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Ash drifts through the air like tired snow, slow, directionless, a lazy fog that settles on skin and hair, on cracked, broken ground alike. Steve can feel it crawling into his eyelashes, fine and sharp, a nuisance that refuses to be ignored. It scratches at the edges of his awareness, and for a moment, he almost resents it for being alive, for reminding him that he is too. Beneath his boots, the dirt pulses faintly, a low, sick thrum that vibrates up his bones, and his chest tightens at the sensation. Alive. It shouldn’t be alive. And yet it is. And yet he is, too, by some cruel measure of the universe.
Creel House towers behind them, jagged, bleeding into the sky like a wound that refuses to close. Its broken silhouette seems to scream even in silence, a whisper of agony that presses against his chest. And yet, Vecna is gone.
They did it.
The thought should bring relief. It should. But it doesn’t. It floats in Steve’s head like smoke, ephemeral and teasing, impossible to grasp. He keeps turning it over, trying to make sense of it, but it slips between his fingers each time he tries. He’s too tired, too hollow, too caught in the shadow of what comes next to even feel the triumph.
Robin laughs, breathless, fragile, like a cracked bell struggling to ring. “That’s it, right?” she says, voice trembling with hope and fear. “We’re done. Please tell me we’re done.”
Nancy exhales a shaky breath. The corners of her mouth lift in a ghost of a smile, delicate and fragile. “We’re done,” she whispers, saying it as if the sound itself could make reality bend to her will.
Steve laughs too, short and sharp, almost ugly in its honesty. His leg throbs, pain blooming up his thigh, sharp and insistent. He welcomes it because it reminds him he exists. That he is still here. Pain is proof. Pain is alive.
Alive.
They’re alive.
But then his eyes find them.
Dustin.
Eddie.
And something in his chest lurches like a fist trying to punch its way out.
Dustin moves strangely, bent over, awkward, not the Dustin who would normally run toward him, yelling and waving, trying to reassure him with that endless energy of his. He’s dragging something—or someone—with both arms, the weight unnatural, wrong.
Steve’s stomach drops.
“Hey,” he calls, voice cracking over the heavy silence. “What are you doing, man?”
Dustin doesn’t turn.
Steve’s heart beats thick, slow, wrong in his chest. He steps forward, one foot, then another, hesitant, terrified, trying to convince himself that what he is seeing isn’t real.
And then he sees Eddie.
Eddie hangs over Dustin’s shoulder, body slack, wet, the boots scraping the ground and leaving dark streaks that feel like they will never wash away. His head falls forward, curls matted, face hidden. Boneless. Wrong.
“No.”
The word barely escapes him before dissolving into the cold air.
Dustin strains, grunting, legs trembling as he tries to pull Eddie closer to the side of the trailer. Eddie doesn’t help. Doesn’t resist. Doesn’t breathe.
Blood.
Everywhere.
Seeping through Eddie’s shirt, smearing Dustin’s jacket, dripping from his fingers in slow, grotesque drops that echo too loudly in Steve’s mind. Each drop marks time, counting down to something he isn’t ready to face.
His body freezes. Denial wraps around him, a chain he can’t break.
Then instinct shatters it.
“DUSTIN!”
The scream tears out raw and ragged, splitting him open from the inside. His legs carry him before he can stop them. Pain shrieks through his body, lungs burning, heart hammering beyond control. Nothing matters. Nothing except getting to Eddie.
Robin gasps behind him. “Steve—”
Nancy is already moving, pale, eyes wide, seeing the same thing he can’t unsee.
He reaches Dustin just as his grip fails. Eddie slips from his arms, hitting the ground with a hollow, final sound. Steve feels it reverberate in his chest, a hammer striking cold steel.
Dustin spins, eyes wide, face streaked with tears and blood. “Steve,” he sobs. “Steve, help me. We can still save him. Please—please help me do something, Steve. I beg you.”
His hands shake violently, fingers curling over Eddie’s chest as if sheer will could stop what is happening.
Steve takes them, steadying him, grounding him the only way he knows how. “Dustin,” he says, voice cracking, strained, a tightrope stretched across the chaos. “Move. I need you to move.”
Robin stands frozen, useless, tears spilling unchecked. Nancy crouches beside Dustin, holding him, whispering, “Let go. Let Steve help.”
Dustin claws at Eddie’s jacket like the world itself will unravel if he lets go. “He’s still warm,” he cries. “He’s still here! I can feel him!”
“I know,” Nancy whispers, voice breaking, a fragile tether. “I know.”
Steve lays Eddie flat.
Dread blooms cold and absolute. He presses an ear to Eddie’s chest. Nothing.
“No. No, no, no—”
Hands move anyway, muscle memory taking over. Desperation masquerades as hope.
He pushes. Counts. Presses.
Once.
Twice.
The third time, a sharp crack splits through him.
Horror blossoms. He freezes, bile rising, stomach sinking. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He keeps going anyway. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Blood slicks his hands. Eddie’s body moves with each push, unresisting, already gone in a way Steve refuses to name. He tilts Eddie’s head, breathes into him.
Once.
Twice.
Eddie tastes like blood. Like metal. Like the Upside Down itself.
“Please,” Steve chokes. “Come on, man. Breathe.”
Nothing.
Dustin collapses, cries, breaking into guttural, hollow sounds. Robin curls into herself, shaking. Nancy holds Dustin tightly, silently, tears soaking into his hair.
Steve’s arms give out. Hands slip. He stares at Eddie. Still. Cold. Leaving.
A sound tears from him, raw, alien, unrecognizable.
He lifts Eddie into his arms, weightless, as though this is what he was always meant to do. Pressing Eddie’s head to his shoulder, cheek brushing curls, cradling him.
Cold.
Steve sobs. Body shaking. Heart cracking. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I won’t drop you.”
The Upside Down hums around them, indifferent.
The dream doesn’t soften.
It rips.
Steve wakes choking. No screaming. No thrashing. Just a sharp inhale that rips through his lungs, body jerking upright before his mind can catch up. Hands claw at damp sheets.
Ash lingers in the air.
He swears he smells it. Burnt metal. Blood. Rotten electricity crawling down his throat.
Heart hammers, too fast, too loud. Alive.
The room is dark. Quiet. Safe, alien.
Eddie’s face lingers. Slack. Weighted. Heavy. Painful.
“I told you not to be a hero.”
Words leave him, unbidden. Raw.
Steve scrubs his face. Eyes sting. Nothing falls.
Boys don’t cry.
Steve Harrington learned long ago to swallow things whole.
Eighteen months.
Same dream. Every night. Earlier, closer, faster, desperate. Every night he tries harder, reaches further. He never hears Eddie breathe. Never saves him.
Steve swings his legs over the side of the bed, lets them dangle for a long moment, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. If he stays still too long, the images creep back in—Dustin’s voice cracking. Robin was frozen in place. The sound of bone giving way beneath his hands. His hair falls into his eyes, soft and unkempt in a way no one ever sees. For a fleeting second, he imagines staying there—letting the weight of the night pull him down, allowing the day happen without him, letting himself disappear like the smoke of the ash outside. But he doesn’t. He can’t.
Steve Harrington gets up. Always does.
The bathroom light is too bright, stabbing into his skull. He squints at the reflection in the mirror, taking in the familiar angles of his face: the stubborn jawline, the set of his mouth, the sharpness around his eyes. He looks fine. That is the problem. He always looks fine. The world trusts the armor. The mask. The thing that lets them all sleep easier while he’s bleeding inside.
He splashes cold water on his face, shivers, lets his fingers grip the edge of the sink until his knuckles ache, grounding himself in the sensation. He stares until the reflection blurs, the image fading just enough that it stops feeling like looking at a stranger who stole his life. He doesn’t cry. He never does. That is a trick he learned long ago.
By the time he pulls on jeans and a clean shirt, the dream is already tucked back into the dark corners of his mind, filed under Things We Do Not Speak Of. Coffee is bitter and hollow. Toast barely chewed. The radio plays something bright, upbeat, meaningless, filling the silence that feels like danger itself. He leaves it on because silence is the enemy.
Outside, the morning air is crisp and sharp. It bites at his skin, awakening him in a way the dream never could. The sky is gray-blue, thin, and unpromising. Steve exhales, squares his shoulders, and steps into the role the world demands.
By the time he pulls up outside Robin’s place, the smile is already in place.
“Morning, sunshine,” she says, climbing into the passenger seat, hair in disarray, eyes alert even this early.
“Don’t start,” Steve replies automatically. Banter falls into place like armor, automatic. Shielded. The mask fits perfectly.
She studies him for a heartbeat too long. He feels it like a weight at the back of his neck. She always does that, just looks at him like he is one of the books in her bookshelves, the book she loves to look at but is scared to read, maybe cuz she doesn’t know how to read it or the book has spikes all over that she can't take it out.
“You okay?” she asks, casual but careful, watching for cracks.
“Peachy,” he says, with the practiced grin everyone trusts. He hates how Robin can see things, things he doesn't even let himself see.
Robin hums, unconvinced, letting it go. Some things are negotiated silently, and this is one of them.
The drive to WSQK is fragmented. Steve’s mind slips out of the present like a loose thread unraveling. He sees Eddie’s hands on a guitar that isn’t there. Hears laughter that doesn’t belong to any song on the radio. The road blurs, the world thins, and for a moment, he forgets where he is. It’s been like this for a long time—almost as if he’s floating outside of time. It's been 18 months. Feels like 3 days at most.
Work is loud in the way Steve has learned to appreciate.
The hum of equipment. Voices overlapping. The familiar chaos of routine. It wraps around him like a second skin, something he can wear without thinking.
Dustin is already there.
He’s hunched over a table, a radio cracked open in front of him, wires spilling out like exposed veins. His fingers move fast and precise, confidence born of obsession and grief sharpened into focus.
He doesn’t look up when Steve and Robin walk in.
“Morning,” Robin calls.
Dustin hums in response.
Steve watches him for a second too long.
Grief had carved him hollow.
Steve watched him out of the corner of his eye, chest tightening painfully. Dustin looked smaller lately. Not physically. Something deeper. Like a piece of him had been scooped out and left empty. The slope of his shoulders. The way his hair falls into his eyes now that Eddie isn’t there to mess it up on purpose. The way he carries himself is like someone bracing for a hit.
Steve wanted to say something. Wanted to reach out. Wanted to tell him he wasn’t alone.
But Dustin reminded him too much of Eddie.
The way Eddie used to look when he was pretending not to care too hard. The way he smiled when he was hurting. Of the way he protected people without realizing it.
Something tightens in Steve’s chest.
He clears his throat. “You broke it already?”
Dustin finally looks up, eyes sharp. “I’m improving it. There’s a difference.”
Steve scoffs. “Sure, there is.”
Dustin’s mouth twists. “You’d know if you were paying attention.”
There it is.
That tone.
It crawls under Steve’s skin, digs in deep. Like accusation. Like blame. Like every misstep, every laugh missed, every silence, was somehow his fault. Even now, after everything.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve spits. His tone sharp like he wants to punch the kid. Shake him out of this, remind him of everything they had lived through. He wants Dustin to stop being miserable, stop pushing everyone away. He wants to remind him he is not alone. He doesn't.
Because part of him knows—he can’t even save himself. Can’t save Dustin from this. Can’t save Eddie from that night, from what he couldn’t stop.
“It means you’ve been staring at walls all day,” Dustin snaps. “I asked you like three things already.”
Robin goes still beside them. Steve can feel her watching, the tension coiling tight in the air. Every time they interact, something tense happens. Either Steve or Dustin causes it. Doesn't matter. It's like Steve is gasoline and Dustin is the fire ready to burn and turn everything to ash. And Steve, always, is too brittle to contain it.
“Maybe I didn’t hear you,” Steve says, voice clipped. “Not everything’s about you.” No, actually, everything is about you, he wants to say. Everything is about Dustin being happy again. It is everything he wants. But he can’t make it right. He can’t stop seeing Eddie’s face when he looks at Dustin, in every tear that falls too quickly from Dustin’s eyes, in every silence that screams. Steve swallows the words he cannot speak. Eddie. Dustin. Himself. All tangled together in a knot, he doesn’t know how to undo. He wants to shake the kid, wants to force him to remember they are still alive—but alive feels too heavy, too fragile, too full of things Steve can’t carry.
And that makes him furious. Furious at himself. Furious at Eddie. Furious at a world that keeps letting him wake up to mornings that look normal while the nights are filled with screams he cannot forget. The air feels thick, sticky with everything unsaid, everything unhealed, and he can taste it, bitter at the back of his throat.
Dustin’s eyes flash. “Funny, coming from the guy who thinks he has to handle everything alone.”
The words hit too close.
Steve’s temper flares, hot and sudden, instinctive as breathing. “Drop it.”
“Why?” Dustin shoots back. “You gonna pretend everything’s fine again? Because it’s not. Eddie’s—”
“Don’t.”
Steve cuts him off too sharply, too fast. The word snaps like a trap closing, echoing in the empty spaces between them. His hands clench, nails digging into his palms, a reminder that he’s still here, still alive, still incapable of fixing the broken pieces.
Grief makes people jagged. Steve recognizes the shape of it. The edges, the splinters. He knows every touch could draw blood—his own as well as theirs. So he doesn’t try.
He tells himself that’s better. Safer. Easier.
Silence crashes down between them like a wave that leaves nothing untouched.
Dustin stares at him, hurt flickering behind the anger, something raw and fragile that makes Steve’s chest tighten. “Right,” he mutters finally. “Of course.”
He turns back to the radio with unnecessary force, shoulders rigid, hands fidgeting like he could snap something in half to make the noise inside stop. Steve stands there, heart hammering, the urge to speak clawing at his throat, twisting in his stomach like a live thing.
Guilt hits Steve like a fist. He opens his mouth to apologize, closes it again. Words would need explaining, and he has none—not for this, not for what they lost, not for what he failed to save.
The rest of the day crawls. Every interaction off-kilter, like he’s half a step behind the world. He checks the clock compulsively. Watches the door. Waits. For what? He doesn’t know.
Steve moves. Talks. Laughs at the right moments. Fixes things. Breaks nothing. He does everything expected of him, and none of it touches him. The motions are precise, mechanical, a performance for a world that doesn’t see the pieces of him scattered across the floor.
Every crackle of the radio sounds like static-filled screaming. Every laugh feels borrowed, stolen from a version of himself that doesn’t exist anymore. Each word, each smile, each nod—he registers them, processes them, and files them away, untouched, unclaimed.
When Dustin speaks, it echoes differently now. Every tone, every pause, every flicker in the kid’s eyes reminds him: he can’t fix this. He can’t shield Dustin from the weight of Eddie’s absence, from the ghosts that cling. And that—helplessness, inadequacy, guilt—burns hotter than anger ever could.
When the shift ends, he doesn’t go home. He doesn’t answer the questions of anyone who might ask. He doesn’t look back at the empty apartment that smells of too much silence, of too many things left unsaid. Instead, he drives. Muscle memory takes him through familiar streets, the world blurring, distant. Nothing to see. Nothing to touch. Just the road, just the motion, and the quiet ache behind his eyes.
He remembers the day Max started floating. The panic. The sound of the clock, four times. Her eyes. Blood running down. Her legs and arms—the only day he wasn’t there to protect her. Every curve of the road, every cracked streetlight, every familiar turn—he navigates on autopilot. His hands grip the wheel tighter than necessary, knuckles pale, nails biting into the leather. The engine hums a low, steady note, but in his mind, nothing hums. Nothing moves except the relentless thoughts: Eddie, Dustin, the space Eddie left behind.
Eventually, he pulls up near the cemetery entrance. The car idles in silence for a moment. Headlights catch iron gates, the faint outlines of worn headstones, the dark expanse beyond. He kills the engine. Steps out. Cold air bites at his skin. The gravel crunches beneath his boots. Each step forward feels like wading through something heavy and endless, dragging grief behind him like a chain.
Eddie Munson’s grave lies ahead, waiting.
It’s too easy to find. That feels wrong.
The gravel crunches under his boots with each step, sharp in the quiet night. Cold air bites at his skin. Every step closer to the headstone drags the weight in his chest heavier. He doesn’t want to see it, but he cannot look away.
The headstone is plain. Too plain. Smooth, gray, new, cold. The earth around it is dark, raw, unsettled, as if the world itself hasn’t yet reconciled with what happened. Steve stops a few feet away. He doesn’t kneel. He doesn’t touch the stone. He doesn’t sit. He stands, shoulders squared, arms crossed, letting the night press against him. This is a fight he cannot avoid. He stares at the stone. The reality hits him. The first time he came here in eighteen months. He can't believe it’s been 18 months. He feels a hollow place opening in his heart. He can’t blink or look away, as if the stone wields some hypnotic power over him. And now he feels that hollow fill with something hot, unbearable. It makes his heart clench. Anger builds in his bones.
Anger comes first. Always does
“Why would you do that?” His voice cuts through the night, sharp and accusing, bouncing off the gravestones around them. “I told you not to be a hero.”
The words echo back, small and inadequate.
“You were already a hero,” he continues, pacing now, boots scraping against the gravel in uneven rhythms. “To Dustin. To the kids. To everyone you opened your arms to."
His jaw tightens, his fists clenching. He hates this, he hates that; no matter how much he asks, there is no answer. He'll never know what was going on in his head.
“I hate you for leaving me,” he confesses aloud, rough and unfiltered. “And Dustin—he’s breaking in front of me, and I don’t know what to do. Eddie, why did you leave him? You knew he couldn’t do this without you.”
His hands shake. Fingers curl, unconsciously clenching into fists, digging into his thighs as if to hold himself together.
“I can’t even talk to him,” he admits, voice smaller now, afraid that if he speaks louder, the stone would shatter. “He looks just like you. It scares me to look at him. Just like how I was scared to come here, scared to look into your eyes—with no light in them.”
The words hang in the cold night like smoke. His chest feels too tight, his ribs pressed in by the weight of everything he cannot change. He is so angry that it makes his insides burn. So miserable and heartbroken, it sends shivers down his spine.
His fist connects with the stone before he even realizes. Pain explodes through him, sharp and bright, an anchor to the reality he refuses to fully see. He sucks in a ragged breath, lets it burn.
He wants to scream, to tear the night open and find Eddie standing there, alive, laughing, calling him a fool. He wants to strike the world for letting him wake up to mornings that look normal while the nights bleed with screams and visions he cannot erase.
And then he just stands there.
His body aches. His heart pounds too hard, too fast. His fists throb. The stone stays cold. Indifferent. Unmoved by the fact that Eddie Munson was once warm and loud and alive.
Eddie is gone.
“You had a life,” he snaps, the words tearing out of him like something feral. “Brighter than the sun. Bigger than the sky. Why would you throw it away?”
His voice fractures midway through the sentence, splintering on the truth lodged in his throat. He swallows hard, but it doesn’t go away.
“I wonder if you were afraid,” he whispers, almost to himself now. “Afraid you’d end up alone.”
The thought feels wrong the second it forms. Eddie Munson, afraid? And yet it sits heavy in his chest, because fear does strange things to people. It makes them brave. It makes them reckless. It makes them choose things they think will hurt less than staying.
Steve sinks back against the cold stone, the chill seeping through his clothes, into his spine. Exhaustion floods his limbs all at once, as his body has finally been given permission to stop holding itself together. The anger drains slowly, leaving behind something worse. Emptiness. A hollow so wide it feels endless.
He tips his head back, staring at the dark sky. The stars look the same as they always have. Indifferent to grief. Indifferent to guilt. Indifferent to a life snatched away too soon.
“But why would you be afraid,” he whispers again, voice breaking, “when you had us? When you had me?”
A beat.
“Were you afraid?”
The night offers nothing in return.
“I’m sorry I didn’t visit,” he says softly, the words trembling as they leave him. “I couldn’t accept that you were gone. I thought if I didn’t face it, it wouldn’t be real.”
His chest tightens, breath shallow, stomach twisting painfully. Regret coils inside him, relentless.
I kept the back door unlocked,” he admits, barely louder than the wind through the trees. “Every night. Like an idiot. Like maybe you’d just… show up. Make some joke about how dramatic I look standing there.”
His throat closes.
“You didn’t,” he whispers. “You never showed up, Eddie.”
His hand lifts, hesitant like Eddie could feel his touch, before brushing dirt from the headstone. The touch is gentle now. Careful. Like he’s afraid of breaking something that’s already broken beyond repair.
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” he confesses. “I don’t know how to help Dustin. I don’t know how to stop seeing you every time he looks at me like he’s drowning.”
His forehead rests briefly against the cold stone.
“I’m angry at you,” he breathes. “For choosing this. For making me helpless. For being so brave, it killed you. I hate that you make me cry, even when you are gone.”
The words hurt to say. They hurt because they’re true.
“And I hate myself,” he adds, quieter still, “for loving you anyway.”
Silence settles around him, thick and heavy. Not peace. Never peace. Just the truth, finally spoken aloud.
“I miss you.”
The words land hard, almost unbearably so, like they might crack something open inside his chest.
Then the grief twists sharper. Harder. A knife driven deeper, finding new angles of pain.
“You left me with a kid who looks like you,” he says, voice raw, breaking apart. “With memories that haunt me. With a life that’s supposed to keep going. And I can’t save him, Eddie.” His breath stutters. “I can’t even save myself.”
The silence presses back, unrelenting, but he keeps going anyway. He has carried this on too long.
“I keep thinking if I blame myself enough, if I hate myself enough, maybe the universe will give you back,” he admits. “But it won’t. It never will. And I don’t know how to stop hating myself.”
He swallows hard, lips trembling, words scraping their way out.
“I wanted to be strong. For Dustin. For everyone. But I’m not.” His voice fractures completely now. “And I hate that I’m not. And I hate that you’re gone.”
His voice rises, cracking over the gravel, echoing into the night, unanswered.
“I’ve been silent for too long, Eddie.” His voice is low, trembling, almost swallowed by the night. “I swallowed it all. Every ‘why,’ every ‘how could this happen,’ every tear that should have spilled—I swallowed them all. And now they’re poison in my veins.”
Tears sting his eyes, blur the world into smudges of gray and shadow. His fists ball tighter, knuckles white, nails digging into his palms as if trying to root himself to the ground. The cold seeps into him, but it doesn’t numb. It only sharpens the ache.
“You could have trusted us,” he shouts, voice breaking over the gravestones. “You could have leaned on me, on Dustin, on anyone. But no. You had to be the hero and die. And now I’m standing here, hating you and loving you at the same time.”
He paces, boots scraping against gravel, the sound hollow in the night. Each step is a beat of anger, of grief, of helplessness. He wants to stomp, to tear the world apart, to punch the sky until it makes him whole again—but there’s no sky, no repair, only earth and stone, and Eddie’s absence.
“I’m angry at you, Eddie,” he whispers now, voice breaking, rasping, brittle with exhaustion. “Angry that you chose this. Angry that you made me helpless. Angry that your bravery killed you—and left me with the guilt.”
Each word burns. Each word releases months of silence, months of dreams and nightmares, months of holding back until his chest aches with the weight of it all. The ache, the sleepless nights, the dreams that never stop—they all pour out into the cold earth, into the space between him and the headstone, into the night that doesn’t answer.
He closes his eyes and finally lets the tears fall freely. They burn his cheeks, salty and hot, but he doesn’t stop them. His body shakes, small sobs racking him, trembling from the release of everything he has carried in silence. He talks, shouts, cries, curses, whispers—throws every ounce of love, grief, and anger into the dark. Words choke him. Silence chokes him. He is both nothing and everything at once.
Finally, long minutes stretch like hours. He stops. Breath ragged, fists still trembling, heart pounding in his ears. The wind moves through the trees, whispering over gravestones. A distant night bird calls. The world hums on, indifferent. And he is left with the quiet, heavy, terrible knowledge: Eddie is gone, and this grief is his alone to carry.
Steve stands, hand throbbing, face wet and raw. Something inside him has shifted—not healed, not fixed—but named. The anger, the guilt, the ache—they all have a shape now, a presence he can acknowledge without pretending it isn’t there.
He looks at the plain headstone, at the disturbed earth, and something like acceptance brushes against him, fragile, trembling, almost embarrassed by its own arrival. It does not fill the hollow, does not mend the gap, but it whispers that the weight he carries has a name. Eddie Munson.
He turns slowly, each step deliberate, boots crunching over gravel, muscles tight with the effort of moving through it all. The night presses in, quiet but watchful. He breathes, shallow, uneven, letting the cold air burn the rawness in his lungs. By morning, he will be the person everyone expects—the easy smile, the ready banter, the shielded façade.
But here, in the dark, in the graveyard’s solemn hush, the truth has been spoken aloud. Eddie Munson is gone. And the weight—immeasurable, inescapable, relentless—is still his to carry.
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Steve finds himself in the Upside Down again.
There is no beginning to it anymore. No moment of arrival. One second, he is nowhere, the next he is here, ash already in his lungs, the air already wrong. The ground breathes beneath him, slow and sick, as if the world itself is alive and watching. But something feels odd. It always starts earlier. Steve knows this moment.
His hands are on Eddie’s chest.
They always are.
Blood slicks his palms, warm and unreal, spreading beneath his fingers like it has learned the shape of him. Eddie’s body is too still. Too heavy in a way that has nothing to do with weight.
This is the moment, Steve thinks dimly.
This is where it always breaks.
He presses down.
The first compression feels useless, a gesture more than an act, something he does because his body refuses to stop even when his mind already knows the ending.
The second is harder. Desperate.
On the third, something shifts.
Not the sound. Not the crack that lives in his skull like a curse.
Instead, Eddie’s body jolts.
A wet, choking gasp tears out of him, thick with blood, violent enough to knock the breath from Steve’s chest. Eddie coughs, red spilling from his mouth, his ribs stuttering under Steve’s hands as if they’re trying to remember how to move.
Steve goes completely still.
For a terrible heartbeat, he thinks this is worse. That the dream is only being cruel in a new way.
Then he moves.
He lifts Eddie, turns him carefully, one arm braced around his shoulders, holding him upright so the blood doesn’t steal what little air he has left. Eddie’s head lolls against him, heavy and fragile and devastatingly real.
Steve presses his ear to Eddie’s chest.
Please.
The word doesn’t leave his mouth. It stays lodged somewhere behind his ribs, sharp enough to hurt.
There it is.
A heartbeat.
Weak. Uneven. Struggling. But unmistakable.
Steve’s breath shudders out of him, something between a laugh and a sob, and he tightens his grip without thinking, fingers digging in like the world might try to take him back if he loosens even a fraction.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice breaking around the words. “You don’t get to go. Not now. Not like this.”
Eddie doesn’t answer. He can’t. But his chest rises against Steve’s arm, shallow and real, and his fingers twitch weakly against the fabric of Steve’s jacket.
It’s enough.
Steve shifts Eddie’s weight, settling him against his shoulder, the way he always does in the dream. The way his body remembers, even when his mind begs it to forget. Eddie’s blood soaks into his clothes, warm and heavy, a mark he doesn’t try to wipe away.
“I’m here,” Steve murmurs, more to himself than to Eddie. “You can rest. I’ll carry you.”
The world blurs at the edges after that. The Upside Down loosens its grip, its hum fading into something distant and dull. Hands appear. Voices. The tear between worlds opens like a wound finally willing to close.
Steve doesn’t let go.
He carries Eddie through.
Out of the ash.
Out of the dark.
Out of the place that has taken enough.
The weight in his arms is solid. Alive.
Steve wakes with a sharp inhale.
The breathing fades.
The shadow thins.
But the weight on his shoulder remains—lighter than before, real enough to make his chest ache.
Steve doesn’t move.
Some things don’t leave just because you open your eyes.