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loveinhawkins · 11 months

Note

For the made up fic title game "1983 is Calling" bc 1983 by Neon Trees randomly came up on my Spotify lol

god i love this title so much. i think 1983 is calling has a Steve Harrington character study written all over it.

In the November of 1983, Steve Harrington’s world falls out from underneath him. When his feet finally find solid ground again, everything looks a little different, like he’s an Alice who’s grown just slightly too tall for his surroundings.

And maybe most people in his shoes would chalk that up to finding out that monsters are real, that a kid can come back from the dead. But Steve knows that’s not the whole truth.

What’s really tripping him up is the dangerously quiet anger he didn’t really know he was capable of; he spends many sleepless nights staring up at the ceiling, hearing his father’s words come out in his voice, slipping through clenched teeth, finish the sentence.

It’d be easy to brush it off after the quite frankly insane series of events he’s lived through, to claim that wasn’t me.

But it was. It was.

It’s not a dramatic transformation. If anyone was really looking out for it, maybe they’d notice him being just a touch more reserved in school. Slower to react, more careful with his words.

He doesn’t sit with Tommy and Carol in the cafeteria—and while there’s an ache in that decision which he steadfastly ignores, he finds that he doesn’t really mind sitting alone sometimes.

In the quiet, he has more time to think. He tries to keep his assumptions in check, finds that he cares less and less about cliques—does his best to ensure that his first thought about someone isn’t a judgement.

He remembers the casual indifference he had when watching Jonathan Byers put up a poster for his missing brother. His unbothered drawl, God, that’s depressing.

Never again, he decides.

Above all, he doesn’t want to be cruel.

One lunch, he sits with Jonathan, and they swap pudding cups, Steve trading chocolate for butterscotch.

“I… listen, Jonathan, I shouldn’t… shouldn’t have said what—what I said,” he starts, awkwardly, inadequately. “About. About your mom, and your family, and…”

It horrifies him still, the words that came out so easily, never mind if they were echoes of things he heard.

Joyce Byers is one of the strongest people he knows.

“Thanks,” Jonathan says, delayed. He smiles tightly, but Steve knows it’s not personal, that the guy’s still on edge from… everything.

Steve smiles back.

But there’s still a thorn that he hasn’t quite prised out.

“And I…” He lowers his voice. “I shouldn’t have called you that. Y’know.”

Jonathan’s eyebrows go up. “No,” he says mildly. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I…” Steve rubs a hand over his mouth. “I hate that… there’s nothing bad about…”

Jesus, what’s wrong with him?

Jonathan’s expression softens. He blinks, and he has that pensive look on his face, like he’s seeing the world through a camera lens—like the flash has lit up something unknown.

“I agree,” he says quietly, and then he digs into his pudding and asks genuinely about Steve’s holiday plans, talks about getting Will an Atari for Christmas.

At New Year, Steve is abruptly conscious of the fact that he really, really needs to look like he’s having a good time. He doesn’t want to analyse who the performance is for. If it’s for himself, he’s not convinced.

But drink dulls the anxiety; he laughs a lot, sways with Nancy in his arms because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Even in the euphoria of the midnight countdown, he can see Nancy smiling too brightly, like her face might crack with the strain.

Do you feel it, too? he almost asks. Are we always gonna be back there? Are we always gonna be running from it?

The semester after winter break starts off reluctantly.

There’s a few classes with mixed year groups: they get an absolute horror of a substitute teacher in second period, one who insists on them copying things word for word from the blackboard. She makes her funeral march down the desks and shouts at a student for mis-spelling ‘January.’

“Psst,” comes a voice, before she reaches Steve.

He looks over to see Eddie Munson in the seat next to him, handing over an eraser.

“Wrong year, Harrington,” he whispers.

Steve glances down at his paper. Sure enough, 1983 stares back at him from the top margin.

Steve scoffs. “Figures.” He uses the eraser and passes it back to Eddie. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I wish we were still on vacation, too.”

“Eddie Munson.” The teacher slams a ruler down on Eddie’s desk so hard that Steve flinches. “Shall I send you outside for talking?”

“Oh, no, ma’am,” Eddie says, without missing a beat, “I’ll surely cry. Profusely.”

As other students stifle giggles, Steve manages to write the date down correctly before the teacher peers over his shoulder.

He can’t help noticing that even with the eraser, there’s still an imprint: 1983 faintly engraved on the page.

Well, Steve thinks wryly, so it goes.

#steve harrington fic #steve harrington hc #steve harrington analysis #steve and jonathan #steve and nancy #pre steddie #steve harrington ficlet #steve harrington #made up fic titles

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audhd-nightwing · 2 years

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stranger things autism squad hcs

- the squad consists of jonathan, eddie, robin, steve (and will but i’ll talk abt him with the rest of the party’s hcs)

the rest of them are also neurodivergent, mainly adhd or anxiety and obviously they all have ptsd

- eddie robin and steve also have adhd (and steve has dyslexia)

- steve and jonathan tend to get overstimulated by the same things, same with eddie and robin

- eddie and jonathan have music playing 24/7 so their thoughts don’t get too loud

- steve is hyper-empathetic to the ppl around him and tends to mimic stims and tics from the others

a lot of times robin and steve end up mimicking the same stuff back at each other until one of them gets distracted (which is usually pretty fast)

- jonathan is touch averse, can only handle being touched by family/very close friends

- steve is touch starved and finds physical affection grounding (and eddie and robin are happy to oblige bc they do too)

- steve has a super high pain tolerance

- eddie does not understand the concept of personal space

- steve has excellent hand-eye coordination (basketball!) but that’s about it, he’s almost as clumsy as robin most days

- eddie has lived off of solely spaghettio’s and chicken nuggets for 19 years

- jonathan can’t drink any beverage other than water

- the only food steve knows how to make is his and robins comfort foods (his is mac and cheese, robin’s is pancakes)

- the four of them are completely clueless when people try to subtly hint or imply things to them. they will not get it unless it is explicitly stated

- steve and eddie have a good sense of direction but mess up left and right, jonathan and robin are the opposite, they get lost constantly but make fun of steve and eddie for having to do the L thing (iykyk) to figure out left/right

- eddie ends up chewing on paper a lot and has accidentally swallowed a bunch

- eddie and steve are incapable of doing homework and are terrible test-takers

- steve and robin are perfectionists but in different ways. steve will start organizing peoples rooms subconsciously and has a bunch of random little rules for himself (tie left shoe first, check locks three times, etc.) robin is a perfectionist about her grades/band/how she looks/etc.

- jonathan and steve hate making eye contact, eddie makes too much eye contact and robin doesn’t even look up from her book when people talk to her

- eddie and robin accidentally eavesdrop a lot but end up getting a bunch of town gossip and tell steve about it. they’re all really invested in mr. clarke’s love life

- eddie and jonathan have synesthesia

- jonathan has a lack of facial expressions while eddie and robin over-exaggerate theirs. steve masks the most so he has “normal” facial expressions

- steve has trouble expressing himself a lot of the time, he’ll usually ask robin for certain words to describe things and bc she loves big words and vocabulary she always has one

- robin is a terrible liar and steve finds it hilarious

- they all tend to recharge on their own after a lot of socializing, or they all go to steve’s and just like. exist together

- steve keeps a very strict schedule and gets really anxious/upset when it’s messed up

- robin and eddie tend to overshare

- jonathan and steve talk pretty monotone (jonathan more so) while robin and eddie talk in super energetic or dramatic tones (they’re both former theatre kids i can feel it in my bones)

- steve has auditory processing issues, often asks people to repeat what they said (overtime he also starts to lose his hearing so he ends up learning to read lips)

- when they’re anxious robin and eddie usually go hyperverbal, while steve and jonathan tend to go nonverbal

- steve and eddie have echolalia and both used to get super frustrated with themselves before they met and were like “oh im not the only one thank fuck”

- jonathan and robin have photographic memories, steve and eddie have trouble remembering what they had for breakfast

- robin is pretty blunt but steve appreciates it because she gets straight to the point and calls him out if he does something stupid (aka smth King Steve would do)

- steve’s main mask is, obviously, king steve. his parents didn’t like the way he acted when he was younger, they wanted a “normal” child. so they trained him to be one. he still falls back into old habits some days but robin or eddie snap him out of it and comfort him after

- steve and robin mask the most, but steve does wayyy more than all of them combined. robins parents are autistic so she only really masks around people in public

she does around steve until they get closer and she feels comfortable enough to unmask (though she doesn’t really know why,,) and steve notices and is like “…you can… take it off?” and robin realizes oh he’s like me

- joyce is an amazing mother and jonathan only ever felt the need to mask around lonnie. once he leaves (aka joyce kicks him out with hopper’s help) will and jonathan rarely mask at home unless they’re really anxious or upset

- eddie masked most of his childhood. when he grows up he masks around his dad, but not anyone else. he thought if anyone hated him they could go fuck themselves. wayne is also autistic so they never feel the need to mask around each other. he still doesn’t give a shit what other people think of him (and tries to help the others feel that way too)

their special interests:

- jonathan’s is photography

- eddie’s are dnd and metal music

- robins are cryptography and linguistics

- steve’s are hair care and marvel comics

steve infodumps to dustin and robin about them but doesn’t tell anyone else (besides will) because it’s “nerdy” lmao. and yes when eddie finds out he falls even harder for him

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polyamorous-elevenv2 · 1 year

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Steve really doesn't know how to ask out a guy 😮‍💨

#stonathan #jonathan byers #steve harrington #steve x jonathan #steve and jonathan #jonathan x steve #stranger things #stranger things smau #stranger things twitter

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kaylawritesfics · 2 years

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heey what about a steve x henderson!reader where the reader is really close friends with jonathan and steve gets kinda jealous

+ @glitterygreeny: how about a steve x reader where the reader is best friends with jonathan byers and steve gets jealous

Steve Harrington Being Jealous of Your Friendship With Jonathan Byers

headcanons

summary: what it’s like when steve harrington becomes a bit jealous of your friendship with jonathan byers

pairing: steve harrington x reader / jonathan byers x reader (platonic)

warnings: none :)

note: jealous!steve jealous!steve jealous!steve jealous!steve

Steve doesn’t get jealous a lot. He knows that you chose him for a reason and he trusts you.

However, when you start spending time around Jonathan Byers, he can’t help but let old feelings arise.

He’s already lost one relationship to Jonathan, he refuses to lose another.

While Steve and Jonathan have settled any past problems, Steve can’t help bit become a little snippy around Jonathan.

Steve totally trusts you and he knows that you would never cheat on him, but he can’t help the way his chest tightens and his face turns red every time Jonathan makes you laugh.

He’s definitely the quite type of jealous. He’ll never mention it to you, but its pretty obvious from the way he crosses his arms and occasionally rolls his eyes when Jonathan speaks.

He’ll also occasionally come over, wrapping an arm around your shoulder while kissing your temple.

You and Jonathan totally know what’s going on and you both think it’s incredibly funny.

Once you talk to Steve, he’ll realize how immature and irrational he’s being. He’ll apologize to you and Jonathan, promising to stop being so snippy.

His cheeks turn red and he gets flustered when you finally call him out. He’s actually really embarrassed but it’s kind of adorable !!

Steve definitely has some abandonment issues and he doesn’t mean to be jealous, but he just loves you so much and is so terrified that you’ll leave him.

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n0connections · 2 years

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Steve: Hey Jonathan. Can I ask you something?

Jonathan: I guess.

Steve: If Nancy bought you flowers, would that be cool or lame?

Jonathan: Steve if this is some kind of joke about my masculinity-

Steve: It’s not. I honestly want to know if you would like getting flowers even though you’re a guy. Robin is my go to for this kind of thing, but she can’t really offer her perspective here - and I don’t have many guy friends that aren’t children.

Jonathan: Well in that case, I think it would be really cool. I’m surprised you didn’t just ask Eddie though. You two seem glued at the hip lately.

Steve: Yeah.

Jonathan: Ohhhhhh. Cool.

#stranger things #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington #jonathan byers #eddie munson #steddie #steve and jonathan #steve/eddie #NCskits #NCFics #maybe this one will be part of a fic someday #idk

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honneberries · 1 year

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Babygirl vs Babygirl who will win

Spoiler they kiss

#stranger things #stranger things fanart #fanart #stranger things art #steve and jonathan #Jonathan byers #jonathan byers fanart #steve harrington fanart #steve harrington #stonathan fanart #stonathan

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more-than-stranger-things · 2 years

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#omfg 😂😂😂😂😂#stranger things #Steve and Jonathan #steve harrington #jonathan byers #charlie heaton #joe keery

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kb9-ships-mistercriky · 2 years

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the fact that you can ship steve with any guy they put in the show is emblematic!

#steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #i think at steve and billy #steve and jonathan #steve and eddie #steddie

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mollymurakami · 1 year

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were we just kids, just starting out

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random-jot · 2 years

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If Stranger Things was british

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #duffer brothers #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #will Byers #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #steve harrington #eddie munson #erica sinclair #robin buckley #joyce byers #jim hopper

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mardyart · 2 years

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actual deleted footage of stranger things season 4 trust me guys

#all the interactions that i wish happened #im very delusional ye s thank you #steddie #ronance #jonathan byers #argyle #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #erica sinclair #steve harrington #chrissy cunningham #stranger things season four #stranger things #stranger things fanart #art #fanart

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loveinhawkins · 1 year

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 ao3

When the doorbell rings, it isn’t Lucas. It’s Erica.

“Lucas is coming,” she says, hopping off her bike and picking up a plastic bag that’s looped around the handlebars. “I told him to give me five minutes.”

“Sure,” Eddie says. He tips from concern into something approaching bemusement as Erica throws the bag at him; when he catches it, he feels the coldness of it, opens it up to find two tubs of ice-cream.

Erica side-steps him into the hall, calls over her shoulder, “Hurry up, Eddie, or it’s gonna melt.”

Eddie laughs. “Hi to you, too.”

When he reaches the kitchen, Erica has already opened the freezer to clear a space, Steve watching her from the counter with a look of benign amusement.

“I’d better be compensated for this,” Erica is saying. She points at the space she’s made, and Eddie dutifully slots the tubs inside. “This goes against the you supplying me with free ice-cream for life deal.”

“You literally ate my ice-cream,” Steve says. “Besides, I kinda figured that contract was null and void when Scoops went kaput.”

Erica shuts the freezer door. “I didn’t have a contract with Scoops, I had one with you.”

And she stops. “Have,” she corrects quietly.

No longer able to focus on putting the ice-cream away, her hands fall to her sides. Her little smile drops, and all at once, Eddie is reminded that she’s just eleven years old.

Steve’s face softens. “Why’re you really here, Erica?”

“Lucas,” Erica starts, then pauses—but that’s an answer all of its own, Eddie thinks. She collects herself, looks Steve directly in the eye. “He might not… get it all out.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve says.

“He was…” Erica glances down. “I don’t wanna see him like that. Ever again.”

“Hey, look at me.” Steve’s tone is gentle. “I’m sorry.”

Erica sighs loudly; Eddie can hear the frustration and hurt in it, but mostly the love. “You don’t have to—that’s not why I’m telling you,” she says. “I don’t…” Her eyes widen a little. “I don’t know why I’m telling you.”

Steve smiles at her, lifts up one arm in offering. He makes a beckoning gesture. “Help a guy out? I don’t have travelling by bar stool down yet.”

“Was that meant to be funny? Pathetic,” Erica replies, but she’s heading over to him as she says it, lets herself be pulled into a hug.

Steve whispers something in her ear—Eddie half-hears it as a crack about her ice-cream preferences, and she giggles a bit, does a more dramatic sigh and says, “Nothing can cure your poor taste, Steve.”

She settles into the hug.

Eddie thinks of the slip up she made. Had, have. Past, present. Hates that she was forced into thinking of Steve in the past tense—for even a second is a second too long.

As Erica heads out, she turns to Dustin, who’s sitting out on the driveway, waiting for Lucas to show up.

“Look after him,” she says with an intensity that might’ve been funny if Eddie hadn’t known all that had caused it.

Dustin chuckles slightly. He jerks his head back to the house, where Eddie stands at the front doormat. “Which one?”

Erica grins, looks a little lighter. “I meant Lucas, but guess you’ve got your hands full. You’re the babysitter now.”

As she gets back on her bike, Eddie calls after her. “What, don’t I get any orders?”

She glances at him over her shoulder, one foot on the pedal. Her gaze lingers for a couple of beats, and he thinks of her staring him down at Hellfire, sharp and analytical. But now there’s a softness there, too.

“Keep doing whatever you’re doing, I suppose,” she says, and her lips twitch into a smile that’s just pretending to be sardonic, and Eddie feels his heart swell.

Dustin sits with him on the stairs. When Lucas arrived, he barely said a word, not even to Dustin, instead heading through the hallway like someone marching towards the gallows.

They stay put, giving a semi-illusion of privacy—voices can travel far in this damn house—but they can hardly hear anything right now, just the soft rumble of speech, the rise and fall of a question, then silence.

“Can I tell you something?” Dustin mumbles haltingly.

“Sure,” Eddie says, and means Of course you fucking can. Always.

“It was my fault,” Dustin says into his knees, “with… Max. When I was—Lucas, he came to get me when you, um. When you drove away.”

Eddie doesn’t know what his face is doing, but he feels a pang of guilt which Dustin must notice, because he nudges Eddie’s forearm.

“I was kinda… freaking out. A lot, actually. By the time we got to the house, Max, she—she’d already stopped listening to her tape. I… I gave her time to think about it, you know? If we were quicker, we might’ve…”

Stopped it. Eddie’s all too familiar with that sentiment.

“You know, like with Steve. He… he must’ve thought about—about it for ages when he…” Dustin clears his throat. “When he saw the clock.”

Eddie doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Steve had made his decision in a split-second, like it was inevitable; like he’d already committed to it long ago, stared that awful option down and came to the conclusion easily, if it meant everyone else would be safe.

“This is stupid,” Dustin announces after another five minutes have passed without them overhearing anything, not even the whisper of a voice.

He’s down the stairs before Eddie can even think about stopping him. Even if he had been quick enough, he’s not sure if he would’ve decided to stop him in the first place. Shit, he’s not all that sure about anything; there’s no guidebook for this.

He follows Dustin into the kitchen, sees him standing by the fridge; Lucas is sitting at the counter, holding a glass of water Steve must’ve instructed him to take.

Steve is speaking with a quiet urgency, his eyes pleading as he considers Lucas searchingly. “You don’t—don’t need to be nice to me or anything, dude. I can take it. Don’t, like… tread on eggshells on my account.”

“It was my fault,” Dustin interrupts.

Lucas frowns, shakes his head.

And Eddie and Steve speak in unison, a firm rebuttal: “Dustin.”

They jolt in surprise, glance at each other—and then Dustin snorts and says, “Holy shit, that was like a sitcom. Did you, like, practice that or are you just losers?”

And that makes Lucas laugh into his glass of water.

And then… maybe it helps, the echo of laughter in a room, even if it’s only for a moment.

Because suddenly Lucas just launches right into it: how he ran back inside, Dustin in tow and, still catching his breath, it had taken him a few seconds to realise that he couldn’t hear Max’s tape playing.

“Erica noticed first,” he stays, staring into the glass of water. “Her voice went all strange and—I’d never heard her like—like that before. Then she pointed, and I saw… Max had taken her headphones off.”

He grips the glass tightly. The back of his hand dashes away the tears at first, but then he just lets them fall—slow and sluggish tracks, like he’s not even aware that he’s crying anymore.

“Steve, she was… She was begging. For—for him to…”

Steve breathes out, passes a hand across his face. “Jesus, Sinclair, I’m—”

“I love her so much,” Lucas whispers with a certainty that’s much greater than his years, “but I c-couldn’t reach her. It was like she—the only thing that stopped her was…”

“When everything went to shit,” Dustin says when it’s clear Lucas can’t go on.

And it’s like Eddie can hear it, suddenly—that oppressive silence. Feeling like there was no air left to breathe, that there never would be again.

“Steve? Steve.”

Steve’s eyes, glassy and gone, no light behind them. The awful stillness of his chest.

The world ripping apart.

Eddie presses a finger hard to the inner corner of one eye, a vain attempt to block out the image. He thinks of the kids being thrown to their knees with the force of it, a window shattering—and as the rest of Hawkins screamed with no understanding, they would know exactly what it meant.

Lucas and Dustin look like they’re reliving it, too, their faces drawn.

Eddie thinks back to the RV, when Nancy first laid out the apocalyptic vision that had been forced upon her. Eddie, once again a silent watcher in the crowd, his eyes drifting over them all, noticing every twitch, every grim set to their mouth—a horrifying sense of resignation. Eddie thinking yet again that Jesus, they’re used to this.

He had thought that he’d reached his breaking point with Chrissy’s death, and then…

But the others, they’ve had years of this, stretched thin like elastic. Eddie remembers as they began the drive back to Hawkins, as the rest of them gradually dropped off to sleep. Remembers thinking, right before he caught Steve’s whisper, How much more can they take?

It’s Steve’s voice that brings him back. He starts a little at the sound.

“Lucas, you… you would’ve reached her, okay? You’d have brought her back, I know that you…”

There’s a look that passes between the three of them, Steve, Dustin and Lucas: some shared understanding. They’d barely talked about what happened when Vecna’s curse took hold of Max, apart from the song that saved her. The most Eddie is aware of is that it happened in the graveyard.

The rest is not for him to know, he thinks.

“Look, I’m not—I’m not in her head, but I don’t think she wanted to—to—” Steve says, and he stumbles a bit over the words, voice growing a little thick with emotion. “She was… scared. Really scared. And that’s—that’s on me, man.”

For barely a second, Steve’s eyes flicker over to Eddie’s. Then he looks away.

“I’ll talk to her,” Steve says, and it sounds like I’ll fix it, I’m sorry, I swear. His shoulders tense, and Eddie can practically feel it, another load this fucking selfless boy takes on like it’s as natural as breathing, and he kind of wants to cry.

He doesn’t.

Max doesn’t ring the doorbell, opens the front door so quietly that Eddie only notices when a gust of wind shuts it behind her.

After a grateful phone call from Steve, Claudia Henderson had given Lucas and Dustin a ride home; the emptiness of the house is now all too apparent as Max stares Eddie down in the hallway.

“Hey, Red,” Eddie says, aims to be soft enough to soothe, not too much for fear that it’ll get her hackles up. He can feel the tension within her, can almost hear the grinding of her teeth. He can’t fuck this up. One wrong move, and she’ll run.

He gestures through to the living room. She clips him with her shoulder as she barges past him, and that’s fine; if it makes it hurt a little less for her, he’ll take more than that.

She stands in front of the couch where Steve sits. She wraps one arm around herself, a move Eddie recognises. Unconscious self-defence. He thinks of her voice over the walkie, still managing to laugh at Steve’s movies. Marvels in a horrified sort of way at how long she’s been pushing everything down.

“I’m sorry,” Max says. She looks down at the floor.

Eddie moves slowly, stands at the end of the couch, not too close to Max. Steve turns to him very slightly, eyes flitting between the two of them.

Eddie doesn’t need to hear it to know what Steve means. Be careful.

Eddie barely moves his head in a nod. I know.

“I’m not staying long, so just.” Max raises her chin, and her eyes are burning—and people who didn’t know any better might call that defiance. Eddie doesn’t. “Just tell me.”

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it. He glances down at the coffee table, where the cracked tape still lies.

“Tell you what, Max?” he asks, so quiet, so worried—like he’s scared that with just one word, he’ll ruin everything.

“What I did wrong,” Max says. She scrubs at her eyes, blinks up at the ceiling, and Steve’s face falls.

“You didn’t—”

Max sighs harshly. “I’m not stupid. You can—” She turns to Eddie, and he watches in horror as she squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself, like Eddie might crack first, might give her the judgement she’s desperately searching for. “You can say it.”

“Max,” Steve says.

“I fucked up the plan. It was meant to be me. There—there must’ve been a reason that he—”

“No,” Steve says, and the word is strong, his resolve clear. “Max, listen to me. No.”

But Max shakes her head. “I must’ve done something, I know I did, I made him get in your head—”

“That’s not how it works,” Steve says, kind but firm. “Max, it was—nothing is worth you—”

“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” Max whispers. “I was marked already, asshole, he was coming back to claim—”

“Oh my god, no,” Steve repeats. “Max, what? He had no claim on you, you never deserved—”

“And you did?” Max challenges. Her lips are trembling.

“No,” Steve says, gentle. “But… hey, listen, it. It would’ve been—”

“No, it wouldn’t have been!” Max explodes, and she’s shaking where she stands, like she might break apart. “It wouldn’t have been worth it or okay or whatever bullshit you were about to—”

“All right, all right—”

“You would’ve been gone.” And all at once, she goes very still. “You were gone.”

She pinches the skin on the back of her hand, hard enough to hurt, and Eddie thinks that’s enough.

He walks over, as slowly as he can. He doesn’t touch her, but he stands close enough that she could reach out if she wanted to.

God, Red. Please let me help you.

Max snarls as he lifts one hand in offering. “Fuck off,” she breathes, and she strikes out, hits him in the chest. It’s hard enough for him to have to bite back a gasp, but that’s fine; as far as he’s concerned, she can hit him all she likes.

But that doesn’t last long. At some point, her hand clenches around his shirt, and she just holds on.

Hardly daring to breathe, he slowly reaches out and steadies her, both hands around her elbows.

“Easy, I’ve got you. You wanna… walk with me? That’s it, there you—”

Eddie only lets go after he leads her to Steve. She sobs, once, twice, then the dam breaks as Steve sits up, pulls her close.

“Max, I’m so sorry,” he says. “It wasn’t fucking fair. Shh, hey, hey, there was nothing you could’ve—oh, baby.” His voice fades away for a moment, the barely held back tears audible. He kisses her temple. “Oh, Max, I’m so sorry. I’m here, okay? Shh, shh. Hey, we made it, huh? We’re gonna be all right.”

She cries it out for a while—eventually, all Eddie can hear is her stuttering breaths, slowly evening out.

“Oh,” Steve sighs shakily, and he strokes Max’s hair off her face, catches Eddie’s eye and mouths over the top of her head: She’s asleep.

Eddie gets a blanket from the arm of the couch, tucks it around her—knows that Steve won’t be moving one inch, not even when the angle he’s sitting at is bound to make his leg ache.

“I’ll call her… mom?” Eddie says, cautiously.

Steve thinks about it, then nods. “Yeah,” he murmurs, presses another kiss to Max’s temple when her chin dips down in sleep. “That should be… Lucas said that they’re both staying with his folks for a bit.”

As Steve’s speaking, a tear falls down his cheek. You’d never have known, Eddie thinks, not unless you were looking for it.

On impulse, he runs a hand through Steve’s hair before heading to the phone, and hopes that it says enough.

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Steve says dully. He’s fiddling with one of his pills, rolling it back and forth on the counter.

Eddie pauses, mid-taking a can of Coke out of the fridge. It’s just the two of them again, an exhausted Max picked up by her mother, who somehow barely batted an eye when Eddie answered the door and led her to her still sleeping daughter; Dustin picking up schoolwork—of all things—from his house.

“Like what?”

Steve swallows the pill dry, which makes Eddie inwardly wince.

“I hoped it wouldn’t be like this,” he corrects, not answering the question.

Eddie leans against the counter with his hip, opens the can. Waits.

“It’s just… I spent some time thinking about it, you know? Well.” Steve laughs humourlessly. “Not like I had that much time to… weigh it all up, but…” He sighs. “I thought they’d be okay, if…”

Eddie sets down the can before his hand can shake.

“It’s just. Like. I know you weren’t there for it all, but I guess I kinda… got used to them bouncing back? Sort of. Um, we all needed to.” He swallows. “I had to think that they’d be okay,” he whispers. “That was, like, one of the only thoughts that kept me from…” Steve shakes his head, eyes far-off again, and for a moment they’re in the RV, and Steve is saying, gaze fixed determinedly ahead, Listen, I can see a clock in the middle of the goddamn road, okay?

“From losing it,” Steve finishes.

There’s a tremor to Steve’s fingers as they drum on the counter, uneasy taps.

Eddie reaches over, gently stills him—two of his fingers resting on Steve’s knuckles.

“They bounced back from monsters, Steve,” he says slowly. “Not from… not from losing people.” From losing you.

Steve covers his eyes with the hand Eddie isn’t touching. Breathes in and out. Shudders.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, choked. “Just… ignore me for a second, Eddie.”

At first, Eddie tries to, because that’s what Steve had asked, but then Steve’s hand moves on the counter, until he’s gripping onto Eddie’s hand tightly; and Eddie holds on as Steve’s tremor moves up through his arm, his chest, until it’s all of him.

Do you see the gaping hole you would have left? Eddie thinks. Bites down on his lip to keep from crying, because this isn’t about him. Do you see how much they would have missed you?

Do you get it now, how much they love you?

But as Steve weeps for his family, for himself, Eddie can’t hold back the thought, as inevitable as the tide going out.

I would have fucking mourned you forever.

Sometimes in between the afternoon and evening doses of medicine, Steve drifts off into a kind of waking sleep—he’s still there enough to be roused if someone asks him a question, but his head nods sleepily more often than not, half-caught in a dream.

In the quiet, Dustin returns, finds a gap in the couch so he can sit next to Steve without jostling him—then sets about doing homework, and Eddie can’t begin to imagine how he’s focusing on it. But then again, Dustin has the kind of mind that once wanted to solve a Russian code for kicks in the summer vacation.

It’s peaceful.

Peaceful until Steve’s head jerks up with a ragged gasp.

And before Eddie can even say anything, Steve grips Dustin by the shoulders.

“Oh, you’re—” Steve exhales, chest catching on it. “Oh.”

His eyes are wild, darting all over Dustin, face cracked open with a vulnerability he’d never show if he was fully awake. His hand reaches up, moves through Dustin’s hair, searching, searching.

“Steve,” Dustin says, but it’s not a question. Like he kind of knows, understands just enough without being told.

And as Steve cups the back of Dustin’s head, Eddie gets it. He’s looking for blood.

“It wasn’t real, Steve,” Dustin says, with a clarity and kindness that makes Eddie think oh, I fucking love you, Dustin Henderson. “We’re good. Okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Steve answers, hooks his chin over Dustin’s head and hugs him. -

When the phone rings, Eddie picks up quickly; Dustin and Steve are both fast asleep, heads lolling onto the back of the couch.

It’s Wayne—and he doesn’t sound all that surprised to hear Eddie answer.

“How’d you know I was still here?” Eddie asks.

“Made an educated guess,” Wayne says. He sounds fond. “That and Joyce Byers called.”

Oh, Eddie thinks. And then, of course she did.

“We’re on the list,” Wayne says, “to get re-housed. S’going quicker than expected. Reckon that they,” he stresses the word like it’s a capital They, “don’t wanna give folks too much time to complain.”

He says it with such ease, and Eddie’s suddenly thrown back to him arriving at the trailer, small and angry and afraid, and Wayne just looking at him, saying gently, “Well, kid, we’ll make it work.”

Eddie sighs into the receiver. “I’m sorry—”

“Ed, shut the hell up,” Wayne says through an obvious smile, and Eddie chokes out a laugh that’s slightly wet around the edges.

The phone rings again, and this time it’s Jim Hopper.

“Look alive, Munson. Got a number for you.”

“Oh, uh.” Eddie runs about for a notepad and pen. “Okay?”

Hopper fires off a number which Eddie copies down and underlines, just because it feels like that’s the kind of thing he should do.

“That’s a private number, got it? Ring if there’s any trouble.”

“Um, sure,” Eddie says. “I’ll, uh. I’ll tell Steve.”

“No, kid, that’s for you,” Hopper says before abruptly hanging up.

When Eddie sets the phone down, Steve is sitting up, Dustin stirring and grumbling a complaint. He hears Steve laugh under his breath: “That’s what you get for trying to do math right now, dude.”

Eddie sits cross-legged on the floor in front of them. Thinking.

“You okay?” Steve asks.

“Jim Hopper’s fuckin’ weird,” Eddie says distantly.

Steve snorts. “Wow. And that’s coming from you.”

Dustin giggles himself awake as Eddie flips him the bird.

Jonathan Byers comes round just as Dustin heads upstairs to use the shower which—okay, sure. Eddie’s getting used to the whole people coming and going thing, and in theory he knows that obviously Jonathan’s been around for this since the beginning, but it’s another thing to see it in person.

It’s like an annoyingly stubborn part of his brain is still stuck on high school, looking at Jonathan and Steve in the same room, whining: But that’s not right—your kind don’t mix.

Jonathan’s polite, Eddie will give him that, but it’s obvious from the outset that he’s just here to speak to Steve.

Eddie leaves them to it in the living room, but it’s hard not to overhear, even when he’s doing his best to concentrate on the hum of the microwave as he heats through casserole.

“She’s staying in her room a lot, and you know what her mom’s like, Steve, she won’t—”

“Yeah, Robin said she tried to call, got no answer.”

“The most I could get her to talk was when she was with Holly. It’s like she doesn’t want to leave her alone.”

“Yeah, I… God, I don’t know. Wish I knew how to…”

“Me, too. But you’ll… you’ll call right, if she…? Fuck, it scares me sometimes, she’s so quiet. Don’t know if she’ll even turn to anyone.”

“Yeah, Jonathan, ‘course I’ll… Look, it’s just. It’s just been a lot, man. For all of us. She just needs some time, I think.”

“Yeah, I—sorry. I just worry.”

“Me, too.”

Eddie punches the buttons, sets the microwave on again before it can screech at him.

Jonathan leaves soon after that, gives Eddie a slightly awkward but sincere smile, bids goodbye to Steve with a, “Look after yourself, Steve.”

There’s a weight behind those words.

“Wheeler okay?” Eddie asks, once the front door has shut.

Steve sighs. “Hope so.”

The silence is heavy, and because Eddie can’t leave well enough alone, and apparently has a compulsion to put his foot in his mouth when it comes to this pair, blurts out, “Yeah, I kinda thought you two were a sure thing, man.”

Steve gives him a sideways look that Eddie can’t quite read. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

Steve shrugs. “Like… imagine other people’s futures.”

It’s not said, but Eddie can hear the instead of your own loud and clear.

The embarrassment is expected. What isn’t is how he strangely welcomes it—no-one’s seen him like that before, cut right down to the core of him.

It’s his turn to shrug. “Kind of? It’s… you know what this town’s like, man. People and, like, how it’s all gonna turn out… some folks’ lives are easier to imagine than, uh. Others.”

It was a bit like solving a simple puzzle piece: it had been easy to imagine Nancy and Steve together, to picture them as they were back then, young and sweet in the school corridors… using the belief in them as a sure thing to try and keep himself from losing it in a world turned (literally) upside down.

Steve’s lips twitch at the corners into a little smile. “Thought your whole thing was how people can defy expectations, or whatever.”

“Yeah, well. Even I’m not immune to hypocrisy, Harrington.”

Steve huffs a laugh. Hums. “I think I was always meant to love her,” he says, slow and thoughtful, “just… not in that way.”

“…Oh.”

Steve’s smile shifts into something melancholy. “I think we were both lonely, y’know? And, like… too similar. We both got trapped in our heads whenever shit went sideways. So if we needed, like, help or just… we couldn’t… couldn’t reach each other. Does that make sense?”

Eddie nods faintly.

“Eddie, can you promise me something?”

Eddie nods again, holds Steve’s gaze. Anything.

“Nance, if she—if she comes to you, just… be there for her?”

Eddie opens his mouth, but Steve keeps talking.

“I mean, ‘cause, you’re a good listener, man. And you’re kind. You can… see people.”

And Eddie suddenly has to hold his breath. He knows what Steve is referring to, thinks of how he recounted his meeting with Chrissy in the woods, as the group hiked from Skull Rock. I don’t know, man, I just knew something was up with her. Like, something was really wrong.

But the way Steve speaks to him—there’s more underneath the words. Kind of sounds like You can see me, too.

Eddie swallows through the burning in his throat. “I will,” he promises.

#the self sacrificial steve agenda #steve and erica #steve and lucas #steve and max #steve and dustin #steddie fic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #erica sinclair #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #dustin henderson #eddie and erica #steve and nancy #eddie and nancy #eddie and max #steve and jonathan

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