check on the newcomer.

The girl looks. Awkward. That’s the only way Eddie can really describe it.

She looks like she’s waiting at the post office to pick up her parcel after the mailman put a note in her mailbox saying he didn’t find her address. A little annoyed, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed, but also anxiously tense, all limbs extended, arms limp next to her body, posture simultaneously slouched and straight as a rod.

Her outfit makes up for the awkwardness, though. You really gotta give her that.

He tilts his head at her, opens his eyes wider at her. He starts waving his arms in her direction in a go on motion, but loose tobacco flies across the back of his hands and in between his fingers at the first aborted movement, so instead he curses explosively about the stupid way he really did not finish rolling this disgusting ass spliff, and starts salvaging.

“You heard Dottie,” he lisps with the tip of his tongue gliding against the paper’s sticky edge, “What’s it gonna be, miss ma’am? What has driven you into our very humble abode at this fine hour of nine thirty-seven? Please, do tell.”

“I’m,” mailman trauma starts, she speaks for the first time, and holy shit, Eddie might have fallen in love with the kid at first sound – only metaphorically and completely platonically of course, dude’s like four years younger than him at the least – because her voice is like a fucking hummingbird in vocal cord form. It’s just the softest, most adorable fucking thing. It’s almost like a paradox, like the slouched and straight thing, how her voice sounds so diffident and determined at the same time. “I’m looking for— my sister.”

“Aw, Shirley Temple lost her sister. How sad,” Axel comments with a snort, twirling his blade in his hand but luckily for him not putting it back up to the kid’s face. Eddie would’ve been genuinely mad at him, otherwise. “What makes you think you’ll find her here?”

“I saw her. Here.”

She shoves one of her hands into her bag, probably to retrieve something, which promptly makes Funshine threaten her to keep her hands where they can see. And seriously, is Eddie the only one here not scared of a middle schooler? These people are more concerned about her than they were about him back in the day. That’s kind of outrageous.

Axel grabs the scrap paper Jane slowly pulls out of the bag together with her hand. As soon as he sees what’s on it, his face goes steely again, the knife goes back up, and fucking hell, really, Eddie’s not in the mood for this anymore. Before Axel can really start on whatever threatening speech he’s about to give, Eddie’s up and next to him, hand closing around his wrist firmly, surprising even himself. 

“Axel, I swear to fucking god, get the knife away from her. She’s just a kid.”

Axel turns to him then, wide eyed and seething, and he would’ve probably gone off on him instead of Jane if not for Kali throwing him for a loop by making him see his ever despised spiders. How does Eddie know that, you ask? Well, because Kali also makes Eddie see a six foot tall Koolaid Man looking motherfucker round on him from behind Axel’s shoulder at about the same time, and the both of them eek like choir boys trying to hit the high notes as they cling to each other in fright, spliff and knife flying out of their hands respectively.

“You’re both terrible dancers.”

Kali comes out of wherever the fuck she was watching the whole scene unfold from, and takes on their their newest basket case as if she seriously needs to be convinced to not send her away. Which is just laughably untrue. If Eddie’s sure of one thing and one thing only, is that there will always be a hundred percent chance that they’re adopting any and all strays coming their way. So far Kali is, like, on a five outta five streak. No way she’s making it five outta six now.

Especially not when Jane takes hold of Axel’s knife. With her mind. Just swoops it off the ground, no muscles moved.

There’s also a tattoo on her wrist that reads 011, mirroring Kali’s 008.

Well, that explains the mind swoopy powers, at least.

“So, uh,” Eddie drawls as he pulls one of their ratty mattresses they somehow just keep accumulating over time into what soon will be Jane’s new room with them, and groans and sighs dramatically every step of the way. “Where you, hah, where you from, overalls? Dottie right about farms and cows?”

The mattress is a bitch to get through the narrow door of that upstairs room, and Eddie does not bother pulling that stupid ass thing any further after he had to pull it up into vertical and squeeze it through. He crumples onto it and turns onto his back, stretching all four limbs away from himself with a pained groan. Jane is standing in the metal doorway, same mailman trauma stance as before, watching him with a blank, but somehow confused stare. Eddie is thrilled to know what kind of words are gonna come out of her.

“Hawkins.”

Eddie badly suppresses a snort, pulling up his eyebrows at her, nodding wistfully. This is gonna be so much fun.

“No, yeah, yeah, I gathered that much. Hawkins lab and all that jazz. Home sweet home, greetings from the family, and so on.”

Jane mirrors him, then, and Eddie kind of forgets his train of thought for a second as he watches her expression shift. He doesn’t know what it is about the kid, but everything she does looks like she’s doing it for the first time, and Jesus, it might be! And every time he sees her experience something like it’s the first time, it’s like he does, too. As she pulls up her eyebrows tentatively, like she’s testing out how it feels together with a small suppressed smile, Eddie realizes he’s never felt his eyebrows on his face like that, until she has.

He shakes his head a little, putting one hand behind his head to play with his hair and one into the air to gesticulate.

“But, like, I meant, aside from that. Like– like how Kali knows she’s from England? Before she got to the lab?” He gives her a second to answer, but nothing comes. He huffs, throwing his arm on the mattress above him, blinking slowly at her. “No? Nothing? Right, should’ve guessed. Of course.”

“I don’t,” Jane starts, hesitates, like she’s not used to getting to explain herself, her inner reflections, her story. Like she’s only used to yes or no questions, this or that. Eddie might know a thing or two about that. “I only– know the lab. Papa.” 

Her face tightens, then. Frowning, like she’s upset. Whispering, no, hissing almost. “He took me, early. Away from Mama. He hurt her. They hurt her. But I found her. I found Mama. She led me here.”

Eddie stares her down a little. He doesn’t mean to, but that’s— That’s some heavy shit, man. He barely got over Kali’s sob story back then. It’s not easier the second time around, especially not with a thirteen year old telling the sequel, with a time jump to years later. Hawkins Lab 2: We’re still taking kids, but now we’re torturing their mothers, too! Congratulations.

Jane doesn’t seem to realize the depth of her words. She seems more concerned about Eddie’s silence, and whatever expression he’s wearing in reaction. Eddie doesn’t know, frankly. He’s more focused on getting his brain back online.

“Shit, that’s– That’s, yeah. That makes sense. Right, cool. Right, right, right.”

Embarrassing. He blows a panicked raspberry, laughing a little.

“You?”

Eddie doesn’t really expect a counter question. Not from miss only speak when spoken to ma’am. So, in conclusion, his most eloquent answer is, “Huh?”

“You. Where are you from?”

Jane falls towards him then, not an ounce of forewarning in her face or body language or voice, and for a good two seconds while she tips over and lands on the mattress next to him, he’s convinced she just spontaneously blacked out. He lets out a very pained, tortured whine as he rubs his forehead in exasperation, while she turns onto her side to giggle at him. 

She’s the absolute worst. Unpredictable as all hell, even in her steadfast essence. Especially in her steadfast essence.

Jesus Christ, he loves her already.

“Funny that you ask, actually,” he recovers quickly, settling back into theatrics like second skin. When in doubt, storytell it out. Jane eats it up. “Hawkins native just like you, baby, born and raised. You’re not the only kid from there that had a shitty childhood and a knack for running away to Chicago. Got you beat there, little dude. Though, I probably can’t measure up to being raised in a government lab. Or having superpowers. I’ll leave those to you.”

Jane smiles at him, arms snaked around her own shoulders where she’s lying on the mattress next to him, hanging onto his every word. When he turns his face into the mattress as well, to look right back at her with big eyes, her eyes crinkle.

“That’s fine. You’d be OP with superpowers, Eddie.”

A lot of things happen within Eddie, then. Too many to contain on the floor, lying around. The mattress is too soft to withstand the swell of manic glee he experiences, so he jumps up, and keeps on jumping. Fists punching the air and fingers pointing at Jane in erratic turns. He practically giggles out his screams.

“That’s! That’s— not a normie way to talk, Jean Grey! That’s very much nerd talk!” He laughs again, doing a little over-the-top twirl that has Jane in stitches. He stops and points at her again, both arms completely extended between them. “You, Miss Jane, are a nerd! You’re a nerd! You know Dungeons and Dragons terms!”

He dives back onto the mattress then, bending over on his knees to get almost nose to nose with her, whispering at her tightly closed eyes and into her grin-open mouth.

“Who taught you our secrets?”

She giggles herself out, then, and her carefree, gleeful expression ebbs away to make way for a little more somber look. Ah, man. Of course it was too good to be true. There’s some baggage coming with the nerdy teen girl trait.

Eddie falls back onto his side as he patiently listens to Jane telling him about last year, her first real year in Hawkins, and Mike. And, yeah, Eddie already put together that a lot of the shit that happened before Christmas last year had to be connected to that Hawkins Lab shit after talking about it with Kali a bunch of times, but hearing the actual story from the girl directly involved is a whole other can of worms.

Her story doesn’t focus on the actual bad shit happening though. It’s focused on her friends, how they met and who they are and how she likes them. She talks about how Mike has always been on her side, how Lucas has always been a little skeptical of her, but always for good reasons, and came around to her when it was most important. She talks about Dustin and his excellent tactical genius, and of course Will, who they all came together to save from the Demogorgon in the Upside Down in the first place.

Eddie cannot physically contain the wiggles, kicks and screams he gets when the D&D terms fall from Jane’s lips like they’re the most usual words to say. Like hello, how are you? and I’m fine, how about you? because talking about made up monsters from a role playing game is apparently day-to-day life nowadays.

This group of kids he’s only met one member of so far are such nerds. They are so getting into the Hellfire Club when Eddie’s back in—

If. If he ever gets back to Hawkins. Which is unlikely.

“That’s all very nice and wholesome and shit,” Eddie eventually settles on, after he’s got all this hysteric energy out and Jane is done giggling and mirroring him, “but why call it a Demogorgon? Who chose that thing out of all things?”

Jane shrugs at that, “We all did. We decided together. The— Those figures they use. For playing. The Demogorgon one was right there.”

Eddie hasn’t been this happy in a long time.

He guesses it makes sense, though. It doesn’t matter in the end what they called the monster, right? It’s dead now, either way.

Or, it should be. He doesn’t know if he believes Jane’s eyes about that.

The little bitch floats the mattress the rest of the way into the room and onto the bed like it’s nothing, like she couldn’t have done it from the beginning. Eddie retracts everything nice he’s ever thought about Jane. The girl can go die in a ditch for all he cares.

That was a lie. Because of course it is.

And Kali pulls Jane into their shit. Because of course she does.

She comes to them after bringing the last sleepover supplies to Jane, the scrap paper with the old picture of her in hand, and after they’re all done singing Old Macdonald, she slaps it onto the table between them, crumpled bills fluttering around. Eddie, Dottie and Fun grumpily halt their game of poker in the face of the interruption (Dottie was winning but Eddie had her!), Axel stops throwing knives for fun. Even Mick comes down from their vantage point.

Jane apparently had found them with only the picture and her mind powers. Which means she can find people without moving. Making her a human radar detector, as Axel so eloquently puts it, when Kali explains. Most of them call bullshit, which Eddie doesn’t get because have you seen what that kid does, but it makes Kali retaliate with the easiest solution to find out if it’s true: Find a victim with her help, and do the stunt. 

Eddie is not amused about that.

His opinion doesn’t really matter considering he doesn’t join the stunts, but the others are not amused, either. And they’re right in their concerns, their last stunt hasn’t been that long ago, government’s probably still hounding their traces, and it’s risky to, one, do it again already, and two, do it while relying on the help of a thirteen year old newcomer. But Kali is not budging. So Axel goes back to throwing knives for fun, Dottie, Fun and Eddie go back to their round of poker, and Mick goes back to their vantage point, all of them doing their things a little more aggressively than before.

Dottie wins. Eddie swears he’s had her before, but his pokerface is kinda fucked now that he’s gotta worry about a child.

It’s one thing to adopt a seventeen year old former foster kid turned drug dealer turned runaway criminal for his haggling and hand rolling skills, and it’s another to make a tween girl who’s experiencing her first ever heartbreak join in on literally hunting down and slaughtering federal lab workers.

Jane still agrees.

Eddie doesn’t know what to think about that yet, but you do you, he guesses.

And as much as his neck hairs are standing up at the prospect of Jane doing what he’s been too chicken shit to be doing for the past several months, it is still very cool to see her move an old train car with her brain powers alone, as they follow Kali and Jane outside to the old freight yard. 

Eddie can really do nothing else but admit he is absolutely all over the place in awe or shock or whatever you wanna call having your whole world view rocked once again, and promise to hell and back that he will always do anything humanly possible to stay on this girl’s good side.

He wouldn’t even argue if anyone claimed that that girl was God herself. Yup, checks out.

On their way back to the warehouse, after Mick and Dottie are done cheering and after Kali helped the poor girl up from the ground, Jane keeps bumping into him and wiping her nose where it doesn’t stop dripping blood every few steps. The sleeve of her flannel is already stained with rust colored crusts. It’s as disgusting as it is absolutely metal. At the next bump, Eddie snakes his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side, humming questioningly. She goes easily, tangibly soft from exhaustion and exertion, and hums back something barely audible, something quite hummingbird.

Oh, what Eddie wouldn’t have done in that moment to be a jock, a football player or something, someone that could just pick her up and carry her back to bed like she deserves. Fun could’ve done it, he’s infatuated enough with Jane to boot, but he’s too polite to just do that. He would bite off his own tongue before manhandling a little girl without prior consent.

Steve Harrington would’ve. Not—not the manhandling without prior consent thing, Eddie’s sure. Just the – he would’ve stopped her, got onto his knees in front of her, looking over his shoulder with his back to her, and said something along the lines of ‘C’mon, get up on there, move it. I’m not gonna be responsible for you passing out on us. C’mon, let’s go.’

And isn’t that just a thought that helps literally nothing and no one except Eddie and his stupid ass embarrassing middle school crush he’s still not over even after months and miles away from Hawkins High. At this rate Steve Harrington will haunt him forever, which is not a thing Eddie is looking forward to.

So, he does the next best thing he knows how to do. Pretend it’s not there, everything’s fine, and talk himself into distraction.

“That was so metal what you did back there. Do you just do that on the regular, overalls? Wake up, drink your OJ, eat your Eggos and do your morning freight train float? See, because if you do, I will hire you as my bodyguard on the spot. Try me. I won’t go anywhere without you from now on.”

Jane sighs a sweet little giggle into the side of his chest, and Eddie’s arm around her tightens automatically. How in the ever loving fuck is this the girl that told them ‘I’m a fighter. I’ve killed.’ just, like, half an hour ago?

This girl has killed before. The worst Eddie’s done at thirteen was running from foster care and hitchhiking across cities back to Hawkins, occasionally hotwiring a car if no one was going his way. Which is basically what he’s still doing at seventeen, if you will.

Jane turns her face up to him, wiping away a last stray drop of blood. “How did you know I like Eggos?”

Eddie has never really had any interest in seeing the research room. He tries staying as far away from that as possible, usually. Gives him the ick. It’s like the dirty little secret room a serial killer has for his future victims, or a stalker for his favorite person. Which is not that far off from the truth, if we’re being honest, which— case in point. He’s got ample reason to get the ick from that thing.

Something prevents him from staying the fuck out of it like usual when it’s Jane stepping in.

It’s that same something that makes him stick with them, makes him listen as Jane picks up a picture of Ray Carrol and they talk about how he hurt not only Mama but Kali as well, makes him watch as Jane blindfolds herself, searching for that man in her mind with his photo in hand, and subsequently rips the paper when she’s found him. That same something, as he takes this battered telephone book they have lying around and looks up what info Jane relays them.

“Gramercy Apartments, Washington and Bethel. Sounds like the place, right?”

Kali snatches the phone book from him, rereads. “Lilburn. Where’s that?”

It’s about an hour east from them. A higher middle class part of Chicago. Eddie knows because he deals there sometimes. It’s a little like the neighborhood around Loch Nora in Hawkins where Steve Harrington and Tommy Hagan and all the other rich kids live. You get judged if you set foot there during daylight hours, but as soon as sundown comes, they’re like moths where you’re the lamp. The lamp with drugs.

Either way, it’s a risky thing. To plan another stunt right now. They don’t even have a new ride yet, Mick’s right about that. Sure, they can just switch plates, but usually they’d wait out the tide and then have Eddie hotwire some old rusty junkyard type after he’s done selling in the more musty parts of the city.

There’s still his original van from Hawkins safely parked at the outskirts of Chicago, but no way in hell is Eddie just going to give that baby up freely if he can avoid it. He is not risking getting that one smashed up for nothing.

So, they settle for switching plates. They all fold when Kali asks them if they wanna give Jane a memorable first day or not, first Funshine, because of course he folds first for his Miss Jane, can’t blame the guy, and Dottie and Axel are always down for the fun anyway. Basically peer pressured, Mick throws up their arms as well, “Screw it!”

And then– all eyes land on Eddie.

Which is a first. In a few months.

Oh, hohohoho, hell no. There is no way in hell they’re trying to convince him to come along again. They’re trying to use this special occasion, this special girl against him. And that’s an especially low blow, because, Jesus Christ, if he’s not careful they’re going to succeed.

He recoils visibly, theatrically, arms folded to his chest, kind of scared about what’s going to happen and trying his best to steel his resolve in anticipation. His eyes hurt a little from

how big he rips them open. He is purposely avoiding eye contact with Jane.

“What’re you looking at me for? I feel way too seen. Makes me think of all my past mistakes.”

And then Jane does the absolute worst that she could’ve done. She says something before anyone else does. “Yeah. What are we looking at you for? Are you not coming with us?”

Oof. Ouch. Right in the heart strings. No one has ever prepared him to crush a kid’s hopes and dreams like that. How is he supposed to do something like that?

That little something from earlier pipes up again.

“Nnnnno,” Eddie ends up squeaking out after a way too long awkward pause where everyone left him grilling in his own misery, completely mercilessly. “I. Am not. I. Never am. I am just here for entertainment and recreational purposes. Maybe a little for money and supplies. I am basically a glorified housewife.”

He feels so bad. Like it’s his fault or something that he doesn’t want to be a murder accomplice. Like it isn’t enough to deal drugs and shoplift and steal cars. Having boundaries is healthy and normal, alright? There’s nothing wrong with reinforcing them.

Why does he still feel like he’s letting Jane down, then?

“Oh. Okay.”

Eddie groans. Then screams. The groan goes over into the scream, actually. He punches the air, brings his fists down onto an imaginary table. He’s so upset he has to throw himself into a speed round of musical chairs without music or chairs to counteract the restless energy. Everyone’s watching him with varying grades of entertainment and or worry.

What in the ever loving shit fuck.

Jesus Christ. Alright.

“Fucking hell, Jesus, kid. I swear to— Don’t look so— don’t. You’re making me feel like I kicked a puppy. I’m a lot of things but not a puppy kicker.”

Jane tilts her head at him, that confused post office aura back on her everything. She’s not even saying anything or doing anything, she’s virtually blank like she so often is. How in the hell is Eddie’s superpower to be able to interpret any and all things that are not – that are not.

Eventually, Kali snorts. “It’s fine if you wanna stay behind. We’ll try our best to protect Jane on your behalf. No promises, though.”

Eddie feels like crying.

“Goddamnit, fucking— Fine! Fine. I’m game.”

The agony of a potentially life altering decision might have been worth it for what they do to Jane afterwards. There’s really no other way to describe it than as a makeover.

It’s a little funny, because it reminds Eddie of a similar thing they tried doing to him when he first joined. Except he already was a metalhead and only in dire need of a new battle jacket after he had to leave behind his old one on the run from social services. Axel tried converting him, but there is no way in heaven, hell or on earth that Eddie is gonna let that nutcase touch his hair. He’s still growing it out from middle school. He’s emotionally attached to his mile stone of shoulder long hair and has no intention of cutting it any time soon.

Dottie is pulling out the eyeshadow and eyeliner again, but unlike Eddie Jane can get stuff put around her eyes just fine. Which does not make him jealous or anything. That’s fine. He’s happy for her.

Together with the combed and gelled back hair that makes Eddie weep in memory of Jane’s curls, and his own veto at Kali’s choice of clothes, they’ve got a badass looking thirteen year old on their hands. Now she’s not only grunge leaning, now she’s grunge grunge. Dottie’s old boots, Eddie’s old ripped jeans, Mick’s too small leather bomber jacket, Axel’s retired battle vest. This kid is, as they like to say–

“Bitchin’,” Dottie says at the same time as Eddie, just a lot less infatuated than him. That’s okay though, he’s got enough adoration for the two of them in his lanky, sister-less body.

Jane looks between the two of them, nodding her head once.

“Bitchin’.”

They get the van ready. And that’s weird, because they had it under a tarp nestled between warehouse walls, waiting and ready for the next time Eddie would wanna make a detour to buttfuck nowhere to abandon it and do the old switcheroo with something else usable.

It’s kind of nostalgic seeing it get another round in.

They’ve had this one for longer than usual. Mostly because no one’s ever seen them use it before the last stunt and they’ve gotten away with it a bunch of times. Certainly not because of its sexy looks. That thing is, like, gremlin level ugly. But it’s gotten Eddie around town to sell many times, so he’s a little attached maybe. Let him live.

Their first stop is a gas station. They obviously didn’t have time to get gas last time they were on the run with this thing, but that’s not the only reason they stop there. The atmosphere is loaded with manic, hysterical energy after the rest of the team had the honours of not only choosing Jane’s stunt disguise but also Eddie’s. Fittingly, Jane got a baby mask, and Eddie for some reason got Michael Myers. Dottie is not able to shut up about how excited she is that he’s finally joining them. It makes him think about just getting out and walking back multiple times.

Kali says they’re stocking up, which is just a badly concealed excuse to go wreak some well meant havoc before the big deal.

They filter into the top-to-bottom wooden gas station, and Kali makes the owner hallucinate a clogged toilet so bad he tiptoes around three feet from the door already. Damn, poor man.

“Okay, contestants,” Axel rounds back to the middle of the store with flair, looking between him and Jane with open arms and the biggest shit eating grin, “you have a minute and a half, let’s begin your supermarket sweep!”

This, Eddie knows. There has been many a times deep into the night when the munchies and the urge to commit a felony has overcome the majority of their little circle and down they went to the nearest chain store to do exactly this. While Dottie goes accessory shopping, Axel and Fun go for the important things in life; money and beer. Jane goes to the coolers, seeming a little lost, but it’s her first time, whatever. Dottie isn’t being useful during these, ever, so who cares. Eddie meanwhile goes for the back corner past the bathroom for snacks, and then joins Axel behind the counter to snag enough cigs to last him the next few weeks.

The owner comes back from the obviously not clogged bathroom and pulls a gun on them. For a second Eddie gets scared, not for him or any of their crew, because let’s be real, they get weapons drawn on them often enough. This is not their first rodeo, and neither is the little speech Kali rattles off, so Eddie can barely hold back the eye roll he wants to give in response. He decides against it, in the face of a gun. Just in case.

No, see, he’s just scared for Jane. Because he can’t see her, the clerk dude is smack dab in the middle of his field of vision, and he looks nervous enough to accidentally pull the trigger with the smallest twitch of his pointer finger. Jane could be anywhere. She could be right next to the gun for all he sees.

Which, apparently, she is. Until she isn’t anymore. Because she Jean Greys their way out of shooting range by punting the guy into the wall of his gas station full of styrofoam coolers, where he stays lying, unconscious.

There’s a second of silence. 

“Damn, supergirl.” Axel says.

Then they hear faraway sirens. Guess that’s their sign for takeoff.

As Funshine ushers them all out of the door and into the van like the concerned big brother that he is, the rest of them can do nothing but laugh.

Lo and behold, the stunt goes completely off the rails.

It’s not what Eddie had hoped for, in case he ever joined in on them. He never actively planned to but he’s also not completely delusional – sooner or later it would’ve happened.

It starts out fine, with Jane leading them to Carrol without a hitch and them breaking and entering without a hitch thanks to her telekinesis. Kali and Jane corner the guy in the living room watching TV and Axel, Dottie and Eddie go off scavenging while Fun stands guard. The three of them get as far as the master bedroom and a bathroom before they open a kids’ bedroom—

With kids in it. As a kids’ bedroom usually is.

Bad news, they’re calling the police like good kids.

“Aw, shit,” Axel and Eddie complain simultaneously.

They rush back down, where they find the super sisters standing over a bloody Carrol, and Eddie has no idea what’s happened in the five minutes since they’ve been upstairs, but Jane looks distraught. Kali looks mad. As they relay the information about the kids being upstairs, Jane hesitates even more, even with Kali talking at her almost manically.

Eddie’s kind of relieved that Jane isn’t going to be the one doing it.

“We gotta go, K. Cops are coming.” Axel is already turning to the door, Dottie hot on his heels. Kali insists they’ve gotta finish the job, which is just what Eddie expected of her.

He sure as fuck doesn’t wanna witness it, though. There’s a good fucking reason he doesn’t want to do these things with them on a normal day and has refused them ever since joining. He’s only here for the fucking child they pulled into their shit, the child that isn’t that much older than the children upstairs, calling the cops to save their dad.

“Jane, now!”

Thing is. As much as he doesn’t want to witness this. He doesn’t want Jane to execute this even more. He knows she’s killed before, but he doesn’t want her to be a murderer.

“Janie, don’t.”

She doesn’t. She hesitates too long and Kali pulls a gun on the guy instead. In the second where Eddie’s heart plummets and he’s sure he’s going to experience his first ever on sight gun murder, he’s too distracted to notice the small head movement that makes Jane catapult Kali’s gun out of the window. All he hears is glass breaking.

Kali is seething. They take off running.

You find more cheer in a graveyard than in the warehouse afterwards.

The mood has absolutely plummeted. Kali’s still mad that Jane prevented her from shooting a father with his children present, even after she gave the kid a lecture in the van already. Jane is, rightfully, mad right back at her. Eddie’s on Jane’s side with this one. He’s made it a habit to not snoop in the A-Team’s business when they’re hunting people down, but even he draws the line at making a middle schooler do their job, and when they can’t finish it, trying to do it while they watch. As if they aren’t already traumatized enough.

The rest of them are trying to make the best out of the situation.

Dottie and Funshine are back to playing poker. They’ve at least robbed enough money to go back to it. Mick is on the lookout again, as always. Axel is taking stock of the rest of their loot while keeping an ear on the police radio. He looks fucking frazzled, but at least counting money seems to be slowly calming him down. Do what you gotta do, man.

Kali has excused herself to put more wood in their fire barrels around the warehouse. Jane went upstairs to her room a good few minutes ago.

Eddie is not nearly calmed down enough yet to be joining in on poker. Actually feels like he might have a meltdown if he thinks too hard about what happened. So it’s easier to just follow Jane up to the higher level and check in on her instead. It’s what good, uh. Guardians? Do. He thinks.

“Hey, Jeans.”

Jane sits with her back to him on the vanity chair. She hummingbirds her way through a dejected greeting. Oof. Eddie hasn’t done this type of damage control in, like, ever, probably. Let’s see how he does for the first time. Hopefully they’ve got more luck with this than with the stunt.

He crosses the room and sits heavily on the bed, leaning back onto his hands. He tries catching Jane’s eyes, but she’s focusing somewhere else, very pointedly. Not like it matters much because Eddie can’t hold eye contact for shit anyways. In turn he’s very observant, at least. He notices the bandana he gave her in the van to dab at her bleeding nose with wrapped around her wrist, but more importantly, the flannel she’s clutching to be the one she was wearing before the makeover. It’s got some sentimental value, then.

He takes a deep breath. Oh, how to start this the best.

“I was, uh. Once like you, y’know. I mean, still kind of am, seeing as we both ran away from Hawkins and landed here, which, how small is the world even, right?” Jane quirks the smallest of smiles at that. Eddie’ll take it. “But, mhm, so— what I’m saying is; I see a lot of me. In you. And I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I’ve been making, y’know?”

Eddie takes another deep breath, pushes himself forward to put his elbows on his knees instead, pulling on the front pieces of his hair nervously.

“See, I’m on your side with this. You did the right thing. They were just kids and didn’t deserve this. But I also know you’re probably blaming yourself big time. So this is me telling you; don’t.”

Jane finally looks up at him, albeit for only a second. She’s still frowning, but her face has softened the tiniest bit.

Eddie nods at her, at himself. “Don’t. I know Kali seems almighty and powerful and shit, but really– she’s just a kid, just like us. She doesn’t always get her way, and when she doesn’t she blames someone else. You didn’t take away her choice. Ending someone’s life isn’t just a choice to make. You saved a whole ass family back there. Okay?”

Eddie cringes at himself. Feels like he’s rambling out of his ass, not making any sense. But Jane sits up a little bit straighter with how deep of a breath she takes, so apparently he didn’t do half as bad as he thinks.

She nods back at him. “Okay.”

When Kali comes up to them and asks Eddie if she can talk to Jane alone, he leaves easily enough. He’s said his piece and that’s about as much as he can do. Even if he disapproves of the way Kali goes about things sometimes, it’s not his business and Jane has to make her own decisions.

At least he feels a little more at peace now, after talking about it. Calm waters, calm waters. He joins the rest of the group again for a round of poker because why the hell not, since they’re just rounding out with Funshine putting down a Full House and winning the last of Axel’s money.

“Screw this, I’m out.”

Axel gets up from his seat at the table, so Eddie slides right into it instead. “Out of money, you mean,” Dottie snorts at the same time that Eddie mocks, “If little Axe needed some more money to keep playing, he should’ve just asked Daddy Eddie.”

“Fuck you guys.”

Axel goes back to his beloved knives. They ask Mick instead. Mick usually never plays, unless everyone’s down here and they don’t have to stay on a vigilant eye because the group’s fresh out of a stunt. Dottie begs them to, anyways.

And maybe it’s the precarious situation, maybe they’re still all on edge and just pretending to play it cool for the sake of everyone else, but unlike usual, Mick lets themself get sucked into a fierce discussion of why they won’t be playing a round of poker at the moment, eyes carefully trained on Dottie, and that, precisely, is the moment it all goes so far down the drain that they can’t pull it back out again.

Eddie’s just about to pull out his wallet for some notes when one, two, three loud thumps echo throughout the warehouse, and he can’t even begin to form the word ‘huh’ before thunderous footsteps deafen him. People are calling out threats of “Don’t move,” and “We’ve got you surrounded!” and holy shit, holy shit—

The feds found them.

“The hell is going on,” Axel rushes out as Kali and Jane join them, eyes wide and hands clutched, and fuck, they’re all on their feet now. They need to run.

“They found us.”

Axel curses hysterically, Eddie whines, „Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!”

Kali shushes them then, arms wide open between all of them, and fuck, fuck, Eddie would trust her blindly, but it’s so hard to stay still and silent when a dozen policemen start swarming around and past you like they don’t see you.

Which they don’t. Kali is hiding them in plain sight.

It sounds more relieving than it actually is. For Eddie, it’s the most nerve wracking ten seconds of his life. At least two officers almost graze him and he’s so scared his sneakers will squeak if he makes a step. He doesn’t even dare breathe.

But then they’re gone into a deeper part of the warehouse, so Kali gives them the sign, and they run.

There’s only one way in and out of the warehouse, which was maybe a good idea at the time to keep intruders from getting in too easily, but they didn’t take into consideration that it also makes getting out unseen very hard when there’s police surrounding them. And they weren’t lying about that. They are surrounding them. Kali maybe realizes too late or can’t keep her powers working when she’s running, but either way they aren’t cloaked when they get out. Officers are screaming, the first guns go off.

Jane’s hand is in Eddie’s. He doesn’t know when it happened, but he pulls her in front of him by it, pushing her in the direction of the van, his back to the police hiding her. Mick’s got the same instinct, urging Jane on and pulling her behind the van by her shoulder until they’re all out of danger. More or less, at least. For now the van is their shield.

Axel shoots back at the police, which is a stupid ass decision. He can’t hold it against him, though.

“Kal, do something! Do something!”

She does. He’s got no idea what she might be making them see, but whatever it is, it makes the gunfire taper off almost instantly. 

They don’t waste a second getting in the van. Mick first, so they can climb across the seats to the front, then Funshine, Axel and Dottie. Jane’s still clutching at his hand, and when he tries stepping in after Kali, she doesn’t budge. Eddie’s heart thumps a little harder in his chest.

“Jane, Eddie, get in.”

“I’m trying,” Eddie squawks, frazzled, and looks back at the kid whose hand he’s still got in his. “Jane!”

The girl shakes her head minutely, looking between Kali and Eddie a few times, eyes watery. As she begins to talk, she slowly, hesitantly opens her hand around his, to let him go. Eddie doesn’t open his own back. Hell no.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I have to go back. My friends— my friends are in danger.”

“Janie—“

Axel leans back into the open van door, “This isn’t the time for a talk! We gotta go right now!”

Kali looks scared. Like she’s losing control. 

“Your mother sent you here for a reason, remember? We belong together. There’s nothing for you back there. They cannot save you, Jane.”

Jane eventually rips her hand out of Eddie’s when he doesn’t let go. She shakes her head again.

“No. But I can save them.”

She walks away from them, to the space between the warehouses where they usually park the van but were too panicked to do it earlier. Which is probably part of their downfall. Then, she starts running.

Kali calls after her. Once, twice, three times. Eddie feels sick. What the fuck is he doing. 

“I’ll try to take care of her. No promises, though.”

He pushes Kali inside the van, slams the side door shut, and runs after Jane.

The gunfire starts back up.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit— Jesus Christ!”

Jane looks back to him, and they both sob as the van’s tires screech behind them. They don’t stop running.

“Eddie– Eddie—“

“It’s fine, it’s fine— We just gotta get to the edge of town, I’ll–I’ll bring us back— I’ll bring us back home. I’ve–I’ve got it. I’ve got you.”

And by god, he does.

The van is still where he left it, caked with old leaves and dust and pollen from where it’s been standing at the end of a road under some trees for months, but it’s still there.

His van. Not really his to begin with, but his to end with.

He unlocks it and tells Jane to put on whatever radio station she wants to, while he goes to clean this baby up a bit. He starts sweeping the dirt off the hood with his whole arm, but when he catches Jane from the corner of his eye, she’s still standing where he left her. The post office stance is back.

Eddie sighs, leans his elbows on the hood.

“You good, Jeans?”

“Why are you doing this?”

For a second, Eddie’s confused. He humors her. “Well, I, for one, don’t wanna be seen driving around a dirty ass ugly van. We’ve had enough of that. I’m done with beige, brown and green. Helloooo, black and red!”

He does one big sweep of his arm across the hood for good measure. Then he leans back over it, fond amusement waved in between seriousness.

“I’m not lettin’ you go back to Hawkins all by yourself, sweetums. I’ve burdened myself with the oh so civic duty to babysit a superpowered thirteen year old when you put on those sweet pants of mine.”

Jane looks down at herself for a moment, examining where they stuffed the cut off ends of the denim into her socks. Eddie snorts. She’s so naturally fucking funny.

She looks back up again, frown still ever present. Eddie sighs, calls it good enough on the hood and headlights, and ushers Jane into the passenger seat so they can start on their journey. When he starts the ignition, the radio comes on on full blast. Which makes sense, considering it was him last driving. He quickly turns it down, almost all the way, and fiddles with the radio stations while he lets the windshield wipers run for a bit.

“Truth is,” he starts eventually, when he admits to himself that Jane won’t relax her face again until he’s laid himself bare, and accepts his fate. “Truth is, I’m scared shitless, right this second. I am honestly not quite sure how I managed to not pee my pants so far. What we just went through back there?”

Eddie leans back into the driver’s seat, slaps the steering wheel once as he stares ahead.

“That shit was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. And will probably stay the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced for a bit. I mean, we could’ve died back there. Just like that! One stray bullet and— ugh!”

He throws his head back against the headrest and immediately regrets it, flinching forward again with a soft ‘ouch’. He forgot the headrests in here are the hard kind.

“Point is. I can’t keep doing that shit. Not with the way things just turned a full one-eighty on the gang. I was fine while we were just living our lives and having our fun, minding our own business— but what I saw today. What I saw her do, what I almost saw you do,” Eddie takes a stuttering breath, chancing a nervous glance at Jane, who’s staring right back at him, and why is that comforting? 

“That’s where I draw the line. I’m not letting you— I can’t see you— I don’t ever wanna see you like that again. I need to make sure.”

Wow, okay.

He hasn’t word vomited like that in a while. Woohoo. Phew. Embarrassing.

Or it would be, if he wasn’t still completely beside himself. So, actually, who really cares. He’s allowed to have a little freak out after – after – he’s not going to recount any of it. After literally all of that. A shit show from start to finish.

When he looks back to Jane, she’s still staring back. He can’t really describe how fucking relieved he is to see her frown having melted away in lieu of a soft blank look, though. It relaxes him enough to finally get the car moving. He pulls out of the parking spot, turns the car away from the end of the street and drives in the direction of the nearest highway. This he knows. This is in his control. Now he can start relaxing a little.

They’ve got a long enough drive in front of them.

“My friends call me El,” Jane eventually says when they pull onto the first freeway, and Eddie’s turning the radio station back to a rock one. He frowns down at the radio, then at the car in front of them. 

“Short for Eleven.”

“Eleven? Like, like your number? The tattoo? From the lab?”

Jane hums. Doesn’t explain further. Then, “You can call me El. If you want to. Only my— only Hopper calls me Eleven.”

Eddie has the sudden urge to pull over to the side of the road. Or emergency brake. Right on the freeway.

He thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

Now the middle schooler with superpowers that he accidentally adopted is connected to Jim Hopper, chief of Hawkins police, drug business thwarter number one and Eddie Munson’s arch nemesis extraordinaire. How in the absolute fresh hell is he going to face him, after months of being a runaway case, and be like, “Hi, it’s so good to see you again. Hope my disappearance hasn’t given you too many problems. Here’s your kid I found in Chicago, but don’t worry, I looked after her with my drug money and gave her a grunge makeover together with my criminal friends so we could take her on a murdering spree hunting down former lab scientists. Though we decided to leave after almost getting shot a few times. Hope you don’t mind.”

Oh yeah, that’s gonna go great.

“You’re with Jim Hopper?” Eddie eventually squeaks out in answer. Jane (El?) nods.

“I was with him for three hundred and fifty three days before I left. I miss him. I miss all my friends. They’re in danger. We need to help them.”

Eddie nods, very much done at this point. He doesn’t know how many revelations he can handle anymore before completely melting down. He’s trying very hard to keep it together. He’s so glad he’s driving at the moment.

“Sure, yeah. Yeah, we do. We need to go help your friends. Because they’re in dan— wait, they’re in danger? What kind of danger?”

Jane closes her eyes then for a few seconds, goes somewhere within her mind.

“They’re calling it the Mind Flayer.”

“They’re calling it the what now?”

Eddie doesn’t really know what he expected to run into when they arrive back in Hawkins, after Jane finally filled him in on what kind of gruesome shit went down with the Byers kid last Christmas, and whatever gruesome shit is going down with the Byers kid right this moment. She’s only really picking it up second hand, through her mind thingy, since she’s basically been in hiding at Jim Hopper’s cabin, away from her friends for her own safety for almost a year. 

Eddie’s calling it journeying. When she’s going somewhere in her mind. That somehow makes it easier to stomach.

He expected problems. Getting into trouble with Chief Hopper immediately, maybe getting slapped around a bit. Probably a whole lot of hustle and bustle, what with how many are involved in the whole Upside Down thing. (He still can’t fucking believe these kids are naming everything after D&D terms. It’s absolutely horrendous.) For sure he expected they’d need to fight– something. He didn’t think it would be this big.

He certainly did not expect to be ordered to emergency brake in the middle of some woods, the ghastlies, most inhuman and most inanimal sounds he’s ever had the displeasure to hear vibrating through the van’s metal walls. Inanimal isn’t even a word, he’s sure, but it doesn’t really matter when Jane is out of her seat and into the darkness before he even really killed the engine.

What the fuck, man. What the actual hell. He should’ve just stayed with the gang. That would’ve been less stressful.

He runs after her, and the sounds are actually coming from underground, he knows because they sound all far away but also like they’re coming from within his body, and his legs are buzzing with the sound waves, and they’re getting louder and unbearably itchy under the soles of his feet—

Eddie’s heart is in his throat, but somewhere along the lines of ‘The government made a hyper realistic body double of Will to fake his fall from the quarry’s cliff’ he kind of went numb about it all. There’s no fucking time for freaking out when there’s monsters called Demogorgons on the fucking loose and—

They’re breaking out of the fucking dirt right this second.

Jane’s marching forward like it’s nothing. Eddie can’t really help but at least scream at the ground a few yards from them as it collapses like grotesquely oversized molehills, with the exact sounds accompanying it that you would imagine when grotesquely oversized molehills collapse in on themselves. They’ve got the ugliest motherfuckers fleeing them to boot. Eddie’s never seen a mole first hand, but he’s sure they aren’t as hard to look at as those things.

Jane seems way too unfazed as she Force strangles two of these deformed dogs at once, throwing them against surrounding trees like they’re puppets, and then does it again. And again. One after the other the monsters are taken care of in pairs, all while Jane is still moving towards this house she led him to, with him following behind her like a lost puppy.

The house is lit up everywhere. It’s, like, fully illuminated. No lamp stayed off. Still, there’s nothing to see. Every curtain is drawn, every window is hung with something. It would be weird, if Eddie cared.

As they silently approach the porch, a straggler monster dog comes running at them. Eddie sees it from the corner of his eyes, and he barely gets to hiss, “Jane, watch out!”, before the thing’s already slapped through the air and flung away like a fucking slinky or something. And the same as slinkies are unpredictable, that gooey ass quadruped takes an unexpected trajectory and crashes right through one of the windows.

Eddie’s shoulders are at his ears. Whoops. Property damage from telekinetic projectiles was the last thing he expected to cause tonight.

“It’s fine,” Jane mumbles, and then they’re stepping up to the door, and she does that weird hand thingy, and Eddie hears the chain and lock from the inside of the door click open. Man, badass. This girl doesn’t even need lock picking skills.

Then the door swings open, and they’re stepping in. 

Eddie feels like half of Hawkins is in that tiny living room. Plus, everyone’s fucking armed. Multiple guns and a— a bat? A bat with nails in it? Is raised at them. They lower quite quickly as they see who it is that just came through the door, though. Except for the bat. The bat stays held up, and Eddie frowns at the thing because when he looks up, he realizes why.

The one holding it is an idiot. An idiot Eddie’s in love with. It’s Eddie’s idiot.

Because of course it is. Because Steve Harrington will haunt him for the rest of eternity, probably.

“Munson?” Both Hopper and Harrington say it at the same time. Which is by far one of the weirdest pairs Eddie could ever have the opportunity to jinx. He doesn’t, though, because he’s neither stupid nor suicidal and both of those people still have weapons at the ready they have enough reason to use against him, mind you.

Eddie takes a deep breath and rubs a hand across his eyes. 

“Yeah, it’s me, don’t cream your pants.”

At the same time, Jane and Mike Wheeler fall into each other’s arms.

The reunion between the two love birds is really touching and all, but Eddie’s still got the issue of one Chief Hopper right in front of him. He’s pretty sure he’s gonna be, like, arrested or something. Picked up by the scruff like a kitten and dropped off at social services. Either way, it’s not going to be pretty.

He’s mentally already preparing for it, but Eddie is not the smartest bean in the room, which means he doesn’t factor in that Jane is Hopper’s– he doesn’t know what exactly she is. Everyone knows about Hopper’s daughter, so she isn’t that. But Jane— She’s Hopper’s. She just is. Apparently.

“The hell is this— Where’ve you been?” Hopper steps up to them, then, pulling Mike away by the shoulder. Jane looks up at him defiantly, asking the same thing back at the same time that Eddie jokingly says ‘Chicago’ – and then they’re hugging. He thinks he hears Hopper repeat in a whisper, “Chicago?”

It kind of hurts, watching them hug like that. Like a father would hug his runaway daughter, relief greatly outdoing the worry and anger. It reminds Eddie of Uncle Wayne, and how long he’s left him alone, how he’s back in Hawkins and going home wasn’t even his first thought. Didn’t even make top ten.

After all of this is done, he will be out of here quicker than his supply at an after game party. He needs to see Wayne.

But first, they’ve got stuff to do here. Which, apparently, for Mike Wheeler means getting angry at one Chief of Police and seriously trying to fight him over why he hid Jane from him for so long. Which, valid. At least Eddie thinks so. He can understand.

Hopper makes short shrift of the situation and pulls the kid into a backroom with him. They keep arguing behind closed doors. Evidently, someone has a few words to say. Can’t really blame the kid. If Eddie remembers Jane’s story correctly, they all thought she was dead.

Jane turns back to him for a second then, giving him a fierce side hug and knocking her forehead against his chest. Eddie squeezes her back. He’s got enough experience in reading Jane by now, and this version of her is overwhelmed and in pain. He rubs his thumb over her hairline to get her to look back up at him, then rakes his whole hand through her slicked back hair. If that motion loosens up the gel a little more and makes her hair get a little more curly, it might not have been intentional but Eddie’s happy about it anyway.

“It’s fine, let them scream it out. In the meantime, I think you’ve got some more friends over there to say hello to that have been missing you just as much as Mike.”

Jane nods as she extracts herself from their hug, and turns to two other boys instead. Considering what Jane has relayed to him about Will Byers’ state of well-being, he deduces that those two are Dustin and Lucas.

He watches as they hug three ways, something awfully soft. Jane’s back is to him and he can see that the boys have their eyes closed in soft, happy frowns. He lets them be, and looks around the room for the first time since entering.

There’s obviously Harrington, the nail-studded bat still in hand but lowered down, luckily. He looks a little different to what Eddie remembers. Hair longer, less studiously kept in form, a little wild even, if you’d like to say. No polo shirt in sight, which is a first in Eddie’s book. Instead there’s a black shirt and a jacket one might dare to call bomber? That’s maybe stretching it a little, but it’s at least a windbreaker type. Completely grey. It looks unfairly good. Catering to Eddie’s color palette just offensively well.

He’s talking to Jon Byers. At least he was, until he’s looking back at Eddie. And Eddie— Eddie’s not a friend of being caught observing people. Especially not when he’s observing Steve Harrington of all people. So he does the thing any other sane human being would have done: he flinches back violently, turns away and plays with his hair with one hand, biting at the skin around his thumbnail on the other.

Amazing. Truly well done, Eddie Munson. Really hit The Freak thing right back home. Not like anyone ever really forgot, probably. Least of all Steve Harrington, king of Hawkins High and best friend of Tommy Hagan. Though, they had some kind of fallout back in Junior year, right? Who knows, it’s been almost a year, maybe that’s old news. Though, Nancy’s here with them, so that whole relationship’s apparently still going strong.

“Eddie,” someone says next to him, and once again Eddie flinches, turning to look at the other person with wide eyes. He’s surprised to see Mrs. Byers standing before him, hands retracting back around her upper arms as if she was about to touch him and thought better of it, while she looks him up and down like any good concerned mother would do. Not like Eddie knows first hand.

“Uh,” he answers eloquently. He doesn’t really know why she came over to him. He hasn’t talked to her since first or second year of middle school, when Jon and him were still somewhat acquaintances and Eddie came over once in a blue moon. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“You’re— You’re Elinoar’s kid. Wayne’s nephew. Right?” And yes, she’s right, and that makes Eddie reel just the tiniest bit. No one around him has spoken his mother’s name aloud in years. “Good to see you back. You’ve been missing an awful long time. Are you okay? One of us, one of us could drive you home to your uncle. You don’t— you don’t have to stay here. You can just forget about all of this, if you want—“

Eddie is still reeling, going kind of sideways about the onslaught of information and just honest to god kindness this woman is just throwing left and right for no reason at all, but through it all he manages to shake his head, hard. He looks over to where Jane and the boys are still talking, just in time to catch her putting her hand into the mouth of the curly haired kid, checking his teeth like he’s a dog, and Jesus Christ, if Eddie wasn’t so close to crying he would be laughing instead. She’s so goddamn funny.

“Nuh, no,” he croaks eventually, still watching the kids. “I promised someone I would keep an eye on her. Thank you, though, Mrs. B.”

Mrs. Byers looks at him a little surprised, but then her face softens into a kind of tired fondness. 

“Alright, darling. You take care, then.”

With that, she leaves him alone again. Goes straight to Jane instead, hugs her like a mother would, stroking her face and hiccuping softly. Jane isn’t faring much better. There’s really a whole lot that Eddie’s been missing from Jane’s frankly very objective retellings. The most remarkable thing being, shared trauma. Obviously. All these people are like family, bonded over what happened last year and what’s happening again right now. And Eddie somehow stumbled right into it, as well.

You’re not hearing him complaining, though.

While Jane goes to the back of the house with Mrs. Byers to check on Will, Eddie feels a little lost. He’s in the middle of an almost-stranger’s living room he hasn’t been in for, like, six years, and it looks like a postmodern art exhibition has vomited all over the walls. Thousands of single papers glued together at the edges to make an overall picture of some kind of blue path. Some patterns are even labelled with locations around Hawkins. The Lakes, Loch Nora, the farms—

“Are those drawings supposed to be, like, a groundwater map of Hawkins or something?”

The low hum of anxious conversations around the room cuts off almost instantly, like someone pressed the pause button on a stereo.

Uh. Well. That’s not what he expected to happen. Talk about overreactions.

“How did he just get here and immediately understand it?”

It’s the kid with the braces and colorful outfit whining. He sounds like he’s got way too much attitude for his size. It’s all in the tone, really.

“That’s just uncalled for, rubbing it in like that. Immediate minus points for a newcomer like you. Who even are you? How do you know El?”

The kid’s really going out on a limb here. It’s real hard to not take personal offense. Why isn’t he getting a puppy license with this whole monster hunting shit? He feels like he deserves it. Instead of getting verbally attacked first thing.

“Well, first of all,” Eddie starts with a swing of his arm that ends with him pointing at the kid, “I am not entertaining any questions from someone that decided to name some very real threats after Dungeons and Dragons enemies.”

That gets him amused snorts from at least three different people in the room, and shocked gasps from two others. Surprisingly enough, Harrington is under the snorts. Eddie did not believe to ever see a day where he would make Steve Harrington laugh. From anything else than him making fun of Eddie or something along those lines. Nice.

“Second of all, I drove supergirl here, shouldn’t you be a little more, I dunno, grateful for me? Because if I hadn’t done that, your situation right now wouldn’t be looking this happy-go-lucky, I’d bet.”

He ends with a very obvious head tilt to the dead Demogorgon dog-mole thingy still lying in the corner of the living room. Everyone looks at it with clear disgust, and Jon murmurs something about getting rid of it but doesn’t make a move. Valid.

When Eddie looks back over, the kid seems to seriously consider his points. It’s like he can watch the scale in his head weigh them up against each other. Then, he nods solemnly.

“I concur. You’re right. Thanks for doing that,” there’s a lull in the kid’s thoughts, and then he frowns. He looks like he’s having a cognitive dissonance. “You know about Dungeons and Dragons?”

Eddie groans, rubs his eyes once again and wishes he had enough strength to just push them inside his skull and kill himself with it. Metaphorically, of course. Probably.

“Munson, let’s talk.”

Chief Hopper is staring him down from the doorframe of the room he had disappeared into with Mike Wheeler before. The poor boy looks puffy from crying as he waddles over to his friends and makes space for Hopper’s next victim. Which is Eddie. Great.

He’s positively going to die.

“What do you wanna talk about?” Eddie asks as soon as the door closes behind them, as friendly and inconspicuous as possible. When he turns around there’s movement in his field of vision, and Eddie is dead sure it’s a slap or a punch happening for a hot second. He wouldn’t hold it against Hopper. Instead, it’s a heavy hand landing on his shoulder, squeezing firmly but not tightly.

“Uh.” Eddie opens his instinctively closed eyes again, squinting at the Chief. The Chief looks back with his usual gruff frown. It’s a little like Jane’s perpetual blank stare, if he thinks too long about it. They both have standard expressions that Eddie might be a little too good at reading for some reason. Case in point: this frown means that Hopper is very emotional.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll cut to the chase for now.” The Chief takes a small breath through his nose, his second hand joining the first on Eddie’s other shoulder. He should’ve maybe felt pushed down by them, but instead he feels grounded. Kind of held. Even though Hopper looks like he might be constipated.

“Thanks for taking care of Eleven and— and bringing her back here. I don’t know how the hell you found each other, but I'm glad you’re back in town. We’ll unpack the rest of what happened after we’re done killing those monsters.”

The hands slide from his shoulders, pat them twice, and then Eddie gets a very sudden, very rough one-armed hug. His temple knocks into Hopper’s shoulder before he can catch himself. Dumbly, he nods at him after Hopper releases him from his grip.

“Sure, yeah. After we’ve killed those monsters.”

They have something you could lovingly call a team meeting when Hopper finally lets Eddie step back out into the half living room half kitchen. Jane and Mrs. Byers are back with them as well, with the mother looking a little worse for wear. She sits down at the cluttered dinner table as they all gravitate there. Hopper comes standing behind Mrs. Byers.

He relays what he’s experienced in the underground tunnels and Hawkins lab to all of them and Eddie has the metaphorical lightbulb going off that he was in fact not that far off about what his first instincts called the groundwater map. It’s those tunnels the mole-dog monsters have burrowed. And Hopper apparently went down there. With the monsters also there. Jesus Christ, man.

Dustin, Eddie has learned by now that that’s the smartypants’ name, which makes the black kid Lucas, lives up to his reputation by piping up unwantedly. He dares correcting Hopper on the Demogorgons’ names, which he has the gall to have nicknamed Demodogs, and Eddie is so close to start an argument about that. Because those things are very obviously more moles than dogs. If at all you should call them De mole dogs. He could compromise on that.

But he doesn’t. He’s not about to get into an argument about monster nicknames with a literal child in front of one, the policeman with Eddie’s fate in his hand, Jim Hopper, and two, his everlasting impractical crush, Steve Harrington. He values his life a little too much for that.

“I can do it.”

Hopper says ‘You’re not hearing me’ to Jane in this painfully exasperated tone at the same time that Eddie groans, “Jesus Christ, ‘cause you haven’t done enough yet?”

“I’m hearing you. I can do it.” She looks at Hopper, then at Eddie. “I can do more.”

Eddie rakes his hands through his hair almost painfully, nails scraping lines between his hair follicles. It calms him down, okay? Let him live. He’s despairing right now.

“Even if El can do it,” Mike interrupts carefully, and there’s something about the way he talks frantically but measured that makes Eddie take him completely by face value. Might be because the kid’s girlfriend is offering herself up while his best friend is lying in a medically induced coma a few rooms over. “There’s still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies.”

“I thought that was the whole point,” the last person Eddie doesn’t know by name yet, the red haired girl that looks mighty badass, interjects, and Mike agrees, continuing the situation with his words.

“If we’re right about this, if we close the gate and sever the connection between the Mind Flayer and his army—“

Eddie understands what he’s getting at.

“We kill everything and everyone that is connected to the Mind Flayer in this realm,” Eddie finishes breathlessly. “We kill Will.”

Everyone is looking at Eddie for a second, but he’s only looking at Jane.

“Yes. Closing the gate will kill him,” Mike agrees.

“If we don’t find a way to remove the connection from Will first.” It’s Lucas this time, adding to the conversation. Smart kid.

Mrs. Byers stands up abruptly. She seems like she’s got a plan.

Eddie’s not about to stand in her way.

They’ve got a plan formulated in the matter of minutes. It’s a batshit crazy plan if anyone was to ask Eddie, but honestly, he’s experienced way crazier shit in the past twenty four hours accumulated, he thinks. So really, he doesn’t bat as much of an eye as he supposes he should, when Hopper bundles a comatose Will Byers into the blankets and carries him outside to a car, with his brother and his mother hot on his heels. 

“They’re gonna bring him to our cabin,” Jane is nice enough to supply to him as they watch the scene from their spot on the porch, having followed behind, “It’s the only place Will doesn’t know. Nobody knows it except me and Hop.”

Eddie nods. It’s completely insane to try to basically cook a child alive, he knows. But he prides himself in his syllogism skills, so he also knows it’s the best they’ve got in the face of the facts.

“Munson,” Steve calls out then, from around the corner of the porch, hands on his hip as he stares up at them. Nancy Wheeler stands a little ways behind him, paused in her determined strut over to a suspicious looking pile of electronics. For some otherworldly reason Eddie does not understand – because them going over there alone would be a prime time for smooches as far as he’s concerned – they’re waiting on him. “C’mon, we’ll be faster with another pair of hands.”

Nancy kind of looks relieved as Eddie jogs after them to the pile and they start on sifting through the appliances for things that survived the flight out of the windows back when Mrs. Byers got rid of all heat units in the house. Huh. He thinks he might’ve missed some crucial shift in the picture perfect relationship between Hawkins king and queen, Steve and Nancy.

“So, uh, why did you—“ Eddie starts, and yeah, maybe he was a little intimidated and started speaking a little too low on volume, but he still feels kind of offended when Steve talks over him. As if he isn’t even there, nonetheless.

“You should go with him.”

He’s clearly speaking to Nancy. She looks up at Steve with a confused frown. “What?”

“With Jonathan.”

Uh-oh. Suddenly Eddie does not remember ever being offended by getting talked over. There’s trouble in paradise? And Jonathan of all people is involved? Juicy.

Nancy sends a surprised, kind of helpless eyebrow-raise Eddie’s way. Eddie sends an astonished, kind of delighted one back. He’s never had much to do with Nancy Wheeler before, except being jealous of her choice of boyfriend and her ace grades, but if it comes down to it, in his line of business, it is unwritten law to always be on the girl’s side first and foremost. Girls and gays stick together, y’know.

“No, I’m,” Nancy scoffs eventually, “I’m not just gonna leave Mike like that.”

“No one’s leaving anyone.” And Steve sounds so boyfriend in that one single sentence, so steadfast and reassuring and kind, that what he says next absolutely guts Eddie. “I may have been a shitty boyfriend, but— turns out, I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter. And apparently, so is Eddie.”

Steve presses a heater into Nancy’s hand almost lovingly, and Eddie is in fact still reeling too much from whatever drama scene he just stumbled into to realize how out of place he feels, watching it unfold. It’s like sitting in the backseat of a car that is going right for a cliff, with the driver pushing the gas and the shotgun keeping the emergency brake from getting pulled.

“Steve.”

“It’s okay, Nance.” Steve nods at himself rather than at Nancy. “It’s okay.”

They watch him go back to the house for a few moments. Then, Nancy looks back at Eddie, like he knows better than her what just happened. He can do nothing but shrug, send her an empathetic frown.

“You, uh. You heard the man. We’ll take care of the playgroup. I guess.” He shrugs again, grabs the heating units he fished out, makes for the car. “You go with Jon, Nancy Wheeler.”

“Oh– Okay. Eddie Munson.”

Hopper interrupts Jane and Mike in their adorable, vomit inducing departure speech right before they kiss. Like a proper dad. Eddie dares roll his eyes this time, just because he knows Hopper can’t see his face in the dim light of the porch.

He walks away from putting the heaters in Jon’s trunk and over to Hopper’s Chevy Blazer instead. Mike might not get his perfect goodbye with his girlfriend, but ain’t no way Eddie is letting her leave without properly sending her off.

He waits at the passenger door and she walks straight into him without much preamble. He loves her for it. He closes his arms around her for only a second, but he makes that second count and squeezes her as hard as he can. When he lets her go again, he takes another second to tidy up Mick’s leather jacket and Axel’s retired battle vest on her frame. Oh, what they might be doing at this moment? 

“Take care of yourself, Jeans, yeah? I am waiting here for you. I won’t forgive you if you don’t come pick me up again, alright?” Eddie leans down to her height, squints his eyes at her, whispers. “I need you as a buffer between me and Chief-O, you understand. He’s got a score to settle with me still, and to be honest, I’m scared shitless.”

Jane smiles at him, if only a halfway one. She nods, “I’m scared, too, Eddie. But we will come back.”

“Good.” He straightens back up, ruffles her hair one last time before opening the passenger side door for her. “Now, go kick some otherworldly ass, supergirl!”

Which leaves Eddie with the rest of the kids, and, of course, with Steve.

Oh, and also the body of that Demodog, still. Jon never got around to getting rid of it like he’d said.

“We should take care of that,” Eddie comments at about the same time as Steve goes for one of the throw blankets from the couch, opening it up and throwing it across the monster like it’s a scared bird he’s trying to calm down.

“I was just thinking the same thing.” 

Then, he does it once again with a second blanket. Eddie sees the logic behind that. He would want more than just one layer between him and that slimy thing, as well.

“Do not—“ Dustin screams across the room, while he absolutely takes apart the Byers’ refrigerator. Eddie is very confused. “—Throw that body out. Bring it over here.”

Steve looks just as confused, with a bundle of Demogorgon corpse in his arms, bundled up not unlike Will was in Hopper’s, and that’s really not a connection Eddie wants to make. He looks over to Lucas and Red instead, for any kind of reassurance, but they look just as lost and displeased about what Dustin is trying to achieve.

“Bring it over there for what? We can just— Bury it, or something.”

Not listening to his own words, Steve steps over into the kitchen anyways. Disgusted but intrigued, Eddie follows.

Dustin is just so pulling out the last metal grids and plastic trays from the fridge, carelessly flinging them behind himself. Eddie leans over to Steve, and tries not to be too giddy about the fact that he’s basically in smooching distance to the guy. “I think he’s planning on keeping the thing in there.”

“Oh, you think so—“ Steve grouses, and now Eddie is giddy. He’s never imagined getting to banter with Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington. It’s instantly fun. He never wants to miss it again.

“Alright. It should fit now.” 

Steve grimaces. “Is this really necessary?”

Dustin is way too exasperated at the adults in this room than he’s got any right to be as a middle schooler. “Yes, it is, okay? This is a groundbreaking scientific discovery. We can’t just bury it like some common mammal, okay? It’s not a dog.”

Steve relents easily enough, grumbling a little under his breath as he goes to stuff this wiggly ass monster corpse into the fridge helplessly. “But you’re explaining this to Mrs. Byers.”

Meanwhile Eddie snorts, continuing with Dustin. “You sure? You were very determined to make us call that thing Demodog before. Which is highly inaccurate, by the way. They’re more like moles.”

“What? No way, man. They’re quadruped carnivores—“

“They burrow underground and make literal molehills—“

Steve struggles audibly with the fridge. Groans. “Christ, help me out!” Eddie and Dustin both push it. Steve, very much annoyed, gets it in all by himself. “Get the fucking door, at least, man.”

Dustin acquiesces, but not without some attitude. Accompanied by colorful curses and gummy-like heads almost getting squished in fridge doors, they eventually, finally get the thing closed. Eddie grimaces. Steve breathes deeply, slapping a hand onto Dustin’s cap and pushing his head down with it.

“You owe us one.”

In the living room, Mike is worrying a pathway into the carpet with his pacing. Even Lucas and Red are already annoyed. But for some reason, Mike is very concerned for Jane’s well-being. Eddie doesn’t really get it. Sure, he’s concerned too. Because that girl basically made him her older brother by default, so it’s his duty to worry. But she can also kill off a dozen Demodogs by herself, if she wants to. Plus, Hopper’s with her.

He should know best of all that she can hold her own fight.

The argument goes back and forth for a bit, until Steve, Eddie and Dustin go back over from the kitchen, joining them.

“Listen, dude,” Steve interjects, cleaning his hands on a kitchen towel he grabbed on the way – which has no right to look as sexy as it does, by the way, “if a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it. Alright?”

Eddie is very amused by the analogy. Not in a positive way, mind you. It’s just so like a jock to make a play reference. It doesn’t even make much sense.

Mike says as much. He is very evidently not a fan of Steve. Eddie can’t really blame him. He wouldn’t be a fan of the guy either, if he wasn’t so hopelessly in love with him.

“We’re basically on the bench here, Harrington,” Eddie adds to Mike’s argument that they’re not playing a game and if they were, they weren’t even the ones playing.

“Not helping, Munson,” Steve directs a gripe at him, before turning to the kids again. “My point is—“

They all wait for Steve to continue. Eddie is trying his hardest to suppress a grin as he stammers his way through defeat.

“Right, yeah, no, we’re on the bench here. So, uh, there’s nothing we can do.”

Dustin apparently doesn’t think so. “That’s not entirely true— I mean, these Demodogs, they all have a hive mind, right? When they ran away from the bus, it was because they were drawn away. Something caught their attention.”

The kids are suddenly snowballing their way through a very risky idea.

“So if we can get their attention again—“

“We can draw them away from the lab—“

“And clear a path to the gate.”

Oh yeah. Because it’s so easy and so harmless. Eddie is playing musical chairs by himself again.

“Yeah, and then we all die!” Steve exclaims, as little of a fan of the idea as Eddie is, luckily. Never thought he’d agree so easily with Steve Harrington on a matter, just in general, so he’s gotta say it to make it real. He throws his arms in the man’s direction. “What Harrington said.”

“Well,” Dustin hums, “that’s your point of view.”

“Uhm, no, that’s not a point of view, that’s a fact—“

As much as Eddie enjoys Steve’s and Dustin’s banter, it leaves one Mike Wheeler very much unsupervised. And as Jane’s new guardian, Eddie has the wonderful responsibility of having an eye on her boyfriend as well, by sheer association, or some shit like that.

So, as the responsible adult that he is, he follows right after him as he calls out about having a plan. He leads them across the house to a spot close to the farms and follows the path to a knot of tunnels on the glued-together paper sheet map, explaining frantically that that is the location they can enter the tunnels because Hopper already dug a hole into them there, and if they follow it to this hub they could make a distraction there—

“Like what? What could possibly draw the attention of hundreds of Demodogs?” Eddie entertains Mike’s idea, very much unimpressed, throwing his arms up theatrically. “We can’t really heat it up to draw the Mind Flayer out, this time. This isn’t Mini Byers.”

“Why not, though?” Red looks downright sardonic as she says it. Eddie kind of respects her for it and immediately retracts it again as Mike jumps right onto her bandwagon. “Right. We set it on fire.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s a no.” Steve tries nipping it in the bud, but the kids are spitballing again. They’re formulating a half assed plan quicker than Eddie can keep track, and he’s certain that at heart they’re already out the door by the time Steve puts his foot down, claps his hands a few times and calls out very stern ‘Hey, hey,hey!’s to quiet them down at once. He ends with his hands on his hips like a tired mother.

That shouldn’t be as sexy as it is.

“This is not happening.”

“But—“

“Ah, nonononono! No buts. I promised I’d keep you shitheads safe, Munson promised to keep you shitheads safe, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing.” Steve sends a very serious glare Eddie’s way, which is apparently meant to keep him in line. As if Eddie would get the idea to disagree right now, when Steve is being the most attractive he’s probably ever been. “We’re staying here, on the bench, and we’re waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?”

“This still isn’t a stupid sports game—“

Steve grips the kitchen towel from over his shoulder, and points it firmly at Mike. “I said, does everybody understand that?”

Eddie really can’t help himself, “Yessir.”

Steve’s eyes dart over to him in what looks like surprise, like Eddie caught him totally off guard, and then he gives him the almightiest eye roll of the century. “I need a yes from the rest of you.”

It’s quiet between the group for a second, but then they all relent, one after the other.

“Good.”

They’ve got a few minutes of downtime, in which the kids sulk in the living room, scattered across the couch and the floor, and Steve and Eddie clean up whatever messes there still are around the front of the house. Aside from the paper sheets everywhere, of course. Who knows if they’ll still need those.

During that time, the both of them slowly realize again who the fuck they are, respectively. But especially who the fuck they are in connection to each other. So, as you can imagine, it’s a very silent few minutes, and awkward to boot. Eddie wants to relieve the tension somehow, as he’s prone to do, but he’s really got nothing – between running away, like, half a year ago and suddenly being back in Hawkins tonight, there’s nothing much to draw from. And he’s not going to start with Nancy fucking Wheeler of all things. No thank you.

So, very out of character for him (and also kind of painful), Eddie is going to wait for Steve to make the first move here.

“So, uh, Munson,” Steve starts eventually, as Eddie brings over the trash can so they can shovel away the glass shards the kids had haphazardly sweeped together earlier, and thank god that he’s finally saying something, “Now that you’re back— I mean, I’m kind of— I don’t— I, uh—“

Well, so much for saying something. Eddie snorts, barely concealing the fondness he feels for the idiot as he watches him stammer around because who is he kidding, Steve Harrington wouldn’t notice it if he spelled it out for him.

“It’s okay, big boy, you can start over.”

Steve shuts his mouth abruptly, takes a deep breath, reboots. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. Here’s me starting that sentence over.” 

He laughs a little at himself, and by god, Eddie wants to punch a wall.

“What I was trying to say is. I feel kind of bad for not thinking about this earlier. But, you got kinda thrown into this whole Upside Down mess, uh, like me. A year ago. Just, from one second of ’oh I’ll just drop by and apologize to my girlfriend’ to the next second fighting a seven foot tall slimy monster thing with a nailed bat.”

Steve scoffs, but doesn’t look up from where he’s sweeping glass onto a dustpan. He’s very much rambling, but Eddie can’t bring himself to interrupt when it’s the most words Steve has spoken to him since elementary school, probably. He’s very whipped, he’s not above admitting it.

“The point being. How did you get pulled into this shit, and, more importantly, how are you okay, dude?”

Huh. This is probably the part where Eddie should shut up. Because those are two very open questions and this could go either way of way too little information or just about way too much. Eddie can’t really tell if Steve’s just asking this out of politeness or if he’s genuinely curious, and that distinction really makes or breaks what he’s going to offer up. He doesn’t want to destroy whatever middle ground the two of them have built between the King and the Freak of Hawkins High.

“Uh. Well. The short version is that, uhm, after I ran away in, like, spring, I ended up in Chicago and joined some freak group of outcasts until, uh, today. And yesterday, the same thing basically happened with Jane. Uh, you call her El, Eleven, whatever. Well, she got involved with us, I got attached, and when shit went down with our group earlier today, I decided to just leave with her. Thinking ‘hey, if I need to get involved with the police, I’d rather deal with Chief Hopper than with Chicago officers’.”

Steve is looking up at him with a blank kind of stare, and Eddie is basically vibrating out of his skin. He’s sure not only did Steve listen to all of that, but the kids too. He feels like he word vomited again. It’s happening an awful lot lately. He needs to reel it back in, before something slips out that he does not want out.

Steve is just about to open his mouth to answer when there’s a car engine roaring in the distance, closing in on their location. It sounds quite lovely, if Eddie might say so, deep and full of volume, which makes it starkly different to any of the other cars that have driven away from them so far. Which means it’s nobody that has been involved until now.

The kids are scrambling for the window out to the porch immediately, Red at the forefront. They’re watching as the car rolls out front, rounding on them a few dozen yards away from the house, from the sounds of it.

“It’s my brother,” she rushes out, and it’s the first time that Eddie’s seen her a little out of it so far, which is at least worth something, “He can’t know I'm here. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us.”

She says it with so much conviction, so much sober honesty, that it doesn’t even cross Eddie’s mind to question her. It’s the tone of experience. She knows this because she’s lived this before.

Which naturally means, they’re going to do everything humanly possible to prevent this so-called brother from knowing the kids are here.

There is just no way in his mind that they’re going to survive hordes of Demodogs and send Jane to close a literal portal between dimensions just to get defeated by some fuck-all angry brother type.

They’ve got bigger things to worry about.

As they step outside on the porch, Eddie can hear a few notes of a rock song cutting out just as the guy kills the engine. If he’d maybe had one or two chords more he would’ve probably gotten what kind of song it was, but either way, he apparently shares a music taste with this guy, and that very much displeases Eddie. He’s not fond of being lumped in the same category as assholes who scare their little sisters to literal death.

He’s gotta give it to him in the looks department, though. Dude looks fucking fetching. With his worn brown leather jacket and red unbuttoned dress shirt and the goddamn cig hanging from his lips. The shag isn’t too bad either, though it looks a little rough in the cut department. A little too unblended. Eddie could’ve cut that better, probably.

He makes up for it in the face, though.

“Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?”

Nice voice as well. No wonder the guy’s an A-grade hillbilly fuckface. You gotta keep it balanced somehow.

In the meantime, Steve has stepped up a weirdly protective pace in front of Eddie, hands on his hips and elbows held open wide. Eddie just so suppresses the urge to go onto his tiptoes to steal a look over Steve’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s me, don’t cream your pants.”

And, wow, call Eddie a dead man resurrected right there and then, because, hooboy, nobody ever warned him about how orgasmic it would feel for his crush to pick up his phrases like that! Ten out of ten on the feel good scale. So good, in fact, that for a second Eddie forgets about the immediate danger they have found themselves in.

He catches himself quite quickly again, though, when Mr. Fetch rips off his jacket with a way too big, excited grin for the occasion. He looks downright manic. The bad kind of manic. Eddie knows what he’s talking about.

Steve steps down from the porch, then, like an idiot with a death wish, and honestly, who’s Eddie kidding, that’s— yeah. That’s Steve Harrington to you. God, why does he wanna hold hands with a suicidal idiot?

Eddie grips at his hair as he watches the two men square up against each other in horror. It would’ve been pretty homoerotic in any other situation. Right now, Eddie’s just scared to high heavens. God knows what Steve’s winning streak in physical fights is.

“What’re you doing here, amigo? And who’s that rockstar wannabe over there with you?”

The car door slams shut heavily. It’s a Camaro, by the way. Wonderful car. It’s a shame such a douchebag is driving her.

“Could ask you the same thing,” Steve rumbles, and man, Eddie’s only really spent a few hours max with the guy apart from pining over him during high school, but he can already tell that he’s pitching his voice lower in an attempt to mask his nerves. Jesus, Eddie is worried. “Amigo.”

“Looking for my stepsister. A little birdie told me she was here.”

“Huh, that’s weird. I dunno her.”

Steve is absolutely bluffing right out of his ass, like Red isn’t sitting right under the window eavesdropping with the rest of the baby brigade. Eddie’s mentally sending over any and all bluffing-out-of-one’s-ass skills he’s accumulated over the years. Lord knows Steve’s needing them.

“Small? Redhead? Bit of a bitch?”

Eddie doesn’t like how Mr. Fetch talks about her. Apparently, neither does Steve.

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry, buddy.”

The stepbrother (and who the hell even bothers calling their stepsister stepsister to other people’s faces? Only people that wanna make it very clear that they’re not real family, that’s who) sighs solemnly, takes a deep puff from his cigarette and steps into Steve’s personal space. To go really eye to eye with him. Eddie’s so close to jumping in place with the way his joints wanna lock.

“Y’know, I dunno, this—“ The guy waves his hands around for emphasis, clicks his tongue wetly, “this whole situation, Harrington, I dunno.” 

He steps even closer, and Eddie’s too far away to really see, but he’s dead sure the guy’s looking past Steve right at him instead. “It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

Steve entertains him, for whatever fucking reason. Asks him why instead of just using the element of surprise to his advantage and getting the first punch in, or something.

“Well, my thirteen-year-old sister goes missing all day. And then I find her with you, and a loon I’ve never seen before, at a complete stranger’s house.” The guy looks between Eddie and Steve a few times, a seriously wretched frown on his face, “And you lie to me about it.”

Steve scoffs, clearly not masking well that he feels caught in his bluff, and goddamnit Harrington, once, just once live up to your reputation as King of Hawkins High—

Shit shit shit shit—

“Dude, were you dropped too much as a child, or what?” It’s out of Eddie’s mouth before the emergency filter comes back on. And really, why is he even worrying, Steve is the one standing toe to toe with Mr. Batshit. Still, maybe he should’ve stayed within his boundaries of emotional support and just kept his stupid trap shut. “I dunno what’s so hard to understand about what Steve just said. She’s not here.”

The guy looks past Steve again, to the porch, but Eddie realizes belatedly that he might not have been staring at Eddie at all, whenever he was doing it before. He might’ve just been looking at the window.

“Then who is that?”

Oh, fuck.

Eddie really has bigger things to worry about in the following seconds than whether or not he screams like a little kid at the first shove. Example A, the man in question, Steve Harrington. He lands heavily, somehow completely blindsided, and man, Steve, really. He frankly hasn’t gotten any bit better at fighting since the disaster with Jon a year ago that made round after round at high school.

“I told you to plant your feet.”

See, even douchebag knows.

Not that that makes anything remotely better. Especially not when he kicks at Steve right after, ensuring he stays down a little longer, and Steve groans, Eddie whimpers, and Jesus Christ, this can’t be fucking real, how in the hell is this going to be the end of all things? After he survived, like, four felonies, a car chase, a shootout, and a Demodog attack in the span of a day and a half?

How is he the most scared of a punch to the face? This is seriously embarrassing.

“Get outta my way, fag.”

Eddie gets violently ripped into the present again, because the guy’s right in his face now, up the porch steps, and he’s seething, because – yeah, makes sense, because Eddie’s still standing in front of the front door.

Doesn’t matter, really. Eddie’s more concerned about what he just got called. His heart’s in his throat, next to the crippling cowardice about not wanting to get punched to the face, as he panics. How did a complete stranger clock it so quickly— Is he that obvious—?

“Get. Outta. My way.” Mr. Batshit hisses after about two seconds of a decision-making window, and then grabs Eddie at the lapels of his jacket and throws him down the fucking porch steps.

Eddie’s breath catches in his throat as his whole body hyperfocusses on catching himself before he actually falls. He stumbles down the steps barely standing, joints and ankles rolling as he slips off the edges of the wood steps, and then has to throw himself forward on the dirt ground to keep his balance. He eventually catches himself with his fingernails digging into the ground, pulling himself forward to instead crawl over to Steve.

“Steve, fuck, you good?”

Steve’s still doubled over in pain, lying on his side curled into himself. Eddie barely dares touching his arm and shoulder with how much Steve’s face is contorted in pain. Man, Eddie’s never had the displeasure of getting kicked in the front, which he’s admittedly very glad about, though he’s experienced enough other unpleasant, hurtful things in his lifetime, but based off of how long Steve takes to recover from just one single kick like that, it’s not something Eddie wants to see repeated tonight.

“Yuh, yeah, ‘m good,” Steve wheezes, obviously not good at all, but Eddie helps him uncurl from himself and subsequently get up, anyway. “Never been better. What about you, Munson?”

Eddie kind of forgets to let go of Steve as soon as they stand, maybe because he’s a little frazzled but maybe also because he’s got a little wishful thinking going on, but Steve is also not pulling back. So, for a wonderful few seconds, they’re holding each others’ arms and shoulders and leaning onto each other like a lifeline.

Steve’s eyes jump between Eddie’s own, and then over his other features, down to his mouth, and Eddie’s a coward, so he looks away.

“I’m—I’m fine, man. I’ve had worse than stumbling down some steps. Worry about yourself.”

There’s a sudden rattling and crashing from inside the house. Hillbilly fuckface is rampaging in there, and Eddie blanches. The kids.

The kids.

They rush inside the house just in time to watch Lucas knee bitch boy in the crotch, make him stumble backwards like he didn’t just get blindsided by a middle schooler. Serves him absolutely right.

Though, he absolutely gets embarrassed about it and takes it out via his anger issues. “You’re so dead, Sinclair! So dead.”

Not a good thing to say. Steve and him are already angry enough at him. Now that he’s actually threatening kids, basically their kids, they aren’t pussyfooting around anymore.

This fight is on, and Steve is not holding back. “No, you are.”

This time, the element of surprise is on their side. Steve pulls the guy back at the shoulder, and uses the momentum to give him a mean hook with the other fist. He stumbles back, holding his face for a second because Steve obviously hit him very much dead center this time, thank god, before a truly neck raising laugh leaves as he straightens back up.

Oh, no. That laugh is bad news. That’s an Axel-with-his-knives level of laugh.

“Looks like you got some fire in you, after all, huh? I’ve been waiting to meet his King Steve everybody’s been telling me,” he steps up to Steve, once again, and Steve does not keep his distance, once again, really, is Steve doing this on purpose? Letting him get too close? “–so much about.”

They stare each other down for a tense, quiet moment, and then fuckface’s eyes dart past Steve again, and this time Eddie can’t deny that he’s looking right at him. “Though I still don’t get the, uh. Court jester situation you’ve got on here. Is making fun of queers still in at your castle?”

Eddie can’t even process the insult to the full intent before Steve spits in the most venomous, most dangerous tone he’s ever heard him talk in, “Get. Out. Billy.”

Billy – good to know his name, finally. Fits him. Eddie wasn’t that far off with Hillbilly fuckface – evidently does not care about Steve’s demand to leave, nor does he like it. He projects his next punch way too obviously, even to Eddie, so Steve can luckily dodge right under it. Eddie is jumping a little in place again, but this time around because he’s more supportive than scared for Steve.

And apparently, so are the kids. 

“Yeah, kick his ass, Steve!”

“Get him!”

“Murder that son of a bitch!”

“Get that shithead!”

Steve punches and pushes him into the side of the kitchen. There’s a lull in arms thrown, both of them staggering and preparing for the next move, and Billy is laughing again, even if a little more breathless than before. Eddie’s been in good spirits about this fight up until this point, Steve was doing good, but Eddie has an innate talent to focus on the small details at the worst of times, notice edge movement when nobody else does. So, he’s the only one who realizes what Billy is grappling for on the kitchen counter in time to say something.

“Steve—“

But he isn’t quick enough.

The plate crashes against the side of Steve's head, and Eddie has to watch the love of his life go down, hard. “Steve, fucking—!” 

Steve has barely touched the ground, before Billy picks him back up to get another punch in. Steve stumbles away, violently, crashing into bookshelves and the dinner table as Billy crowds him back over into the living room part of the house where he falls again.

God, fucking, damnit—

If Eddie doesn’t do something soon, this will end bad for Steve.

“No one tells me what to do! Get up!”

Steve does not get up. So Billy gets down instead.

Fuck, Eddie might regret this. Screw that, he will regret this. He’s not good with physical violence. Remember? Never good at anything, especially not jock shit. And fights are certainly, very much quintessential jock shit.

But Billy’s ruthlessly sending his fist against the side of Steve’s face again, and the kids are getting scared, now. Once, twice, his fist collides with his cheekbone, and Steve’s head is just lolling back and forth at this point, he’s pretty much unconscious , and Billy’s pulling back for a fucking third, what the fuck, does he not see—

So Eddie throws himself forward, with a scream that might’ve been manly, might’ve been unmanly as fuck, who knows, and forces himself to not cushion the blow as he dives straight into Billy’s side.

It does the intended job. Billy and him roll off of Steve in an uncoordinated heap, he feels his hand get crushed between the floor and Billy’s back, and his elbow digs into Billy’s chest as the other guy lands on the floor first and softens the fall. For a short moment, Eddie’s excited this actually worked.

Then he realizes that’s as far as he thought ahead. 

Of course, Billy uses their momentum to just roll further, pulling Eddie under him and getting into the same position as he was with Steve just about two seconds earlier.

Fuck. He’s gonna get the beating of his life now, man. This dude is completely bonkers.

Billy has him at the front of his shirt, eyes ripped wide open and manic, fist pulled back halfway, but he’s not going at him, yet. He looks bewildered, excited. Entertained. Like this is his type of saturday night live TV.

Jesus Christ.

“Didn’t know fairies could fight back. Thought y’all were too sissy to throw a punch.”

Oh, to hell with all the gay insults, man. Why do the pretty ones always have to check off all the redneck boxes? This is infuriating. He swears, everything is depending on Steve Harrington to not have a hidden bad side, at this point. Apparently he’s the only decent man in this shithole of a town.

“You tell me, Billy. You seem pretty tactile.”

And it’s a lame comeback, Eddie knows. He’s got  way better in day-to-day life. But he’s literally about to get his head bashed in, give him some slack, will ya?

At least he gets the satisfaction of seeing a true glimpse of fear wash over Billy’s face before the anger comes back tenfold. Takes one to know one, baby, Eddie’s still got it.

Luckily for him, he’s out like a light with the first punch. He would not have liked being conscious to see the end of that.

Eddie’s the first one to gain consciousness again.

And it’s not pretty, let him tell you.

His whole face is throbbing with just a general all-out pain. Then there’s his eye socket, his nose bridge and his lips. Those hurt especially, having painful heartbeats of their own. It’s all swollen, wet and burning at once. Not to mention he can’t focus his eyes for shit , for at least twelve seconds after coming back to the living. He knows because he can feel his heartbeats everywhere and it’s inevitable not to count them when there’s nothing else to focus on.

He can only reiterate: he’s glad he didn’t experience any of these injuries firsthand. Maybe there is a God, after all. Though the aftermath is no joke, either.

“Nancy?” Eddie mumbles when his eyes are finally starting to work again, albeit slowly, and he stares up at curly brown hair and piercing eyes. The second he speaks it, he realizes it can’t be her because she drove away with Jon earlier. Then, Mike grimaces at him in disgust for the comment. Yup. Deserved.

The next thing Eddie realizes is that he’s on the floor in the back of his van. Next to sloshing gas canisters. And a still unconscious Steve Harrington.

They’re driving.

“Jeeeesus Christ,” Eddie groans, instinctively going to rub his eyes as he tries sitting up, but Dustin, seated right at their heads, catches his wrist and shushes him, pushes him back down. “Hey buddy, don’t touch it. Don’t touch it.”

Eddie’s instantly disgruntled, “What the fuck, shitbird, lemme up.”

“You did so good standing up to Billy. Very badass. You didn’t even know him before and still did it.”

They drive over a bump and Eddie moans as his head slams into the metal floor. He waves his hand around erratically, “Yeah, yeah, whatever— Where, where are we going?”

Dustin starts to answer, but the bump seems to have woken Steve up as well. He groans, and almost par for par, he has the same exchange with the surrounding kids as Eddie just had. Beginning with, “Nance?”

“God, what is it with you two and Nancy?”

Eddie would’ve loved to be able to laugh. He’s not yet there, sadly.

Dustin does the same spiel with Steve. Slaps his hand away from his face and moves the ice pack he’s got on his temple to the middle of his eye.

“Hey buddy, shh. It’s okay, you put up a good fight with Billy. He kicked your ass, but you put up a good fight, and Eddie here saved your life, okay? You’re alright. Could’ve been worse.”

Distracted with Steve, Eddie is finally able to sit up without Dustin preventing him to. For a second everything turns on its axis as he holds himself up, but that doesn’t stop him from noticing Lucas in the shotgun seat giving directions to— to—

“Woah woah woah woah, why is there a child driving my van—“

“What’s going on,” Eddie hears Steve mumble from his position still on the floor with his head on Dustin’s lap, and he sounds so slurred and soft and confused, it would’ve almost been cute if Eddie wasn’t just staring down Red driving his car right that second.

“Look at the fucking street, you suicidal moron! You wanna kill us?”

Caught, she jumps in place and whips her head back around. The car hiccups as she pumps the brakes in her fright. Because she’s a beginner and still hasn’t gotten the instinct to brake at any inconvenience trained out of her.

“Oh my god,” Steve mumbles again, already sounding a little more himself with the sudden panic of realizing a child is driving them.

“Relax, she’s driven before,” Dustin tries placating, which does not help. Especially not when Mike argues, very much unimpressed, “Yeah, in a parking lot.”

They keep arguing. Eddie tells them to stop the car. They don’t listen. Steve’s freaking out still, getting louder by the second. Eddie tells them to stop the car again. Red is pushing the gas instead of the brakes. Mike and Lucas are still arguing about parking lots and Steve freaking out as Eddie screams once more, not even any words this time, just yells.

“Urgh, everybody shut up! I’m trying to focus here!”

They’re quiet for maybe a millisecond.

“Wait, that’s Mount Sinai over there, make a left,” Lucas screeches, “Make a left!”

They do, in fact, make a left. They left so hard Eddie gets thrown around the floor of the van and crashes right into Mike and the gas canister he’s holding onto for dear life. And because he’s the unluckiest person on earth, he hits his head against the metal’s edge and gets something jabbing into his funny bone where he catches himself with his elbow on the ground.

Ouch.

Everyone’s screaming at this point. They’re taking every bump and every mailbox on the road with them. Eddie doesn’t even wanna imagine how fucked up his beauty of a van will be after all this. He wishes he could just fall unconscious again.

The van rocks across uneven dirt for a few agonizing minutes and then stops abruptly, with a last yell from Steve. It’s entirely quiet for a good few moments after Red kills the engine as soon as they stand. Lucas is cautious enough to pull the handbrakes for her. Thank god for this kid.

“Incredible,” Mike admits at the same time that Eddie hums, “Gotta give it to ya, Red.”

She looks entirely too smug for the unsubtle way she was panicking about two thirds of the way here. “Told you. Zoomer.”

Then, they filter out one after the other. Lucas opens the side door of the van and helps Mike and Dustin out. In true tween fashion, they let him and Steve fend for themselves. Which is really rich of them, considering neither of them can see straight yet, especially after that roller coaster of a ride.

Eddie feels the worst kind of drunk as he pulls himself out with the help of every spot he could grab at inside the van and then turns back to do the same with Steve.

Steve is heavy as he pulls him out, and even heavier as he gets onto his own feet and stumbles right into Eddie. He’s warm, though. Warm and strong and clings to Eddie like he’s the only thing holding him up in that moment. He might be. Eddie doesn’t mind much.

Steve pushes away from Eddie eventually, groaning something soft as he leans clumsily against the van instead. “Guys.”

The baby brigade is not listening. They’re getting all the gas cans from the van, putting on whack ass gear that Eddie has no idea where they even got it from. Did they put all of this together while he and Steve were unconscious? How the hell even?

“Oh, no. Guys,” Steve tries again, watches Mike walk past them as if they aren’t even there.

“Where you going?” Eddie tries in his stead, seeing as so far Mike and him had a good streak, but not even that gets them a reaction. Annoyed, Steve insults him for it. Not that it helps anything, but maybe he feels better with it. He’ll let it slide.

Eddie takes the opportunity to scope out where they are. Obviously, at the farms. It looks suspiciously like the ground surrounding the Byers house. Very grotesquely oversized, collapsed molehills- esque. Right behind them is a big ass hole. Using his pride and joy, his syllogism skills, Eddie deduces that that should be the hole Hopper has dug.

So, the absolutely unnecessarily dangerous plan of setting the whole thing on fire is still in full swing, Eddie hazards.

God, these kids are crazier than Dottie and Axel combined.

“We’re not going down there. I think I made myself clear.”

Steve is so adorable, really, for trying his damndest still to put some kind of authority out on these kids, in his state. The guy is slurring and stumbling so bad where he stands that not even Eddie can take him very seriously at the moment — and he’s in the same fucking predicament as the guy. Though, he thinks he got away slightly better than Steve.

“Hey, there’s no chance we’re going down that hole, alright?” He’s getting really upset now, because nobody and their mothers is even remotely listening to him, “This ends right now!”

Dustin has about had it with Steve, apparently. He screams back, and hey, there’s the asshole kid Eddie’s come to know, there’s the attitude he’s missed before. This Dustin, he knows. This Dustin has, for some fucked up reason, wrapped King Steve around his little finger like it’s nothing.

“You’re upset, Steve, I get it! But bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance.”

It’s like music in Eddie’s ears, hearing the kid talk like that. It’s truly a love-hate relationship he’s got going on with Dustin. On one hand his ego is frankly unbearable, but on the other hand he’s charming and self-assured as fuck. This kid can do whatever he wants to because he knows very well what he can allow himself to do.

Yeah, Eddie’s not above admitting Dustin’s like him. Ego and attitude and weird special interests and all.

“Now, I know you and Eddie promised Nance to keep us safe,” Dustin continues, grabbing a backpack with Steve’s nailed bat sticking out of it and thrusting it against Steve’s chest. “So, keep us safe.”

They don’t really have a choice, so they go down the fucking hole.

They even put the stupid ass gear on that the kids brought for them. Goggles for the eyes and bandanas for the mouth and nose. Steve even has gloves on.

This is just seriously ridiculous. Eddie loves it.

Mike’s got some kind of hand drawn map on him that he probably copied from the oversized tunnel map in the Byers house before they left. Eddie’s still not over how these bunch of thirteen year olds have gotten all this shit on the road while also carrying two grown, unconscious adult men into a van a few hundred feet away from the house.

Eddie commends them.

Mike is just about to take on the lead when Steve interjects once again. He’s very obviously still not a fan of the whole ordeal, but he’s kind of gotten arranged with it. He does like to take it out on Mike, though, anyway.

“Woah woah woah, hey, hey, hey, hey. I don’t think so,” Steve grouses, and Mike looks back at him with what Eddie can only assume to be a confused look, since his whole face is obscured. “Any of you little shits die down here, I'm getting the blame. Got it, dipshit?”

He rips the map out of Mike’s hands and turns back to the whole group, “From here on out, Eddie and I are leading the way. C’mon, let’s go!”

Eddie throws his arms up, appalled. He rushes to the front to Steve, whining, “The fuck, man— Why the hell are you pulling me into this—“

Steve’s already facing forward again, stomping on. Eddie stumbles after him, still complaining. “It would be way safer for the kids if I was at the back to keep everyone together, like in kindergarten—“

Steve huffs something fierce, not turning back to him. “Shut up, Munson,” Eddie guesses it’s supposed to sound like he’s putting a foot down, but all it does sound like is tender. “You’re staying with me.”

And, yeah— that’s— that’s a thing. A, a thing. What kind of thing? Eddie has no idea. But it makes him want to scream. Or make a hummingbird sound.

“Uh. Okay. No, no problem, Harrington. If you miss me that much.”

Steve huffs again, but it does sound softer, this time around. He doesn’t say much else, but does he really need to?

Eddie’s so screwed.

“Gimme the map. I’m good with directions.”

Somewhere on the way, Red ends up next to them for a bit. Eddie pushes the map back into Steve’s hands and falls back a step so he can talk to her. He’s got a few questions, ever since his brain has been fully back online after getting its shit knocked back to factory settings. She seems focused and singleminded as she stares ahead, but Eddie can see the anxious flicker in whatever he can see of her face.

He could ask her for her name first thing, if he wanted to. But somehow, at this point, he got voluntarily beaten up by her stepbrother without knowing her name, so who even needs those mortal titles, anyway? They’re past names. If he finds out, he’ll ignore it anyway.

“So, uh, Red,” he starts, barely keeping himself from tripping, and holding out his arms to keep his balance. Dustin calls out to not touch the walls. Whatever. “What the aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks happened to your fuckface of a brother after he sent me and Steve to temporarily hang out with God?”

Red frowns forward at – all of that. All of what he said. He watches it in real time. First the nickname, then the deliberate censoring, then the hangout with God comment. She voices as much, “First off, what is anything of what you just said supposed to mean. Speak english. And maybe don’t spell hell in the same sentence as you use the Lord’s name.”

Eddie’s appalled. “That’s the whole point of spelling hell instead of saying hell.”

Red rolls her eyes so hard he can almost hear it over the crunchy echoes of the tunnels. What he can hear, though, is Steve coughing in a bad excuse of covering up his snort.

“Whatever,” she gripes, sweeps her eyes over to Eddie once, and, yup, there it is. Under her pulled down eyebrows and permanent frown Eddie sees a kid with enough childhood trauma and domestic abuse that he almost thinks he’s looking into a mirror. No matter how hard she tries, he can clock the fear in her eyes from half a second of accidental eye contact and under yellow tinted goggles. “I drugged him.”

Pause. What?

“What?” He laughs, in utter disbelief, maybe hysterics. A tiny bit of excitement. Overall concern, though. Steve seems to share the sentiment, “You did what now?”

Red rolls her eyes again, shrugging. She looks like she wants to seem confident, but Eddie looks right through her. She’s still scared.

“I drugged him. With the stuff they were using on Will. And I took his car keys.” She proves it by pulling out a key ring from her jacket pocket and jingling it in front of her face. “Only after I threatened him with the nail bat, of course. But I took the keys anyway, for good measure.”

Eddie adores her. She might be a close second to Jane—

Right, Jane. Who they’re down here for in the first place. So they can clear up a passage for her to close the portal to a hell dimension. He hopes she’s fine so far.

They should hurry.

“Absolutely bitchin’,” Eddie stresses, can’t stress this enough. Red flinches and looks over to him like she’s doing a double take. “You’re way cooler than your brother. Now, Steve, let’s get back on track, where is that map?”

They eventually find the hub. It looks just like the drawing of it on the big map in the house, funnily enough. Eddie can’t really explain it. But it’s spacious, has tunnels going off every which way, and the air is grey with those spores that Dustin freaked out over earlier. Looks just like he imagined it.

They don’t pussyfoot around for long. Mike tells them to drench it, and they don’t need to be told twice.

The kids even got their hands on some kind of power washer thing. Lucas is handling it and basically spray painting the walls with gasoline while the rest of them empty out the canisters on about every square inch of the floor and vines. It takes a few minutes, but eventually Steve ushers them all together. “Get ready, get ready.”

Eddie feels like he should take the lead on this for a bit. Since, y’know, he’s the one with the decent direction and navigation skills, and Steve is actually not gathering them at the tunnel with the shortest way back to their hole. He can’t really hold it against him that he lost track of which tunnel they came from during their little arts and crafts project, but all the more reason for Eddie to take it from here.

“Steve, my liege, if I may,” Eddie starts, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible because he does not want to get onto Steve’s bad side when he’s obviously in leader mode right now, “Let’s not get ready to run in front of the wrong tunnel. I wouldn’t want us to get caught in a dead end when fire and those Demogorgon mole things might be hot on our heels as soon as we let it rip.”

“Demodogs,” Dustin sulks quietly, but Eddie ignores him. Watches Steve instead.

They take each other in for a few seconds. Steve with the lighter in one hand, hunched over a little where he was ushering the kids behind him. Eddie, with his arms held open but not too far up because he doesn’t wanna impose, tilted halfway in the direction of the tunnel with the shortest way back.

Then, Steve straightens back up, humming a short, “Huh.” before shrugging and twirling his arm in his best ‘go on’ motion.

“You heard the man. Move it, dipshits.”

The kids scram obediently, for once. Eddie has the sinking feeling that it will be the only time. Ever. That he experiences that.

No matter. They gotta run, so he’s gotta prepare them.

He leads them to the right tunnel, and positions himself behind the group. Steve is still at the front, still basically kneeling in the hub, as he tells everyone to get ready, once again. It’s objectively the smartest lineup they could’ve chosen, with Steve protecting everyone from the fire at the front and Eddie leading them down the quickest way at the front. Subjectively, Eddie’s spot is also the farthest away from danger, but that’s just a nice little side effect.

“Ready, everyone?” Steve asks one last time, and everyone answers seriously for a change. All the kids echo it back, and then Steve throws an obscured glance back. “Munson, you ready?”

Eddie takes a deep breath, and nods. “Ready, Harrington. Light her up.”

Steve’s zippo clangs as he opens it, and the sound reverberates around the hub. Eddie turns around to the tunnel, readying for sprinting for his goddamn life.

“We’re in such deep shit,” he hears Steve deadpan one last time, and then the wonderful, deathly sound of arson floods Eddie’s ears.

He runs. “Go, go, go!”

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Steve keeps repeating as Eddie leads them through the tunnels. Which, same. He’s just got other things to worry about, so he can’t really verbally freak out, only mentally.

Luckily the flames don’t actually spread after them, so they’re not in as much of a rush as he expected. That’s no reason to slow down, though. He only looks onto the map to check if he’s got it memorized correctly still, but otherwise he leads them mostly by heart. The kids follow him blindly.

“C’mon, this way, this way. Don’t trip on this vine—“

They’re about halfway back to the hole when Mike does exactly that, trips over the vine Eddie himself almost tripped over twice, both on their way over to the hub and just now on their way back, as well. Eddie yells only shortly, “What’d I just say!” before Mike’s screams of help drown out his annoyance. He can’t even get Steve’s name out of his mouth before the guy is pulling the nail bat from his back.

Good thing he was running at the end of the group, keeping them together, like in kindergarten. Eddie was right.

“Hold on, hold on! Everybody stay back.” 

Steve strikes down onto the writhing vine around Mike’s calf once, twice, three times before it separates in a squishy squeal that has Eddie’s stomach turning. Dustin helps Mike up, and he reassures everyone that he’s okay.

“Everyone good? Okay, we gotta keep–“

Just as Eddie turns around to continue on his route, he gets stopped by another squishy squeal. Just, way louder, deeper, and in the form of a fucking Demodog only a few feet in front of them. “Oh fucking, Jesus Christ—“

This is so not funny.

Dustin pushes past him, and Eddie would’ve said something if he wasn’t so fucking scared right now.

“Dart,” he warns like he’s admonishing a pet’s bad bad behavior, and what the fuck? This thing’s got a name? Why?

“Dustin, what the fuck, get back here!” Eddie hisses at the same time as about everyone else in the group hisses similar things. It all ends in a cacophony of nothing but noise, but Dustin shushes them. Like common dogs, or something, man. As if he isn’t the one trying to talk to a quadruped monster with no eyes and a chaff cutter mouth that opens four ways.

“Trust me on this,” Dustin pleads, and Jesus H. Christ, what other option do they have?

They all watch as the monster, Dart, creeps closer, as Dustin gets down to his knees and takes off his gear, what the fuck, as he soothingly talks to the thing and reminds it of who he is. Eddie would like to confidently say Dustin’s gone completely batshit, but he can’t because it works. Dart looks. Calm. For one of those monsters.

“He’s insane,” Lucas spits, and as much as Eddie would normally agree, he instead tells him to shut up, like about everyone else does as well. Let the insane thirteen year old do what he’s gotta do, as long as it works.

“I’ve got our favorite, some nougat! See?” And this kid is seriously pulling out some chocolate bar from his backpack and shows it to his pet-monster-whatever, and the thing even tilts his head at him in consideration. Oh, my god.

He keeps talking to it as he unwraps it and places it between them. Then, with his now free hand, he waves them past.

Eddie’s not about to second guess this shit right now. He tiptoes past as quick as possible, avoiding even looking at the thing too closely.

As soon as he’s past, he’s jogging around the corner to grab at his heart. He lets the shudder that was waiting for him to relax enough run down his back, shaking with it the whole length of his body.

He won’t ever recover from this.

They finally round back on the hole, and Eddie’s never been so happy in his life to see a rope he has to climb. Fuck Mr. Briggs and his phys ed lessons, but goddamn would Eddie love to share with him the level of excitement he’s experiencing to be rope climbing right this second. Briggs’ face would be priceless.

Apparently, though, some higher power has something against Eddie being happy about physical activity. Which really is A Sign, if Eddie’s ever witnessed one. But the ground shakes beneath them so hard that they all lose balance on the spot, accompanied by a truly reverberating screeching.

“What was that?” Red asks carefully, and really, what a question that is. There’s not really that many options down here, and it sure as hell was none of them.

Mike summarizes the answer quite straightforwardly, “Run, run!”

Which is exactly what they do.

They take a last leap for the rope, and Steve pants heavily, “Help me boost the kids!” before hollering at them, “Go go go go! Up up up!”

Red is the first one on them, and with both their help, she’s halfway boosted out of the hole before she needs to pull herself out. Magical. Next is Lucas, and he too is out of the whole wonderfully and efficiently quick, with Red also helping him out from the other side. They’re just boosting Mike up and Eddie is about to say something along the lines of ‘Wow, this is going surprisingly well,’ when there’s another roar shaking the tunnels around them and they’re losing grip on the kid.

Luckily, Mike is already far enough up and gets pulled out by the other two.

Which leaves them with Dustin down in the tunnels. The rumbling doesn’t stop, and it starts sounding distinctly more like footfalls the closer it gets.

“Oh shit,” Steve sighs the same time Eddie whines, “Fuck me.”

Steve gets his bat out and steps in front of Dustin. Eddie stays behind them, closing his arms around Dustin and encasing him between himself and Steve. The rest of the baby brigade is screaming down at them from outside the hole, trying to get them to boost Dustin up still. Even if they wanted to, the ground is just too unsteady and the monsters are just around the corner, Eddie can see their shadows.

And then— then they’re charging at them. Eddie squeezes his eyes together in fright, mentally putting his life behind himself as he wishes he would’ve been able to see Uncle Wayne one last time, and suffocates Dustin in his grip.

But.

Nothing happens. It’s a little windy next to them. And loud.

“What—“

Eddie opens his eyes again, and through the noise of the stampede, he’s able to watch dozens upon dozens of monsters flee past them.

The three of them turn around, amazed, watching after the horde.

“What,” Eddie starts again, but Mike interrupts him.

“Eleven.”

When they’re sure they’re safe, they boost Dustin up at last. Eddie watches the kid’s shoes disappear over ground, then all of their stupid little faces pop up again to stare down at them.

Right. Now it’s their turn.

Eddie looks back down, catches Steve’s eyes. They’re staring at each other, daring the other to go up first. It’s a little awkward. He can’t really pinpoint why.

Steve nods his head up. “C’mon, up you go, Munson. I’ll try not to touch your ass.”

Eddie is absolutely flabbergasted at the comment.

“What— Why is that your first thought?”

Steve tenses up a bit, suddenly stammering. “Wuh, well, uh, buh, because that’s how— we helped the kids? Up there? Before they stepped onto our shoulders, and shit? I grabbed them— by the butts.”

The baby brigade groans and curses in unison. The bottom line Eddie filters out is ‘don’t remind us’.

“Wuh, whatever, dude,” Eddie croaks, shaking his head as if that helps him getting that weird headspace shaken out of his mind as well, and steps closer to Steve. “I don’t care if you touch my ass right now. By all means, please touch my ass if that gets me out of this literal hellhole.”

Steve sucks in a kind of sharp breath in response, and isn’t that a peculiar reaction. Eddie would be happy about that and overthink it to hell and back if he wasn’t just having the worst forty-eight hours of his entire life. He’s got bigger things to worry about right now. Steve’s shaky breath as Eddie puts his hands on the other’s shoulders is future-Eddie’s problem right about now.

“Right, right,” Steve mumbles, and the kids groan out a ‘finally’ as Steve bends down to grab Eddie at the back of his thighs, and hoists him up.

And yeah.

Maybe— maybe Eddie was a wee bit too nonchalant about the whole ordeal. As if this isn’t one of the thousand positions he has fantasized to be in with Steve Harrington in the past four years or so. Though, the situation could decidedly have been a better one.

Still. This is probably an occurrence that won’t ever leave him again. Simply because of the sheer strength Steve’s showcasing in that moment, fuck. He could’ve boosted the kids up all by himself, no problem.

His thighs still burn from the heat of Steve’s hands as the kids pull him out of the ground, and they keep burning as they all pull out Steve seconds later.

Then, they all collapse to the ground, in the headlights of Eddie’s van.

They’ve done it.

“Everyone good?” Eddie heaves as he’s finally able to rip off these godforsaken goggles and pull down the bandanna. There’s a soft, tired chorus of confirmation, and a whole lotta rustle that sounds like exactly the same gear-taking-off that he’d just done.

“Good. Good.”

Eddie turns flat onto his back again, staring up at the starry sky, a tsunami of relief finally allowed to wash through him unhindered. He sighs shakily, scrubbing his hands over his face as he sobs, feeling light as a feather.

They fucking did it. It’s over. And they all got out unharmed. Well, mostly. Eddie’s reminded about his injuries belatedly, as the pain flares up right after the rush of endorphins ebbs away.

“Ouch.” It pulls him back to reality enough, at least. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out again as he sits up.

Steve is crouched before him, staring at him with one wide eye, one half swollen shut. Shit, he looks like a fucking basket case without the goggles and bandanna hiding his face. Eddie can’t hold back the hysterical giggle.

“Dude, you look poor.”

Steve rolls his eyes, well, his eye, and holds out a hand to Eddie. “You’re one to speak, Munson. C’mon, we gotta get back to the house.”

Eddie takes the offered hand gratefully, and together, they stand. Everyone else is already standing and slowly sauntering over to the van. Steve goes over to the kids and puts his arms wide, over most of their shoulders, guiding them over to the side door softly.

“You did good down there, kiddos. Nobody died, so I’m—“ Steve falters for a second, looking up at the sky and cursing at himself for what he’s about to say next, “I’m proud of you, alright? Keep— keep not dying and I’ll be a happy babysitter.”

The playgroup starts complaining at that, but they all get distracted when the headlights of the van suddenly start shining super brightly. Eddie’s hairs are standing up on his arms and his neck watching it happening. With every passing second he gets more worried that they’ll blow out, but then, all of a sudden, the lights dim again. An almost comical blanket of serenity gets laid across the land, and Eddie would say something about it if he wasn’t feeling at ease for the first time in, maybe, ever.

“She did it, it’s over,” Mike sighs softly, reverently, and on God, Eddie’s never related to a thirteen year old more than in that second.

Eddie breathes in as deeply as he can. To feel the pain of his lungs expanding to capacity. To feel the extent of his life.

Jane, his newly adopted sister, has just closed the portal to an alternate monster dimension called the Upside Down, consequently killing hundreds of Demogorgons and defeating the Mind Flayer, and saving, to put it simply, the whole entire fucking world.

Oh, man.

He wants to go home.

Eddie’s knee won’t stop bouncing.

He’s tried everything. His scalp is raw from pulling at his hair, the skin around his thumbnail is bitten down so far it’ll start bleeding if he doesn’t stop. His split lip has reopened where he worried at it for only a few seconds before thinking better of it.

He should be calm about this. It’s done. It’s over. Mike said it, they all felt it.

Still.

Eddie won’t be able to rest until he can see for himself that Jane’s fine.

He’s got an oh so civic duty to fulfil, after all.

The kids had already dozed off around them on their drive back to the house, and when they arrived, they took about five minutes more of forced wakefulness to see if Billy was still there. Only after they were absolutely sure he’d left did Eddie and Steve prepare Will’s and Jonathan’s bedrooms for the kids to go sleep a bit.

They’re sure they won’t mind the kids using them for now. Eddie’s not even sure if the Byerses will come back here tonight. So, he doesn’t feel all too bad as he strips the beds and puts fresh sheets on.

He sure as hell hopes for Jane that she makes Hopper bring her back here. She promised him she would get back to him.

So this is where it leads them now. With Max (yes, he has heard her name be said by now) resting in Jonathan’s room, and the boys in Will’s room. Steve has taken a seat on the couch a few minutes ago, arms crossed loosely, his head fallen to the back of it while he ‘rests his eyes’. Eddie is watching him breathe like a hawk from his seat at the cluttered dinner table, but he can’t really enjoy the sight of a relaxed, sleeping Steve Harrington as much as he would’ve loved to.

He just matches his breathing to Steve’s instead. Because otherwise he would hyperventilate or something.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring and listening. He hears the ticking of a clock somewhere in the vicinity, but he can’t see it under all the sheets still taped across the walls. All he can do is count the minutes, until he gets distracted by panic and anxiety, and starts at zero again. Until he can finally, finally, hear the familiar drone of Hopper’s Blazer come closer, a sound so fear inducing to him after years of dealing around town and burning it into his memory to scram quicker, yet so relieving in this one single moment it all boils down to.

“Hrgh–huh, are they back,” Steve breathes himself awake, as his head lolls forward and he sits up a little straighter again.

His wakefulness rises Eddie, as well. The car doors open and slam closed again, and with it, Eddie jumps out of his seat. His hands and knees shake as he walks over to the door, suddenly scared to all death that Hopper will come in alone. What if this whole ordeal killed Jane, like it did back last year and she woke up in the Upside Down all by herself, helpless?

Please, Jesus, Mary and Joseph—

The door opens, and at first, Eddie only sees Hopper. God, no, please, no—

But then, with the door opening fully and the Chief stepping into the soft, warm light of the house, Eddie can see the lump of Dottie’s old, worn boots, Mick’s too-small jacket, Axel’s retired battle vest, and Eddie’s cut up ripped jeans bundled up in Hopper’s arms.

Eddie’s so relieved he sinks to his knees. “Thank fucking God, oh my God. Holy shit. Jane.”

The lump of superpowered teen in Hopper’s arm struggles then, and he bends down to set her onto the ground from where he carried her from the car into the house. Jane turns to him, her face destroyed in all kinds of ways, but Eddie can worry about that later. First off, she drags her feet over and throws herself at him without much preamble. Just like when she fell down onto the mattress in the warehouse just two days ago, and when she walked straight into him as a goodbye just a few hours earlier.

“Eddie. You’re hurt.”

And there it is. There it fucking is, the hummingbird, and Eddie’s never been happier to cry about anything in his entire life.

“Fuck— Yeah. That’s me, I am,” he warbles, and then Jane is softly hiccuping into his jaw, and he automatically goes to cradle the base of her skull, and god, he’s trying so hard not to wail like a baby here. “And you’re Jane, and you’re alive, and everything’s fine, and you’re here.”

“Yes, I am here,” Jane’s voice quivers with unshed tears, but he gets that she can’t cry again, she looks like she’s been crying nonstop for a hot minute already.

“And I’m so grateful for that,” Eddie says again, and squeezes his arms as tightly around her as he can manage without hurting her. “I wouldn’t wanna have to explain to Kali what happened to her sister after I promised to protect you.”

Jane laughs wetly. Eddie joins in.

“You did say no promises.”

Eddie snorts, then sniffles.

“I did, didn’t I?”

The rest of the baby brigade joins them in the living room of the house after they hear the commotion. They’re all tired and groggy and sleep muddled, but it’s obvious they were just napping lightly at best, and that’s forgotten as soon as they see Jane and Hopper.

Eddie extracts himself from Jane kindly to give the kids enough room for their reunion. Their actual reunion, with no immediate danger cutting anything short, allowing them to welcome Jane back into their arms unharmed and share with her their relief. Which they deserve, a hundred percent.

Throughout everything, in the face of danger, it’s easy to forget that they’re still only kids. But, as Eddie and Steve and Hopper watch them dog pile in the middle of the front room with all kinds of noises between sobbing and laughing escaping them, it’s become crystal clear again.

They’re just kids and they deserve anything they could ever want.

And if that’s just staying up way past three AM, hell, Eddie’s done worse at their age. He’ll be the last one to send them to sleep.

Steve’s still in his seat on the couch, arms still loosely crossed and shoes by now discarded on the floor so he could pull his feet up on the seats, so Eddie feels safe enough to leave the kids in his watch and step out onto the porch with Hopper when the man himself waves Eddie to the outside.

They both end up leaned against the railing, hands splayed on the wood a measured distance away from each other, looking out into the dark trees surrounding the Byers house. If they would focus enough, they could still see Demodog corpses sticking out from brushes here and there, but they don’t. That’s probably for the better.

The wood railing creaks as Hopper moves to push himself off of it, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket instead and offering one to Eddie after taking one for himself. Eddie’s got his own pack, but he’s not going to refuse his dearly missed favorite Chief of Police. He takes one, puts it between his lips and waits until Hopper lights it for him.

“Thanks,” he finally sighs, with the first drag of smoke, and he immediately feels the head rush of nicotine. He hasn’t had a smoke break since the last one they took on the highway on their way over here. Jane doesn’t like breathing in smoke, so he didn’t while they were on the road.

“You’re good, kid,” the Chief rumbles, back to staring out front. Eddie’s watching him this time, pursuing his gaze to the Camaro still haphazardly parked a few yards from them. “Care to explain why Billy Hargrove’s car’s here?”

Eddie feels like it’s only a question of courtesy. Hopper is neither stupid nor blind, even if a lot of townspeople would like to say otherwise. Hopper just knows where to put his priorities and, if Eddie’s truly honest to himself, he always looks out for the kids in town. There’s a reason Hopper is drug business thwarter number one fo Eddie, and that reason is not that Hopper’s an avid opponent to drugs.

Eddie snorts anyway, humors the Chief. Takes another drag, then makes a circle across his face with the two fingers holding his cig. “Oh, he just came by to say hello. Welcome me back into Hawkins. Though he wasn’t very delighted to discover he’s only the second prettiest metalhead around.”

Hopper scoffs at that, breathing out harshly. He’s leaning on his elbows now, flicking the ash down the porch over the railing from a limp wrist. He’s still staring at the Camaro, or maybe at Eddie’s van next to it. The van he stole from around here a few months ago. Hopper must know. There’s no way he forgot.

“Right, and Steve’s a metalhead too, then? Or why do you both look like that?”

Eddie shrugs, copies Hopper’s stance. It’s quiet between them for a bit, until they both have their cigs smoked down to the filter. Eddie clears his throat, carefully rubbing between his eyebrows.

“He came for Max. Broke in and almost killed Lucas. Then he almost killed Steve. And then he almost killed me. But it’s fine, Max eventually drugged him and took his keys as punishment.”

Eddie has never seen the Chief splutter before. But he guesses there’s a first time for everything, especially after a night like theirs.

“She did what?”

Eddie chuckles, a little hysterical at the memories. “Oh, Chief-O, that’s nothing compared to what she did after that, believe me.”

Hopper gets radioed over Dustin’s walkie-talkie that’s still clipped to his belt a few minutes into Eddie’s vaguest retellings of what they were up to while Jane was closing the gate and the Byers were exorcising Will. He’s not about to spill more details than he has to, not when he’s got nobody to back him up and protect him from Hop’s wrath.

It’s Mrs. Byers. She tells them that they’re done with cleanup, probably over at the cabin, and asks how all of them over here are. Eddie watches some serious mental gymnastics through the flaring of Hopper’s nostrils alone, obviously debating whether or not to snitch on what the babysitter group was doing during all of this.

It’s very amusing to see a grown ass, stoic man like Hopper quarrel with his own thoughts like that. At the same time, Eddie’s sure he’s got a good reason for that, and that reason most likely is Mrs. Byers herself. Which makes total sense. 

After everything that happened tonight, after it was once again her youngest son being tormented by whatever kind of monster the Mind Flayer is, he wouldn’t want to tell her about the group of kids they left behind in what they hoped was safety to barely escape death, like, a dozen more times. Three quarters of them being self afflicted.

“You didn’t need to do that, Joyce,” Hopper eventually decides on saying, and his voice is so gruff it cracks on the words a little. Eddie smiles into his hand. “We’re fine over here. Everyone’s alive ‘n kicking. We’re all staying here tonight, if that’s fine with you and the boys. Y’all stay over at the cabin, too.”

Joyce starts protesting over the suggestion in the same breath that she assures them it’s obviously mighty fine that they all spend the night, she insists even. Of course it’s just like her to not accept hospitality like that. Hopper isn’t having it.

“No, Joyce. None of you are in the right state of mind to drive over here, after all you went through today. You stay there for the night and we’ll take care of everything else tomorrow morning. Okay?”

Mrs. Byers stammers around some more, and then there’s sudden static over the radio. Eddie perks up at that, instantly alert again because what if something happened just now? But then, before neither of them can worry too much, Jonathan’s soothing voice comes on over the channel.

“Will do, Chief. I’ll take care of mom. We’ll radio you tomorrow morning, alright? Goodnight to everyone.”

Goodnight, indeed.

Eddie’s pretty sure his and Hop’s one-on-one on the porch is over after that radio conversation with the cabin crew. He’s already halfway to the front door when the guy calls out to him again.

“Ed–duh,” Hopper stammers, and Eddie notices immediately that he wanted to say the Full Name, but thought better of it at the last second. Better for him. Would’ve been embarrassing, and Eddie thinks that with full confidence. His mom picked out his name, and she was named Elinoar, her brothers Ezra and Emmet, their father Ezekiel. There’s a reason he goes under Eddie.

“Yes, that’s me. Edduh.”

Hopper huffs and puffs, “Watch it,” then he deflates again. He groans as he leans his head back. “Listen, kid. What you got yourself into here, hate to break it to ya, but it’s heavy shit. Like, some feds-level, NDA-level type shit. You won’t get out of this, ever. This sticks with you, just as it sticks with all of us.”

Hopper looks back over to him again, and his eyes are hard, and serious, but also, weirdly enough, soft and concerned. It’s weird. It’s weird that Eddie can discern that. Isn’t it?

“Yeah, I uh, I gathered that much. I’ve been with people from the lab for months before this.”

Hopper looks taken aback for a second. Squints his eyes at him. Eddie deflects with a wave. “Chicago. I’ll—I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Right,” Hopper drawls, and gets back on track with whatever he wants to achieve with this conversation. “Point is. This whole— thing will take some time to clean up. Get stories straight, do damage control, construct alibis and, and whatnot else. Everything. Everything takes time.”

Eddie tilts his head at him. Scratches at his scalp, pulls at his hair. He would like another cigarette. “So?”

“So,” Hopper mocks, and then he throws open his arms in a placating type of motion, palms up, “You’ll have to stay with us for the meantime. Until everything’s taken care of. After that we can work on getting you back to your uncle, getting you back to school.”

Eddie’s first instinct is to laugh out a ‘fuck no’.

He thinks better of it, though, because honestly, he already expected something like this in the back of his mind. After everything Jane told him, after he saw how many people are involved with this whole Upside Down thing and have not leaked anything a year later. No one in this town suspects anything about what’s going on behind closed doors.

Then again, no one in this town tries looking, either.

“‘Staying with us’ means staying with you and Jane, correct?” Eddie waits until Hopper nods, and he looks as unenthusiastic about it as Eddie feels. But, he’s trying to focus on the good things, here. He’ll stay with Jane. “Hopper, I hope you realize what that means. This makes me, uh, basically your son. Temporary. Son-in-spirit.”

“Don’t ever say that again, asshole. I have about twelve closed cases on you that I could reopen right now and arrest you for. Don’t tempt me.”

Eddie giggles like a giddy school girl, or something. This is more like the Chief he knows.

“Alright, Daddy-O. But hey, if the feds are getting involved, they sure as hell can do something about CPS, right?”

By the time they go back inside, the kids have already retired back to the bedrooms. Steve tells them as much, slurring his words a little bit already with exhaustion, as he recalls how he sent the girls to one room and the boys to the other. He didn’t check if they listened though, so, no guarantee.

He looks so soft and warm, huddled into the corner of the couch with his legs under himself, eyes falling half closed. Just looking at him makes Eddie realize how tired he is, as well.

All he did was wait for them to come back inside, which is so sweet of him. Eddie still can’t really believe that Steve’s not a douchebag. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it just doesn’t. Steve’s a far cry from Billy Hargrove.

Wordlessly, Hopper goes outside again and comes back with an armful of old quilts. They’re probably from the back of his truck. He drops them onto the free end of the couch, says, “Don’t get too cold tonight, the heating in here still doesn’t work,” and then retreats to the last untouched room of the house, probably Mrs. Byers’ bedroom.

Eddie watches after him, then looks at the blankets, and nods. It’s probably for the best if he doesn’t fight Hopper for Mrs. Byers’ bed. Even if he would like to do it for Steve. They’ll have to make do.

He shakes out all the thin blankets, five in numbers, actually, and spreads them across the seats of the couch. Steve doesn’t move, so he automatically gets covered during the whole ordeal. When he’s done, Eddie copies Steve, slips out of his sneakers and folds himself into the other corner of the couch. The blankets are still cold to the touch, but they’re a comfortable weight and his numb toes start tingling with warmth soon enough.

From the other side, Steve sighs deeply and stretches himself out. The couch is a three-seater, so his feet touch Eddie’s thigh almost immediately. He doesn’t mind at all, but his heart has something to say about it anyway. He’s too tired to listen at this hour, though.

“Hey, Munson,” Steve mumbles on an inhale, his toes curling into Eddie’s thigh, and yeah, maybe now, he’s a little more open to listening. His eyes are falling shut. He’s listening, though. He’s listening.

“Yeah, Harrington?”

“Thanks.”

Eddie hums. His head is too heavy to hold up anymore, so he lolls it onto the back of the couch. “Of course. I won’t hog five blankets for myself.”

“No, I mean. I mean, today. Thanks for— for everything. You did so much shit for us today. For me.”

Eddie furrows his brows. His eyes are closed. He’s doing his best to stay awake and listen. “Whuh, no. You’re good. I didn’t do shit.”

“Yes you did,” Steve slurs, and it’s getting worse. His words are slow and in between breaths, whispered on exhales and inhales. “First Billy. You didn’t even know Billy before. Fought him anyway. Saved my life, man.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, but it’s not even pronounced enough to make a sound. It really just comes out as hard breath through his nose.

“We both look like shit. Could’ve been just one of us.”

“Mhm,” Steve agrees, but on a different level than Eddie means. “Yeah, just one of us surviving.”

Well. Steve’s probably not wrong about that.

They’re quiet for a few seconds, and Eddie’s almost sure Steve fell asleep. He’s just about to get a little more comfortable in his position on the couch, when Steve starts talking again.

“Second off, the kids. Man. Dunno how I would’ve handled them alone. Great help. Always again, anytime.” Steve breaths deeply again, sighs, yawns. His words are getting farther apart. Eddie’s not really sure how he’s still holding himself awake.

“Yeah. Dunno where I got it from, but. Kids just apparently flock to me. First Jane, now the rest of the baby brigade.”

Steve snorts at that, repeating “Baby brigade, heh” under his breath before groaning softly. He is so close to falling asleep, Eddie can hear it. His heart is full.

“Yeah. Which brings me. To my last point. The most. Important.”

There’s a good five seconds pause.

“You brought her back here. Without her, we wouldn’t be here now. We’d probably all be dead. She saved our asses. You saved our asses.”

Eddie hums, noncommittal. He doesn’t really think so. He knows for a fact she would’ve made it back here without his help just fine. He was just a nice little side piece because he ran away, once again, and joined her. That’s, after all, what he does best.

“So. Thanks for that. For all. Of that. Mhm.”

“Mhm,” Eddie echoes, and he’s dead sure if anyone was to hear them right now, they’d clock the big fat crush he has on Steve Harrington from his tender tone alone, from a mile away.

“Mhm.”

“Goodnight, Steve.”

“G’night, Eddie.”

Hopper wasn’t lying when he said everything takes time. It does take time, which is time they don’t really have. There’s bodies of dead monsters strewn about the outskirts of the town, there’s a big old hole leading down to a burnt out underground tunnel system on the field of Mr. McCorkle’s farm. There’s a top to bottom bloodbath in Hawkins lab.

There’s the government’s most wanted superpowered girl they have to hide.

So, Eddie’s not even surprised when Hopper rouses him a few hours later, an eye-rubbing, yawning Jane next to him, and it’s not even light out yet.

They radio the Byers while they drive over, and Eddie’s worried Mrs. Byers has not slept a wink, because she answers almost immediately. They quietly arrange a location switch, and by the time the three of them arrive at the cabin, the Byerses and Nancy Wheeler are already gone.

Hopper barely steps inside before he already has to leave again. A call about higher ups waiting at the police station for him.

The feds don’t miss out on anything.

Eddie and Hop strike out a deal. They call it the big brother benefits. It entails that Eddie keeps any and all Hopper family privileges, which include coming over and sleeping over whenever he wants to, babysitting Jane, and most importantly, taking Jane out once in a while, as long as he cuts back on the local drug dealing, stays in school and starts looking for a legal side job as soon as the waters have calmed down. Everything a good big brother would do to be a role model.

It’s a hard bargain Hopper drives, but he expected nothing less from the Chief of Police. And honestly, it’s worth it for the simple fact that Eddie can confidently call himself Hopper’s son and have the man grumpily agree. It’s a delight.

Anyways, he doesn’t make Eddie completely give up dealing, which is very noble of him. Even if he stops actively selling, it’s not his fault when people come to him and ask him, is it? That’s just him being honest. And as he’s learned now, friends don’t lie.

Holding up his part of the deal is also the least Eddie can do when Hopper eventually brings home a forged declaration of custody, about a month after Jane closed the gate. He also brings over a fake birth certificate that declares the girl once known as Eleven as Jane Elena Hopper, so naturally, they throw a little celebratory family dinner party that same evening. After they all got done crying, of course. (Hopper makes him swear to never tell anyone.)

Sure, Dr. Owens told Hopper to keep everything on the low for at least a year, but shit, they went toe to toe with a monster dimension and the federal law twice by now. They’ll be able to have a little thanksgiving party for everyone involved.

Eddie is giddy to hell and back as he drives around town to pick up the kids, one after the other. He’s taking Max, Dustin, Lucas and Mike, while Hopper drives to the Byers’ and picks up Joyce, Jonathan, Will and Nancy. Steve he’s not sure about, they couldn’t reach him by phone before they had to go start on their tours.

Eddie’s got a kind of morbid curiosity, dare he say almost suicidal, as he drives up to Max’s house first and decides to fuck it, we ball, as he gets out and goes to ring instead of honking like a madman. The Camaro is parked lopsided in the driveway and there’s muffled metal blaring through one of the windows, so there’s quite a big chance of seeing Billy again.

Through the noise he hears Max screaming ‘It’s for me! Don’t bother, fuckface!’ and Billy answering ‘Wasn’t thinking of it, bitch!’ and Eddie’s surprisingly mollified that it doesn’t sound nearly as manic as even the calmest whisper of the guy a month ago.

However Max threatened him with Steve’s bat back then, it apparently did wonders to level the asshole out.

Speaking of, the girl in question finally pulls open the door, pinning him with a long, unamused glare before she breaks out in a big grin. “Munson.”

“Mayfield,” Eddie returns, giving her a small two finger salute and then a fist bump. “You ready for the wildest thanksgiving dinner of your life?”

“Everything’s better than spending it with my asshole brother,” she yells the last part back into the house over her shoulder, and as if on cue, Billy walks into the hallway and stops in the middle of it, glaring in their direction. Eddie leans to the side to peek at him, putting his biggest smile on. The guy still looks like his spoon falls into his cornflakes every morning and his sleeves slipped into the water when he was washing his hands earlier, but at least he doesn’t look enraged anymore.

“Likewise, devil child. Now, scram before I change my mind and lock you in your bedroom.”

Eddie snorts, guiding Max out the door by her shoulder. He keeps some more frankly dangerous eye contact with Billy while Max gets comfy in the back of his van.

“That’s threatening child abuse, Hargrove. I could tell on you for that. Do you want me to tattle to my dad about you?”

He’s playing with fire here, he knows. But he kind of feels invincible, sue him. He knows that Billy knows that Hopper has basically adopted him. Hard not to when he’s the brother of one Maxine Mayfield.

Billy charges at the door, then. Eddie steps away in the most nonchalant way he can manage, watching the bastard’s every move in case he miscalculated. “Fuck off, Munson, or I’ll kill you.”

And then, Billy slams the door shut. Screams behind it.

Eddie hollers, all the way down to his van, and keeps hollering until they’re halfway to Dustin’s.

Dustin reaches Steve via the walkie-talkie at the last minute. Eddie turns the van around as quickly as he can, and the kids screech.

“Chill the fuck out, I’m a great driver. Henderson, get your ass into the back, now.”

Dustin bemoans the decision loudly, and Eddie entertains arguing with him until they’re almost at Steve’s house. Dustin relents quickly enough when Eddie threatens to exclude him from their future D&D campaigns, climbing through the middle of the front seats just in time for Steve to bound down the front of his house and jump in with them.

“It’s great to not be the one driving for once,” he sighs instead of a greeting, looking around the van shortly. “You got seat warmers in this thing or something?”

Eddie guffaws at the same time the baby brigade erupts in chaos.

“No, Steve,” Dustin spits his name like it’s the most vile insult known to mankind, “that was my seat before I got banished to the kid’s corner.”

Steve seems to contemplate that for a second. Eddie rubs his forehead in fond exasperation.

“Huh. You hearing this, Munson? There’s this funny sound in my ear, like,” and then Steve makes a high-pitched, elongated beep sound, and just, doesn’t stop. Eddie laughs and then joins in, “Yeah, yeah, I think I’m hearing it, too, it’s, it’s like, eeee —“

Dustin wails like a banshee.

By all means, after more than half a year since he slipped through the floor hatch and sprinted from the trailer park like a common criminal (which he is), Eddie is maybe more than a little nervous to go back there. To face uncle Wayne after what he did to him.

He feels a little like a child, about the fact that Hopper is accompanying him, like a child that needs their hand held at the first day of kindergarten. At the same time he’s insanely grateful to not do this alone. He doesn’t really trust himself to not spill every single excruciating detail about what went down with the Upside Down as soon as Wayne asks what happened, without the Chief keeping him in check.

All the more is he grateful that they’re going to shamelessly lie to Wayne’s face about it all. Everything to keep their NDAs intact — and this is the easiest solution.

Hopper keeps his hand firmly on Eddie’s nape, in what looks to the outside like a hard scruff, and Eddie’s calling upon any and all theatre skills he’s ever had before he got kicked out of the drama club, as the Chief knocks on the trailer’s door. There’s a second in which nothing happens, then the noise of the TV inside cuts out, Eddie recognizes Wayne’s footfalls coming to the door, and then— and then—

The door opens and Wayne stares them down, cigarette glimmering between his lips.

Hopper nods at him.

“G’day, Wayne. I’m here to hand deliver a special present, courtesy of the Louisville PD.” Hopper thrusts Eddie forward by the neck a little, and Eddie puts on his best act as he winces with a hiss. “They even took care of an urgent court order for custody so they can finally get him outta their hair. He’s your problem now, until he’s eighteen.”

Hopper finally lets go of his neck, deliberately projecting his movements, and Eddie does his best to stumble up the steps of the trailer for good measure.

Eddie thinks they did a stellar job of a scene, what with the way Wayne immediately fumbles to grab for Eddie, catching him by the shoulders of his jacket and pulling him through the doorframe of the trailer, right into his arms.

And, yeah, Eddie can confidently say you can call him a wimp. He’s not above admitting he is. He is absolutely a crybaby when it comes to his uncle.

It might be because of all the shit Eddie’s already put him through over the years. Or because of the way Wayne always came looking for him, always bailed him out if he caught wind of some police station arresting him, or always waited at home when he was on the run from foster care. Might be because of whatever Eddie did and caused, Wayne always accepted him back with open arms. Just like he’s doing now.

So yeah, based on all of that, when he feels Wayne sniffling and hears his voice shake as he talks to Hopper above his head, he immediately starts crying. Because Wayne never cries, so when he does cry, Eddie must cry as well. It’s universal law.

Eddie doesn’t really care whatever else Hopper says to Wayne while they’re standing there in the doorframe to the trailer, letting all the warm air escape. Eddie’s trying his damndest to keep his shoulders from shaking, and the way Wayne is almost violently scratching at his back to soothe him is taking any and all capacity of his focus.

He only realizes that the conversation is over eventually, when Hopper slaps his shoulder twice, lets out an extra gruff, “See you around, son. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” and Wayne pulls him fully inside to finally close the door.

Eddie’s face is still pressed into Wayne’s shoulder. Even without looking he knows, nothing has changed around him. It still smells the same, it still sounds the same.

“Son,” Wayne sighs against his hair, his breath shaky. He squeezes Eddie against himself once, as hard as he can. “I’m so happy you’re back home.”

Eddie’s glad that Wayne’s there now to hold him up as his knees give out under him.

He’s happy he’s back home, too.