Chapter Text
The air in the van was a stagnant cocktail of stale Marlboro Reds, cheap vanilla air freshener, and the lingering, metallic scent of a heater that had seen better decades. Outside, the Indiana sky was a bruised purple, pressing down on the windshield with the weight of an oncoming storm. Eddie Munson didn’t mind the dark. The dark was where he’d always lived—a space where the jagged edges of his life didn't catch the light so sharply. But lately, the dark felt less like a sanctuary and more like a throat, slowly closing.
He was parked in the quiet mouth of the quarry, the engine ticking as it cooled, the sound like a countdown to a deadline he wasn't ready to meet.
He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, his silver rings biting cold against his skin. His mind was a traitor, drifting back to the first time he’d actually seen Steve Harrington. Not the grainy, high-school-hallway version of the guy—the mythic "King Steve" who wore sweaters like armor and carried a reputation that preceded him like a herald. Eddie had spent years mocking that version of him, throwing darts at the mental image of a guy who had everything.
Then Dustin Henderson had practically dragged the real version into Eddie’s orbit with the frantic energy of a puppy bringing home a prize kill.
"Eddie, this is Steve. Steve, Eddie. Be cool," Dustin had commanded, looking between them like he was trying to prevent a chemical explosion.
Eddie had been ready to bite. He’d expected a hollow shell, a fallen varsity god clinging to the remnants of his glory days with white-knuckled desperation. He expected arrogance. Instead, he’d found a man who looked like he’d been carved out of something much warmer and more fragile than stone. Steve had looked tired—not just "didn't sleep well" tired, but a bone-deep, soul-weary exhaustion that Eddie recognized in his own reflection.
It had been embarrassing, really. The way Eddie’s heart had done a clumsy, drunken somersault in his chest the moment Steve had offered a tired, genuine smile—one that didn't quite reach his eyes but held a sincerity that felt like an olive branch. The "King" was a lie; the man was a revelation. Eddie hadn't believed the hype until he was standing in the heat of Steve’s personal space, smelling that mix of expensive hairspray and something distinctly human—sweat and laundry detergent. He’d realized then that the rumors hadn't even scratched the surface of the way the light caught the amber in Steve’s eyes, turning them into something molten and honey-thick. It was puppy love, immediate and ridiculous, a high-voltage jolt that made Eddie feel like he was vibrating out of his own skin. He’d had to talk twice as fast and move twice as much just to keep from leaning into that warmth.
Then came the D&D.
The idea of Steve Harrington—the guy who probably thought "crit hit" was a brand of hairspray—asking to learn the game should have been the punchline to a joke. But it wasn't. It started as an excuse to keep the kids safe, a way to understand the mechanics of the nightmares they were fighting. But as the weeks bled into months, the "why" mattered less than the "where."
The "where" became Tuesday nights in the quiet, wood-paneled safety of Steve’s living room. A house that was too big, too empty, and too quiet for a guy like Steve.
The air in those sessions was thick with more than just the smoke from Eddie’s stash. It was the sound of d20s skittering across a mahogany table and the low, gravelly hum of Steve’s voice as he struggled to understand the difference between a Paladin and a Ranger. Steve was earnest. He took notes in a messy, looping scrawl. He’d ask questions with a furrowed brow, looking up at Eddie with a vulnerability that made Eddie’s throat go tight.
"So... I can lay hands and heal people? Just because I believe in something?" Steve had asked once, his voice barely a whisper.
"Exactly, Stevie," Eddie had replied, his theatricality slipping for a moment. "It’s about the conviction. The power comes from the heart."
They’d raid the kitchen at midnight, the tile cold under Eddie’s mismatched socks. He’d watch Steve move through the shadows of his own house like a ghost of the person he used to be. Steve would hand him a slice of cold pizza or a beer, their fingers brushing in the dark—a touch that felt like a spark in a dry forest. Eddie began to see the cracks in the porcelain; he saw the way Steve flinched at loud noises and the way he looked at the kids like they were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth.
The turning point was a Friday night, the kind of humid Indiana evening that made your clothes stick to your back like a second, unwanted skin. The windows were open, letting in the sound of crickets and the smell of cut grass. They were high—higher than Steve usually let himself get—and the air was heavy with the smell of pine and the bitter, comforting tang of the beer Steve was nursing. Eddie had been rambling, his rings clinking as his hands flew through the air, weaving a tale of obscure lore and forgotten gods.
He’d stopped mid-sentence, sensing a shift in the room. He realized Steve wasn't listening. Steve was just staring at him, his head tilted, a stray lock of hair falling over his forehead.
"Your curls," Steve had murmured. The words were thick, honey-slow, and devoid of any iron. "They’re just... they’re pretty, Eddie. You’re actually really pretty."
The word had hit Eddie like a physical blow. Pretty. Nobody called Eddie Munson pretty. He was the freak, the outcast, the metalhead with the jagged edges and the "keep out" signs stitched into his denim. He was the guy you crossed the street to avoid. He felt the heat crawl up his neck, a deep, scorched-earth blush that he couldn't hide behind his hair. He’d tried to crack a joke, to deflect with some theatrical bow and a "My Lord Harrington, you flatter me," but the words died in his throat. Steve hadn't let him.
Steve moved. It wasn't the clumsy movement of a high jock; it was a sudden, grounded grace. He leaned forward, pinning Eddie back against the worn fabric of the couch with a hand on the cushion next to Eddie’s head. The weight of him was a furnace, a visceral pull that Eddie had been starving for without even knowing it.
When they kissed, it wasn't the tentative, experimental fumbling of teenagers. It was a desperate, grounding communion. It tasted like hops, menthol, and the sudden, terrifying realization that Eddie was never going to be the same again. Steve’s lips were soft but firm, his hands sliding into the hair he’d just called pretty, holding Eddie there as if he were afraid Eddie might vanish into the smoke.
After that, the world shifted on its axis.
They were inseparable. It was a slow-burn takeover of each other's lives. Every day was a shared space built brick by brick. It was the way Steve would tangle his fingers into the back of Eddie’s hair while they watched some mindless movie, Steve’s thumb tracing the shell of Eddie’s ear until Eddie’s brain went quiet. It was the way they’d wake up tangled in Steve’s expensive, high-thread-count sheets, the morning light filtered through the blinds and catching the dust motes dancing in the air.
The sex was... it was more than Eddie had words for. It was good, yes, but it was also an exorcism. It was the way Steve looked at him—not like a freak, not like a project, but like something precious. It was the way Steve would press his forehead against Eddie’s after, their breaths syncing up in the quiet dark. It was an intimacy that left Eddie feeling raw and rebuilt all at once, flushing out the lonely years he’d spent convinced he was a monster.
And then Steve said it. I love you. He hadn't said it during the heat of it. He’d said it while Eddie was making a sandwich in Steve’s kitchen at two in the morning, wearing nothing but a pair of Steve’s boxers and a grin. Steve had just been leaning against the counter, watching him, and the words came out steady and sure, devoid of the performative bravado he wore for the rest of Hawkins.
"I love you, Eddie."
It made Eddie’s knees weak; it made the breath catch in his throat like a jagged stone. For those few months, Eddie Munson, the boy from the trailer park who had been told his whole life he was nothing, was the king of a world that actually made sense because Steve Harrington was in it.
But Eddie was no stranger to the way the floor could drop out from under you. He knew the rhythm of tragedy. He knew that happy endings were just stories told by people who hadn't seen the shadows yet. He knew that the higher you climbed, the more the air thinned out, leaving you gasping before the fall.
He looked at the dashboard of the van, the memories fading into the cold reality of the quarry. He had climbed so high with Steve. And then, he’d decided to be a hero.
//
Before the red sky and the screaming, there had been a Tuesday. A Tuesday that tasted like cheap beer and felt like the soft cotton of Steve’s favorite sweatshirt. They had been sprawled on the floor of the trailer, the heater clanking a rhythmic, metallic heartbeat. Steve had been explaining his "plan"—a hazy, beautiful dream of getting Eddie out of Hawkins, maybe to a city where the buildings were tall enough to hide in.
"You'd like Chicago," Steve had whispered, his fingers tracing the line of Eddie’s jaw. "They have record stores that would make your head spin, Munson. And nobody knows who we are there."
Eddie had laughed, but for the first time in his life, he hadn't dismissed the dream as a fantasy. He’d leaned into Steve’s touch, closing his eyes, letting himself believe that he wasn't just a freak waiting for the axe to fall. They were in love—the messy, terrifying, all-consuming kind that makes you feel invincible right before the world reminds you that you aren't.
Then came the bats.
The Upside Down didn't have Chicago. It had a sky the color of a fresh bruise and an atmosphere that tasted like ozone and rotting meat. Eddie remembered the weight of the spear in his hands and the way the wind ripped through his hair as he stood on top of that trailer. He’d done it for Dustin. He’d seen the kid’s face—that raw, wide-eyed terror—and realized he couldn't let another person he loved be torn apart while he watched from the safety of a bike.
He’d stayed behind. He’d fought until his lungs burned and his vision went gray at the edges. He felt the leather-wings tearing at his flesh, the cold, sharp sting of teeth sinking into his sides, and the warm, terrifying rush of his own blood soaking through his denim vest. He’d been ready to die a hero’s death because, in his twisted, trailer-park logic, that was the only way a guy like him ended up in the history books. He thought it was a fair trade: his life for their safety. He thought Steve would understand.
But he didn't die. He’d lived, dragged back through the gate by a screaming Dustin and a Steve who looked like he was vibrating apart.
The "hero" didn't get a parade. He got a sterile, flickering hospital room two weeks later, where the air was thick with the suffocating smell of antiseptic and the rhythmic, mocking beep of the heart monitor. Eddie was propped up on thin pillows, his chest a map of white bandages and jagged black stitches. He felt fragile, like a glass bird that had been glued back together.
Steve wasn't proud. He was livid.
He stood at the foot of the bed, his face a mask of fury, his hands shaking so violently he had to shove them into the pockets of his jacket. But the anger couldn't hide the way his eyes were bloodshot, or the way he looked like he hadn't slept since the gate closed.
"I told you!" Steve’s voice didn't roar at first; it cracked, a jagged sound that filled the small room. He stepped closer, pointing a trembling finger at Eddie’s bandaged chest. "I told you not to be a hero, Eddie! I specifically, fucking begged you not to do anything stupid! And what do you do? You jump into a swarm of those things because you wanted to prove some bullshit point about not running?"
"I was saving him, Steve!" Eddie shouted back, the movement sending a white-hot jolt of pain through his side. "I was saving Dustin! What was I supposed to do? Let him die? Let him carry that for the rest of his life?"
"You were being selfish!" Steve countered, his voice finally rising to a shout. His eyes were bright with a terrifying kind of grief, the kind that looks like rage but feels like a funeral. "You didn't think for one second about what happens to me if you’re gone! You thought you could just die and be a legend, and I’d just... what? Pick up the pieces? Go back to my empty house and pretend I didn't lose the only thing that made it feel like a home?"
"I'm a freak, Steve! I'm a murder suspect! I'm nothing!" Eddie’s voice was wet with frustration. "You’re the one with the future! You’re the one who was supposed to make it out!"
"You were my future, you idiot!" Steve yelled, and then the room went deathly quiet. Steve’s chest heaved, his jaw tight as he looked at Eddie with a look of such profound betrayal that it hurt worse than the teeth in the dark. "But I can’t... I can’t keep doing this. I can’t spend every night wondering if you’re going to decide your life isn't worth as much as mine. I can’t watch you try to kill yourself every time things get heavy."
The silence that followed was heavy, a physical weight pressing down on Eddie’s lungs. Steve wiped a hand over his face, looking suddenly ancient.
"We need to take a break," Steve said. The words were a guillotine, sharp and final.
Eddie watched his entire world walk out of that hospital room. He listened to the squeak of Steve’s sneakers on the linoleum, heard him bitching to the empty hallway about how "fucking shit" everything was, and then the door swung shut. The click of the latch sounded like a burial.
He’d given Steve space. He’d tried to be the "adult" he’d never been taught to be. He figured Steve just needed to cool off, to realize that Eddie was still here, still breathing. But one week turned into a month. A month turned into three. The silence from the Harrington house was a deafening roar in Eddie’s ears. He’d tried calling once, his hand shaking as he dialed the number, but he’d hung up before the second ring, paralyzed by the fear of hearing Steve’s voice—or worse, the sound of Steve hanging up on him.
He’d moved back into the van mostly. The trailer felt like a tomb, and the kids... he couldn't look at Dustin without seeing the reason he’d lost Steve. He couldn't stomach the quiet of a house that wasn't a home.
Now, three months into the exile, Eddie sat in the driver's seat at the quarry. The Indiana night was a damp, clinging cold that seeped through the metal of the van. The engine idled, a rhythmic thrum that vibrated through his boots, the only thing keeping the silence at bay. He took a long, shaking hit from the joint between his fingers, the acrid smoke blooming in his lungs and making his head swim. It didn't help. It never really helped anymore; it just numbed the edges of the hole Steve had left behind, blurring the memory of the way Steve’s kitchen smelled at midnight.
He reached out a tattooed hand, his fingers trembling slightly as he turned the knob on the radio. He just needed noise. He needed something to drown out the sound of his own thoughts—the replay of Steve’s voice calling him pretty, the ghost of Steve’s hand on the back of his neck, the way Steve’s eyes had looked right before he turned his back.
The static cleared, and a melody began to filter through the speakers.
Eddie froze. The joint stayed forgotten in his hand, a thin trail of smoke curling toward the ceiling. He knew this song. It was a slow, haunting thing that seemed to vibrate with the same frequency as his own grief. As the first few words drifted into the cramped, cold space of the van, Eddie felt the familiar, stinging heat behind his eyes.
He tried to blink it away, tried to take one more hit of the joint to choke back the sob rising in his throat, but it was too late. The music was already weaving into the memories, pulling the stitches out of his heart one by one. The first lyric hit him like a physical touch, and Eddie Munson closed his eyes, letting the music finally tear him down.