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The early morning air rasps in Dustin’s throat as he stomps his bike pedals so hard his legs burn. He doesn’t let it bother him. Not the ache, or the sweat trickling down the back of his neck, or the tightness behind his eyes from lack of sleep. All he cares about is getting to Loch Nora, to Steve’s house, and finding out why the hell Steve walkied him at ass o’clock on a goddamn Saturday morning.
Dustin’s heart slams, and it’s not just from riding fast.
Not a code red, Steve insisted. I swear it’s not bad news. It’s just something I have to tell you in person. It’s… Dustin heard him swallow before he said carefully, It’s a good thing, Dustin.
But Dustin knows better. People don’t wake you up before dawn on a weekend with good news. Not in Hawkins, Indiana. Not this year.
He comes around the corner, leaning until his knee almost scrapes the pavement, and up the hill. The shadow of the enormous, ostentatious Harrington house falls over him, cold on his sweaty skin. Dustin drops his bike on the lawn and leaves it there, one wheel still spinning, as he races up the steps. Steve swings the door open before he has a chance to knock.
“Jesus, dude,” Steve says. “You look insane. I can’t believe you got here this fast.” Dustin glares at him, but he’s a little preoccupied with trying to catch his breath. If he could form words, he’d say Steve looks pretty unhinged himself. Bags under his eyes like he didn’t sleep all night, hair a rat’s nest. Things must be really bad if Steve Harrington skipped his beloved Farrah Fawcett spray.
“What the hell is going on?” Dustin finally says, shouldering past Steve into the house. “Did you alert the rest of the Party?” He doesn’t bother to keep his voice down; Steve’s parents aren’t home, more as a state of existence than a location.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Nancy and Mike are picking up Robin on their way, and Lucas and Erica are biking over. Hopefully at a more reasonable speed than you.” He puts his hands on his hips and glares at Dustin like a disappointed mom for a moment, then softens. “And we’ll have someone go to the hospital later to fill Max in. But I wanted to tell you first.”
That sets Dustin even more on edge. “Tell me what? Steve, what the hell is going–”
And then he stops, because a dead man steps through the doorway from the kitchen.
Eddie Munson is obviously nervous, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his ripped jeans, shoulders curled forward like he's trying to shrink into himself. His curly hair falls over his face, and behind it, Dustin sees his smile, lopsided and shaky and bright. Eddie looks shy and scared but so, so happy to see Dustin.
The smile is how Dustin knows it’s a lie.
“Shit,” he says. “Shit shit shit, Steve, we gotta get out of here, it’s a fucking Vecna vision, he’s back–” He drags his eyes away from the mirage of Eddie, from the bait, and shoves Steve toward the door. Steve, who never goddamn listens, plants his feet and spins Dustin around again.
“Dude, no,” he says, and Dustin doesn’t want to look but he can’t help himself. He can’t help watching as the Eddie-thing’s smile dims, as he grabs his hair and twists it around his fist in a gesture that’s so much like the real Eddie it makes Dustin’s stomach churn. Don’t fucking fall for it, he tells himself furiously. “It’s not Vecna, I promise. It’s Eddie for real. He's really back.”
“Henderson, it’s so fucking good to see you,” the Eddie-thing says, trying for a smile again but now it looks forced.
“It’s not Eddie, it can’t be Eddie,” Dustin says, struggling in Steve’s grip. “The real Eddie wouldn’t say that to me, he’d–” His voice cracks horribly, but he keeps going. “He’d h- hate me for letting him die– ”
Something slams into his chest. Only the solid wall of Steve behind him prevents him from falling on his ass. Oh hell, this is it, Dustin thinks, a weird eye of calm in the midst of the panic overtaking him. I love you, Mom. He hopes it won’t hurt too much.
“Shut up,” the Eddie-thing whispers, its breath hot in his hair, and Dustin cringes. Its arms wrap around him, crushing him… no, hugging him.
Do evil wizard visions hug you before they shatter your body and eat your soul? Max never mentioned anything about hugging.
“Just shut up, you little butthead. I could never hate you.” Dustin screws his eyes tight, but he can't block out that voice. He can't block out the feel of that t-shirt, worn and soft, pressed against his cheek; can't block out the warmth of the body underneath or the thrum of its galloping heart. He gasps for air, and the smell of Eddie, so familiar he's never bothered to put it into words, hits his hindbrain with tsunami force.
Dustin bursts into tears.
"It's really Eddie," Steve says again, as if they haven't already established that.
"It wasn't your fault," Eddie says. His arms are tight around Dustin, so tight they're starting to tremble with the exertion. "I'm the one who went back. It was my decision."
"Yeah it was, you stupid son of a bitch," Dustin says, his rage sounding watery and weak. "What the hell were you thinking?"
Steve snorts. "Turns on a dime, doesn't he?"
Ignoring him, Eddie says to Dustin, "You can be as pissed at me as you want. I'm not sorry I did it, but I'm sorry it sucked so bad for you."
"What kind of shitty apology is that?" If that's how Eddie's going to be, Dustin doesn't even feel bad for getting snot all over his shirt.
"Best one you're getting today, Henderson, so take it or leave it," Eddie says. "Clawing my way back into this mortal coil used up my capacity for verbal flourishes."
"Or did it?" Steve muses. Again, Eddie ignores him.
"Yeah. Okay. Holy shit," says Dustin. He feels like he's just rode the Spider at the carnival five times in a row. Dizzy, exhilarated, kind of wants to puke. Eddie is alive. "How did this happen? "
"Well, um," Eddie says. He steps back and crinkles his nose, looking to Steve for help. "To be honest with you…"
"To be honest, we're not totally sure," Steve says. He shrugs. "We don't exactly know how any of this shit works, right?"
"Yeah, that's what I was going to say," Eddie says, sounding relieved. Dustin rolls his eyes. Typical of Eddie, to be so obviously embarrassed about not having all the answers. The guy really needs to let go of his control issues.
"Our best guess is that there's some kind of psychic connection between us because we both got bitten by those freaky bat things," Steve says. "And we were sort of able to–draw on that connection, from both sides, to bring Eddie back from the dead."
"Holy shit," Dustin says. "I mean… son of a bitch. I have so many questions."
Before he can ask them, though, Steve's doorbell rings. Dustin runs to answer it. The Sinclair siblings shove each other aside, each trying to be the first one through the door. "This better be important," Lucas snaps. "I'm supposed to visit Max today. She'll kill me if I'm late."
"First of all," says Erica, counting on her fingers at him, "you're wildly overestimating how much she cares about your presence. Second of all, she sleeps basically the whole time you're there, anyway. And third…" She jabs her brother in the arm with three fingers. "Max Mayfield and her freaky ghost eyes can barely identify a clock right now, much less read one. I promise she's not going to notice if you're late."
"Did you have to invite her?" Lucas asks Steve.
Eddie steps into view. There's none of the hesitation of a few minutes ago in his posture; now he's all drama, arms spread wide. "As if the Party could reunite without Lady Applejack."
Lucas and Erica's screams of " Eddie! " are perfectly harmonized, and neither of them catches an elbow to the belly when they both leap to hug him at the exact same time.
When they step back a minute later, Lucas is wiping his nose on his jacket sleeve, and Erica has a sheen to her eyes Dustin doesn't think he's ever seen before. Eddie, for his part, is grinning wildly with tears running unchecked down his face.
"How," says Erica, more a demand than a question. "Why. Explain."
Before Eddie and Steve can get more than a few words into their vague approximation of an answer, though, the door swings open again–the bell doesn't even ring–and in come Robin and Nancy and Mike. The sound Robin makes hurts Dustin's ears, but he was expecting that.
What he wasn't expecting was Nancy Wheeler, the toughest person Dustin has ever met in his life, bursting into noisy tears and flinging her arms around Eddie. Eddie seems a little startled by it too, but mostly pleased. Dustin wonders idly whether there's potential there. Nancy broke up with Jonathan, like, weeks ago–in this very weird and mature way where they still hang out and talk all the time–and Steve still hasn't made a move. If he's serious about not getting back together with Nancy, well, Eddie's not dead anymore, and that means he's going to need a girlfriend.
Mike hangs back while the rest of them hug and cry, but finally he steps forward. There's a muscle twitching at the corner of his jaw, and he can't quite meet Eddie's eyes. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, man," he says quietly.
"I hear you were helping your girlfriend save the world," Eddie says with a smirk, even though he's still openly crying. "Which, I’ve gotta tell you, blew my mind a little. Mostly the girlfriend part."
Mike snorts a laugh in spite of himself. "I told you, asshole–"
"Yeah, yeah, your girlfriend in California. Can't blame me for thinking you were full of shit, Wheeler." He claps Mike on the shoulder. "I'm excited to meet her." Mike bites his lip and looks away, and Dustin thinks he knows what's going through his head. Mike and El are… complicated, right now.
Steve ushers them out of the foyer where they've clustered. They settle in around the kitchen table, Eddie and Steve at the head. Dustin looks at all these people who have saved his life in a wide variety of ways. Something tight and painful in his chest relaxes, a hurt he's been carrying long enough that he mostly doesn't notice it, until it eases.
There's gotta be a catch, he tells himself. But what if, just this once, that's not true? What if the horrible magic of the Upside Down worked in their favor for once? Shit, don't they deserve it?
"Okay, wow, this is amazing," Robin says, rummaging through Steve's cupboards as if she lives there. Without asking permission, she starts a fresh pot of coffee, then sticks a bagel in the toaster. “So how did this happen? And what are we going to do now? It’s a good thing Eddie was never legally declared dead, huh, that would really make everything complicated. But I guess the fact that he’s still wanted for murder is going to be a problem.”
“Jonathan says Hopper’s already working on that,” Nancy says.
Eddie’s eyebrows arch. “ Hopper? ”
“He’s not dead either,” Mike says, with a tone somewhere between awe and terror. “He was in Russia.”
“Yeah, Steve filled me in on that. The shock you hear in my voice is in regard to a fine upstanding member of our local law enforcement doing anything to help a miscreant like me.”
“I don’t think Hopper knows the word 'miscreant,'" says Dustin.
Nancy shrugs. “He said you didn’t deserve to be remembered as a murderer. There’s some delay on closing the case because first they have to deal with all the paperwork from Hopper being dead–” Eddie nods sympathetically. “But once that’s squared away, they’re going to come out with the story that Henry Creel was behind the murders, and you died trying to stop him.”
“Might want to tweak that last part,” says Eddie.
“I think people will go for it,” Robin says. “Everyone’s really embarrassed about the whole witch-hunt thing. They’ll probably hold a parade in your honor.”
“Assholes,” Erica says with deep feeling. Steve opens his mouth like he’s going to scold her for cursing, but then closes it and just nods.
"Until then, though, Eddie lays low," Steve says. "We don't tell anyone he's back who doesn't need to know."
"We've gotta tell Max," Lucas says, sharp and fast.
"Of course," Steve agrees. "But do it in person, and wait until there's no one else in the room. Don't talk about him over the walkies. Or on the phone."
"Where's he going to stay?" Nancy asks. She throws Eddie an apologetic look. "Your trailer got a little–"
"Sucked into the underworld," Robin finishes.
"And Wayne has a new place, but the cops will definitely be watching for you there," Nancy adds.
"He can stay with me!" Dustin exclaims.
Steve scowls. "Yeah, not a chance, dude. Your mom is definitely not on the list of people who need to know."
"No, no, we'll be sneaky," says Dustin, the plan already unfolding in his mind. "He can stay in the basement, like El did at Mike's. I'll open a window, and–"
"No," Steve says firmly. "Eddie's staying here."
Dustin turns pleading eyes to Eddie. "Come on, man, you want to stay with me, don't you? It'll be way more fun than being cooped up with Steve."
Eddie laughs. "No chance, kid. Do you know how big the bathtub is in this joint?" Then he leans to the side so his shoulder bumps Steve's. "And I don't mind the company too much, either."
Steve grins back at Eddie like he can't help it, then gives a decisive nod. "Yeah. About that." He takes a deep breath. "There's something else. Something we, uh, need to tell you all." He looks at Eddie as if waiting for him to take the lead, but Eddie says nothing.
"You're supposed to jump in here," Steve hisses under his breath, as though the rest of them can't hear him.
"You said you wanted to tell them," Eddie says, his voice going tight and nervous.
"No I–well, okay, I did, but I meant I want them to know. Like, I want them to be told. I thought you would do the actual telling."
"We can hear you," Dustin informs him helpfully.
Steve stares into Eddie's face, apparently worried about what he finds there. "Eddie, I want them to know. You're just better with words. Okay?" He places his hand over Eddie's where it rests on the table, gives a reassuring squeeze.
Eddie relaxes just slightly. "Yeah. Okay." He looks around at the group with a forced smile. "The thing is, kids, your mom and I have decided to try to make things work between us." He glances back at Steve and his smile softens, becomes more real. "For the good of the family."
"Oh, for the love of–" Steve groans. "Why am I the mom?"
"One of us has to be the mom," Eddie says with a shrug. "And you're the one who drives them all to their soccer games or whatever."
"That doesn't make me–what the hell, Eddie, why does one of us have to be the mom? Why can't we just be two dads? Isn't that the whole point? You're being very–what was that word, Robin? When someone assumes gay people are trying to be like straight people."
"Heteronormative," Robin says slowly. Dustin recognizes the look on her face from when she was trying to translate Russian code. "He's being heteronormative."
"Yeah, you are, so cut it out," Steve says, pointing at Eddie with his left hand. "The kids can have two dads." He points with his left hand, Dustin realizes, because his other hand is still on the table, covering Eddie's. Their fingers are laced together.
"Oh," Dustin says.
"Wait, you guys are–" Lucas says.
"I got it first!" Dustin snaps.
"Why are you all acting surprised? They've been giving each other moon eyes from the second we walked in here," Erica says, folding her arms.
Eddie grins at her. "Never failed a perception check in your life, have you?" Erica allows him a cool smile in return.
"Wait," Dustin says. "So when you said Steve brought you back to life, that was with, like, the kiss of true love?"
Steve coughs. "Yeah, it, uh, might have been something like that."
Eddie sits back in his chair. "True love, huh?" His voice is teasing, but his eyes sparkle softly.
"I didn't say it, Dustin said it," Steve protests. They're still fucking holding hands.
"This really does feel like watching my parents flirt. It's weird," Lucas says.
Mike, who's been sitting in stunned silence this whole time, abruptly shoves his chair back from the table with a screech that makes them all jump. "So you came back from the dead just to date Steve fucking Harrington?" he says. His voice isn't loud, but there's so much anger in it, Eddie and Steve both flinch.
Dustin sighs and rubs his forehead. He could have told Steve and Eddie this would happen, if they'd bothered to ask him.
"Mike," Nancy says, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shakes it off.
"Oh, and you're just fine with this?" he snarls at her. "Your ex? "
She manages a small, tight smile. "It really doesn't have anything to do with me. I want Steve to be happy," she says. "And I'm glad Eddie's back." God, Dustin is going to have to revise his matchmaking plans again. Why is it so hard to find someone to date Nancy Wheeler? She's beautiful, smart, and can fire a gun. Dustin would date her himself, if he were older, and not staunchly in love with Susie.
"Yeah." Mike throws his hands in the air. "Yeah it's great, everything's just–fucking great, we're all great. I'm just gonna…" He shakes his head and stomps out of the room.
Silence hovers in his wake like a dark cloud. Finally, Eddie says, "I guess I should have been prepared for that."
"Yeah, you should have," Dustin can't help but reply. Eddie and Steve glare at him in unison, but it doesn't bother him because he's right.
"I'm sorry," Nancy says. "I can go talk to him–"
"Might be better to leave him alone for a few minutes," Lucas suggests.
"I mean, I know your parents are… your parents," Steve says to Nancy, "but it never really occurred to me that Mike would be homophobic."
"Homophobic?" Dustin stares at him. "Did you have to sacrifice your brain cells to bring Eddie back from the dead?"
Eddie yelps with surprised laughter, then schools his face into sternness. "Don't talk to my boyfriend that way," he says.
"You know you're not actually anyone's dad, right?" Erica says.
"Mike's not homophobic, you doofus,” says Dustin. “He's jealous. He has a huge crush on Eddie."
"What?" Eddie, Steve, Robin, and Nancy chorus. Dustin sighs dramatically and looks to Lucas for confirmation.
"I mean, yeah," Lucas says. "Didn't you ever notice, before spring break, he was always talking about how cool Eddie is? And dressing like him and growing out his hair and listening to his music, all of that?"
"Dustin did that stuff too," Steve points out.
"Well, it's different for me, because I'm straight," Dustin says.
Steve blinks hard. "And Mike… isn't?"
"No," Dustin says, exasperated. "Jesus, old people can be really dense. Mike's bisexual. It means he likes boys and girls the same."
"I know what bisexual means, you little shit! I'm bisexual!" Steve isn't quite yelling, but he's right on the brink. Eddie is very visibly fighting not to laugh.
"Well, then, why are you acting like this is confusing?" Dustin stares at Steve, giving him plenty of time to answer, but Steve just scowls.
"Um, Dustin," Robin says carefully. "I get that you're trying to help, but you know it's not okay to out people, right? You could put someone in danger."
Dustin sputters a half-coherent response, so indignant he can barely find words. As if he doesn't know the difference between some random assholes and the Party!
"Right, I know, obviously we're all fine with Mike being bi–" She looks around the table, as though challenging any of them to disagree with her, although she carefully avoids looking at Nancy. "But even so, he should get to decide for himself when he tells us. Sometimes people want to keep that kind of thing to themselves, even if they know the people they want to tell are safe, because it's just… because they're just not ready. And no matter what, it's not your place to do it for them." He's surprised by how flustered she looks, her face red, her eyes watery. Dustin never knew Robin cared so much about Mike Wheeler.
"Fine, shit, I'm sorry," he mumbles, feeling hot and embarrassed. Maybe he really did fuck up. Maybe Mike is going to be pissed at him.
"You were just trying to help, dude," says Eddie sympathetically. He leans over and bumps his knuckles against Dustin's shoulder. "And I'm glad to know Mike isn't secretly some junior Reaganite douche."
"Like we'd hang around someone like that," Lucas scoffs. Erica coughs loudly into her hand, the cough sounding strangely similar to the word "Carver." Lucas's mouth tightens and he glares down at the table.
"He's been gone a while," Nancy says, looking at the doorway where Mike disappeared. "Should someone go check on him?"
Dustin looks around at all of them–a bunch of emotionally inept weirdos, if he's being honest. Which of them does he trust to talk Mike down from whatever spiral of envy and resentment he's stuck in? He wishes Will was here. Will is good at serious conversations. Even El would be helpful, because she'd plow right through the awkwardness without noticing it was there.
"I'll go," Dustin announces. He waits for one of the almost-adults to argue with him, to take on the responsibility, but they all just sit there looking relieved. Typical.
Mike is in the living room, sprawled out on the couch, which is obviously expensive and not made for sprawling on. When he sees Dustin, he grabs a pillow and covers his face with it. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, muffled but clear enough.
“Hey, man, so listen,” Dustin says awkwardly. He doesn’t have a lot of practice apologizing, one of the few down sides of being right most of the time. “I might have done something not that awesome.”
“I heard. Asshole.” Mike takes the pillow from his face and lobs it halfheartedly at Dustin, who catches it. “Sound carries weird in here.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Mike shrugs and looks down at his feet on the arm of the couch. Dustin's stomach clenches. “It’s not really a secret, me liking guys too. They’re cool. I mean, they’re not cool, they’re huge losers, but I don’t care if they know.”
“And the other thing?”
“The Eddie thing?” Mike’s face twists into a scowl, and Dustin is pretty sure he’s trying not to cry. “It’s stupid. It doesn’t matter. It was stupid to think he’d ever…” He trails off, scowling even harder.
“It would be pretty gross of Eddie to date a freshman,” Dustin says tentatively.
The dry noise Mike makes isn’t quite a laugh, but it has aspirations in that direction. “Grosser than dating Steve Harrington?”
“He’s not so bad!” Dustin protests. “He’s saved our lives, like, a bunch of times.”
“Dude,” says Mike, deeply aggrieved. “He’s a jock. Eddie’s in love with a jock. ”
“You’re in love with a superhero,” says Dustin.
“Yeah, well, I’m a nerd, so that makes sense,” Mike says. “Nerds love superheroes.” He sighs. “Anyway, I don’t even know if we’re in love anymore. She won’t talk to anyone but Max.”
“You guys will be okay,” Dustin says, not knowing whether it’s true. “She just needs time.”
“Sure.” Mike scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Fuck, man. Eddie and Steve?”
“Better than Eddie staying dead, right?”
“I guess. ” With another dramatic sigh, Mike swings his feet down to the floor and pushes himself to standing.
“Are we good?” Dustin asks.
The ghost of a smile surfaces on Mike’s face. “We’re good.”
Well, that was easy, Dustin thinks
When they enter the kitchen again, the others are immersed in planning. “I can write a letter for you to deliver–” Eddie says.
“I think it’s better if we don’t leave any hard evidence,” says Nancy.
“What makes you think my uncle’s just going to take your word that I’m alive? It’s not exactly like he trusts you,” says Eddie. “Or, you know, people. At all.”
Mike walks across the room without a word, bends down, and throws his arms around Eddie. Despite looking briefly startled, Eddie hugs him back, hard. Steve reaches out hesitantly and puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder, and Eddie smiles at him. After a long moment, Mike straightens up, rubs his eyes again, and goes back to his chair.
“Hey,” Nancy says to him in a low voice. Mike glances up at her. “I love you.” Mike nods, looking like he doesn’t trust himself to speak.
Dustin sees Robin staring at Nancy across the table, her eyes glowing with some deep emotion. When Nancy looks up at her and their eyes briefly meet, Nancy's cheeks flare pink. She hurries to look back at Eddie.
Oh, Dustin thinks. Maybe there are possibilities he's neglected to consider. It's an embarrassing oversight for a man of science. He'll need to be more careful in the future.
"Robin could go with Nancy to talk to Wayne," he suggests. "Like you did with Victor Creel."
Nancy's lips curl up, and she ventures a look back at Robin. "Sure, just in case I need someone to yell at Eddie's uncle that her boobs hurt."
Robin squawks and buries her face in her hands, but her shoulders are shaking with laughter. "Shut up, oh my God, shut up! We were desperate, he was going to kick us out!"
"What?" Steve asks, but not in a way that suggests he actually wants to know.
"Hey, it worked!" Now Nancy's laughing too, reaching across the table toward Robin. "It was brilliant, actually. Confusing, but brilliant." Robin looks up, still flushed, but this time when her eyes meet Nancy's, neither of them look away. Robin's hand creeps across the table top until her fingers just graze Nancy's. Excellent. Dustin can absolutely work with this.
"I don't think that will help with Wayne," Eddie says slowly. "But I guess you can try."
Lucas looks at his watch. "I really do have to go see Max," he says. Erica rolls her eyes but says nothing. "I've gotta tell her about all of this. But I can come back later if you want, or… do you need us to bring you anything, Eddie?"
Eddie looks at Steve with the dopiest smile Dustin has ever seen. "Thanks, Sinclair, but I've got everything I need right here."
"Gross," Erica says loudly.
"Terrible," Mike agrees. "I changed my mind, I'm homophobic now."
But he's laughing, they're all laughing, and maybe Dustin was wrong, for once. Maybe good things can happen in Hawkins after all.