Abyssal Beach

Because the plan is to make the Upside Down go boom, permanently. To light the fucker up, to ensure Vecna and the Mind Flayer can’t get a sixth go at this. 

But before they do… Steve has to get him back. He can’t leave him there anymore. It’s been eating him alive, since the plan was made. Who cares if he’s nothing more than bones, Steve’s beyond worrying about that. He’s lived with the guilt – his plan, his demand, without so many words, that a man who genuinely believed he had nothing to live for do whatever it took to keep Dustin safe – every day since he died, and the thought of failing him one last time… Steve can’t live with it anymore. 

Eddie. 

Red lightning pierces the violet skies. The Upside Down version of Forest Hills creaks, and the only other sounds are Steve's huffs of exertion and his shovel hitting dirt over and over. 

But… but there’s still no Eddie. Steve’s dug a dozen holes and there’s no Eddie and he doesn’t understand. He and Nancy had buried him shallowly, not wanting to just leave him, but knowing his body couldn’t be explained to anyone normal, and not wanting the government goons to take him away on the Rightside Up and never give him back – or worse, give back some false horror, like they tried with Will. 

But Steve has dug and dug and dug, and there’s no trace of him. 

He throws his shovel down and he sits on the mound of dirt and buries his face in his hands. Tears come; hot tears of guilt and regret and grief, everything he’s bottled up and pushed down for over a year. Since 1983, if he’s being completely honest. 

Something rustles and air whooshes past him – Steve jerks his head up, heart beating wildly, gaze searching, but he only sees the gloom and the long shadows amongst the weird dead trees. 

But then he looks down… and there’s a Bopper, laying between his feet. Like an offering. 

“Who’s there?” he calls, picking it up and standing. Stupid, he thinks. The who’s there person always dies in the movies. 

For a moment, everything is silent, but then Steve hears another rustle and he follows it to the edge of the treeline. 

“Anyone?” he demands. He looks down at the Bopper on his hand. “Thank you for this,” he says, gentler.  

The shadows rustle again. “It’s okay,” Steve beckons. Some buried instinct tells him everything is alright, that he’s not calling to a demogorgon or something equally bitey. 

It melts out of the shadows like it was made of them – like he was made of them. Steve sucks in a sharp breath. Hope flares dangerously. 

“Eddie?” he breathes. 

Eddie flinches back, there’s a flash of overly long incisors and the shadow of wings flaring out. Steve follows, reaching out, cupping Eddie’s cheek with zero fear. Eddie doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t move either, so Steve does – he wraps Eddie in a fierce hug. Everything that’s felt so wrong for eighteen months finally feels corrected.