Little Bastard Trashcat

It’s a good kiss.  An excellent kiss.  Eddie’s tongue dashes out to trace along Steve’s bottom lip.  Steve opens for him, and then things really get going.  Steve shivers, toes curling and blood rushing downward as his tongue slides against Eddie’s.  He threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair, feels the scratch of his stubble against his mouth, and lets one hand drift down until it’s firmly planted on Eddie’s ass.

“Now that has definitely never happened before,” Eddie says, almost growling in approval as they surge together.  Their kiss turns slow and deliberate, and then Eddie starts kissing down Steve’s neck.  Steve hears himself moan in response, which somehow only turns him on more.

“Holy shit, Eddie, how is this even happening?”  Every place where Eddie is touching Steve is on fire.  Steve feels amazing.  He could kiss Eddie Munson forever.

“No idea, usually the dream ends as soon as I kiss you, but I’m not complaining.”

“Me neither,” Steve says, his breath coming faster.  Eddie is pushing Steve’s shirt up and out of the way, sucking kisses on his stomach and running his fingers up and down his chest, tweaking a nipple as he goes.  “Glad it’s not a dream.  So glad, fuck.  Robin’s gonna kill me, though, after all the times I swore I wasn’t into you.  She’ll probably wait until the current crisis is over, though, we’re all kinda busy.”

Eddie pulls back, staring up at Steve from his crouch, his eyelashes unfairly long.  “Um, wait a sec.  I’m confused.”  His lips are red, from kissing Steve, and Steve feels oddly proud.

“Sorry, man, I know I babble when I get heated up.”  Steve pulls Eddie up to stand next to him and runs his hands down his arms.  Eddie’s wearing what looks like a worn biker jacket and a metal band t-shirt.   Suddenly Steve’s brain pops back online and he gasps, clutching at Eddie’s t-shirt and rucking it up to find smooth, unblemished skin underneath.

“You’re not bleeding!” he exclaims.

“No,” Eddie says.  “And you’re not acting like you usually do in my dreams.”

“This isn’t a dream.  This is reality,” Steve insists. 

Eddie tilts his head, cocks his hip, and drags a strand of impossibly fluffy looking hair across his face.  “I’d like to believe you, really I would.  This has been a whole lot better than watching you get eaten by demobats.”

“Me - what the hell are you talking about?”

“You should really know this, since you are just a figment of my Vecna-sponsored hallucinations.  Generally my dreams are more of the nightmare variety, wherein you die horribly while I sob my eyes out.  Which I’d be embarrassed to admit to you in real life.”

“This is real, Eddie.  It is.”  At least, Steve is pretty sure it’s real.  Eddie being argumentative and annoying is real, at least.  Or it was.  But the kiss… the kiss was new.  Can Eddie really be alive?  Steve is never going to get over the crazy of the upside down.

“Sure, tell me another one.”

“Don’t you want it to be?”

“More than you can imagine.”

All right, well that’s pretty flattering.  “Eddie, come on.  This is unbelievable for me too, but also awesome.  You have to at least admit, you aren’t dead, which is – wow.  So great.”  Steve’s head is spinning.  

“I don’t know how to prove it one way or the other.  But I don’t feel dead.”

Improbably, Steve can’t help but smirk.  “I mean, you definitely didn’t feel dead…” He lets his gaze drift down Eddie’s body and back up again.  “And you definitely made me feel… alive.”  He leers just a little, but can’t help the laugh that bubbles up out of his throat.

“Steve Harrington, are you flirting with me, right here in the middle of the upside down?”

“It’s where we do our best flirting, don’t you think?”

Eddie stares at Steve for a long moment, then slumps to the ground, dramatically flopping on to his back. Steve sits down next to him, taking a chance and leaning over to press a kiss to his lips.  Eddie responds, pressing back eagerly, before pulling back again.

“This is insane.  You’re real.  I’m real.”

“Well, we’re still in Hawkins, so insane is pretty much expected.”

“How long has it been, anyway?  I feel like I’ve been down here forever.  What’s going on?”

Steve sits cross legged in front of Eddie, and Eddie sits up to mirror him.  Steve takes a deep breath. “It’s been about a year and a half.  Things are… not good.  No one’s allowed to leave Hawkins, the army people are still assholes, and now the upside down is acting up again.”

“’Acting up,’” Eddie huffs.  “Did anyone else get hurt in the battle – the one where I got bit?  What – what happened to Dustin?”

“Dustin’s safe.  Though…”

“Though what?  What’s wrong?”  Eddie asks, upset.  

“He’s still mourning you.  Aggressively.”

“But he’s okay?”

“For now, until he finally goads the asshole jocks who hate you into doing something worse than just giving him a beat down.”

“Fuck.”  Eddie squats down, rubs his face.  “I miss that kid.”

Steve sits down next to him.  “He really misses you.  Still wears his Hellfire shirt.  And he’s growing his hair out, I think in honor of you.”  Steve reaches out, puts a hand on Eddie’s arm.  The leather of his jacket is sturdy, but Steve gives him a firm squeeze.  “We all miss you.”

Eddie shrugs, and then takes a deep breath and lets it out.  “So, if you’re really real… I guess I have two questions.  First, what’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?  And second… you kissed me back.”

“That’s not a question.”

“A question is implied, plus, you have to start by answering the first question.”

“Whatever.  But – do you have any idea how you’re here?  Have you just been hanging out in the upside down all this time?”

“I’m telling you, I have no clue.  Max is in here too, by the way.”

“Max?”

“Yeah.  So if I’m dead in your reality…. Is she dead too?”  Eddie looks at him questioningly.  “Bad news first, don’t drag it out.”

Steve rushes to set the record straight.  “No, she’s not dead.  Vecna attacked her, though, and she was, like, dead for a minute and the fourth gate opened.  But El got to her in time and got her back.”

“So she’s okay?”

“No. She’s, uh, she’s in a coma.”  Steve has a hard time thinking about Max.  Just another reminder of how he fucked up.  But if Eddie is somehow still alive, after having been bitten to pieces, there’s got to be hope for Max, too.

“Eddie, have you talked to Max? El has been searching with her mind, trying to get her out of the upside down, but she can’t find her.  She thinks she’s somewhere protected.”

“Maybe she is.  I can’t catch up to her.  Most of the time, it’s like I’m caught in a maze.  I’m in one spot, I finally find a way out, like through a secret door or something, and then I’m just in another pointless place, like a maze that never goes anywhere.”

“Is that where you saw Max? In the maze?”

“No, it’s not that kind of maze.  And the wall is different.”  Eddie looks over at it.  “Henry doesn’t like it, I don’t know why.  If I miraculously find myself near the wall, I can usually stay in one place for a while.  Sometimes it, like, shifts, into something else – a rock wall, with caves.  That’s where I’ve seen Max.  But I can’t ever manage to talk to her.  I was worried that I… don’t look right, that maybe she’s running away from me.”

Steve examines Eddie.  “You look good to me.”

Eddie grins, bashful.  It’s ridiculously cute.  “Thanks.”

“No, I mean, you look normal,” Steve says, like a dummy.

“Ugh, I take it back, that’s a horrible thing to say.”

Steve laughs.  “I’m torn between telling you how pretty and special you are, and reassuring us both that you don’t have giant pieces of flesh torn out of your body.  It’s hurting my brain.”

“I vote for telling me how pretty and special I am.”

“Honestly, Eddie, I don’t know how you can look this good.  You look… clean.  Healthy.  Even though you’ve been stuck in a monster realm after being ripped apart by demobats.”  

Eddie shrugs, looking sad.  “I can’t explain why I’m alive, assuming I’m alive.  No idea.”

They both sit in silence with this.  Steve certainly doesn’t have the brainpower to figure this out.  Tentatively, he takes Eddie’s hand and gives it a squeeze.  Eddie squeezes back.  He is definitely not dead.

“How does Max look?” Steve finally asks.

“All in one piece.  Excellent hair.”

“Good.  That’s… really good.”

“So, circling back to my first question,” Eddie says, “what are you doing here, Steve?”

Steve tries to summarize everything that’s happened since the fourth gate opened and significant parts of Hawkins got swallowed up, but he knows he’s probably missing a lot.  “Anyway, the car got stuck in the meat wall, so god knows what kind of damage has been done, not to mention the friggin’ antenna that Dustin drilled into the roof.  How am I going to explain that to the insurance company?”

Eddie just stares at Steve, and then barks out a laugh.  “You are one of a kind.”

“I think that’s just how people work.”  He stands up, using his hold on Eddie’s hand to pull him to his feet too.  “Unless maybe they have a twin.  Anyway, we should get back there.  Nancy’s going to tear me a new one, I’ve been gone way too long.”

“Oooh, trouble in paradise?”

Steve rolls his eyes.  “Between her and Jonathan, maybe.”

“She and Byers are still together?”

“Yeah.  They definitely need to work their shit out, though.  Things have been weird between them for ages.”

“Might still be in the cards for you, then?”

“Argh, why does everyone think that?  I’m not interested in Nancy that way, not any more, whether or not she’s with Jonathan.  Ship has sailed, man.  Plus,” Steve waves a hand between himself and Eddie, “were you not there too?”

“I wouldn’t hold it against you, if you didn’t want that,” Eddie says slowly.  “I thought you were an illusion.  I didn’t give you much of a choice.”

“Is retroactive consent a thing? Anyway, I do.  Want to.  Assuming we’re both real and not dreaming, and you want it too.”

“Fuck yes, I do.  I’m going to be so pissed off if this is a dream.”

“Me too.”  Steve could swear Eddie’s eyes are bigger now than they were a moment ago.  He looks worried.  Scared.  “Whatever’s going on, you’re definitely not dead.  We’ll figure it out together.  Maybe when we find out how to get through the wall, we’ll get some answers.  Set you free, if you’re trapped in Vecna’s lair or whatever.”

Eddie blinks at Steve.  “You’re trying to get through the wall?”

“Yeah, we can’t go around it, it’s a circle.  Have you not noticed that?  Dustin figured it out, like, really fast.  With math.”

“Of course he did,” Eddie says nodding.  “It <i>is</i> a circle.  But – plot twist – I know how to get in.”

“You do?  Is there, like, a magic door?”

“Nope.  A tunnel.”

“Excellent!  Now Nancy can’t be mad.  I found you, and I found a way in.  I deserve a reward!”

There’s a long pause, and when Steve finds Eddie’s eyes, they’re no longer scared.  

“A reward, huh? Anything I could help you with?”  Eddie’s voice has gone low.

Steve loves it.  He feels a tingle all the way down his spine, and for a moment, he forgets all about the meat wall, and his messed up car, and Vecna.