#emeraldzephyr

Eddie Munson died. Heart stopped, bled crimson on the ashen ground of the Upside Down until he was ripped through the bony fingers of the Reaper, gasping for breath and writhing in pain. These new friends, new acquaintances, had adopted him as one of their own, and they refused to let him go gently into that good night. But when wounds get patched, and reunions occur, how do you move on when that same hell is still threatening to burst forth around you? When nightmares of teeth and tails and terror still haunt your sleep? When half of the town thinks you're Satan himself and most of them think you're dead? When the terror whose minions you died to and who your allies failed to kill is still lurking in the dark, growing stronger every day? When you are healing alongside a man that, quite literally, snatched you from death's clutches, dragged you out of hell, and made you the best damn cup of coffee you've ever had?

1986 may not be the year Eddie graduates, but it's sure as hell going to be the year he stops running, the year he grows, the year he survives. If not for himself, then for others. Because he has a whole new network of support, and they're hauling him kicking and screaming, hiding him away in the Harrington house as he heals from wounds both physical and mental. Maybe, in the middle of all this madness, he can find time to heal his heart, too. Or maybe, he just goes insane looking at the same handful of boring rooms every day with only Steve Harrington for regular company.

"You…you're all…you," Eddie starts, sad, wet eyes glancing up at him, head still drooped, "And I…I can't even sleep without being scared. How are you not scared?"

Steve stilled for a moment, brow furrowing in thought as he contemplated Eddie's question.

"I'm not scared," Steve started, Eddie huffing out a bitter laugh before Steve continued, "I'm fucking terrified."

At Steve's admission, Eddie lifted his eyes to meet Steve's, searching for an answer in his green-brown hazel eyes, "Every time, I think it's going to be over finally, and it keeps coming back. And at this point, I feel like Penhurst would have a field day with my brain."

Eddie grinned at his admission, lopsided where the gauze and tape limited movement, before it fell from his face, looking at Steve with such sadness, "Each time it's more of the same, but also each time it's different. It always builds and builds, and you'll have some weird fucking fears."

Eddie tilts his head in confusion, brows knitting together, "You aren't doing much to reassure me there, Harrington."

"You know the Byers can't put lights on their Christmas tree anymore?" Steve asked Eddie, who shook his head no before Steve continued, "Joyce…she used them to communicate with Will when he was in the Upside Down the first year, back in '83—had 'em all over her house. I saw it when Nancy and Jonathan set a trap for one of those monsters, kids call it a demogorgon. She had some ouiji board type shit on the wall with the alphabet, and strings of lights all along the ceilings."

Steve let out a shaky breath before continuing, "They…the lights flicker when those things are nearby. When Nancy pulled a gun on me to chase me off from the Byers' house…I was standing at my open car door, about to haul ass out of there. When I looked back…it was like a strobe light was going off. I could hear Nancy and Jonathan yelling, and some awful sound. I was fucking terrified. But I couldn't…knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had just left them, you know?"

Eddie flinched at that, looking away, "Yeah, well, I did run, Harrington. After Chrissy…I fucking ran."

"The thing is…I did too," Steve rasped, voice dripping with disdain for himself, "Before Nancy could scare me off by pointing that gun at me, that thing…it dropped out of the ceiling and cornered us in Jonathan's bedroom. When it disappeared, Nancy yelled at me to leave again, telling me it was going to come back, and I fucking ran."

Steve looked up, eyes focused and piercing as he met Eddie's gaze, "Yeah, we both ran. But think about what you saw, what I saw? That's some horror movie bullshit that neither of us prepared for, that neither of us could do anything about. But after that, neither of us ran."

Eddie scoffed at that, drawing an annoyed glare from Steve, "No, you don't get to downplay yourself like that, Munson. You could have stayed in that boat when the vines dragged me through the portal, but you jumped in after us."

"Yeah, cause I was too scared to stay there alone," Eddie spat, voice filled with self-loathing.

"And when you went through the gate? Saw those bats eating me alive. You didn't run. You fought them off, alongside Robin and Nancy, with a fucking oar. And you saw what they did to me, how terrifying that place was. And when we planned to go right back in there to fight the thing that killed Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick? You were the second one through that portal."

Steve looked to Eddie, who was staring a hole through a spot on the comforter, chewing the nail on his thumb. Steve leaned into his vision, hand going to Eddie's shoulder to push him back gently, forcing him to make eye contact.

~◼️▪️◼️▪️◼️▪️◼️~

June ██, 1983.

"Listen, listen," Steve held both hands up to quiet him, "It's not carved in stone, it's not predestination, it's choices, weaves," he balled his hands into fists in a sign of mild frustration, "Look—" he unwrapped the scarf from his neck, holding the tasselled end up at Eddie, but… it was June… and Eddie could've sworn Steve didn't have a scarf, he'd have noticed, right? Especially one like that, thick and knitted, made of a soft looking, vibrant yellow wool. "—Fate is a tapestry, it's huge and all encompassing, and unlike this—" he pulled at the frayed edge of the scarf, unravelling a handful of threads, "—that tapestry has an almost infinite amount of threads."

"Steve?" Eddie whispered, pointing at the scarf in confusion as Steve carefully draped the ends of the threads across the side of his left hand, gripping the bulk and presenting them to Eddie as an offering,

"Which gives you choices." Steve either didn't hear him or was ignoring him, too wrapped up in his explanation. Sluggishly, Eddie started to accept that maybe the scarf had been there the whole time—of course it had, a bright yellow scarf was hard to miss—he looked instead to the offered threads, uncurling his hand into a reaching grab before he hesitated and narrowed his eyes.

"What are they?" he asked, "my choices."

"Hmm…" there was a strange intensity in Steve's eyes as he leant forward, the iridescent hazel was lost to the swell of his pupils and all Eddie saw there was darkness, inky and infinite, even the reflection from the dome light had slipped away from them, unable to find purchase on once-glossy lenses. The thick fog of Eddie's high seemed to settle in his throat as Steve regarded him, a nervous swallow doing nothing to shift it as he was stripped bare under that peculiar gaze, raw and exposed, seen.

"Uegk—" it was an odd noise, but it was the one he made, shrinking back until he was slumped against the side of the van, breaths coming out short and uneasy until Steve lifted his hand and disrupted Eddie's line of sight with the dangling threads. His head fell back against the panelling and he sucked down a few deep breaths of weed laced air, closing his eyes against the too-bright dome light as he recuperated from high-induced paranoia—it wasn't the first time his high had veered off course, but it rarely did so with company. "Jesus…" he sighed, shaking his head to clear it before peeling himself from the panelling, feeling sticky and damp with sweat as he honed in on Steve, watching as he drew a few of the threads back over his hand, "shit's strong…"

"Sorry," Steve hummed distantly, lifting golden eyes from the red yarn dangling across his fingers and meeting Eddie's wide-eyed stare, smiling at him with soft reassurance, "Your choices?" he gestured with the yarn and Eddie nodded,

"Ready."

"Great," Steve's voice was barely above a whisper, but then he cleared his throat and spoke crisp words into the air between them. "There are six threads," he stated and Eddie dragged his eyes across them, counting each one with a deep nod of his head, "six paths you can take, six choices you could make,"—he wondered absently if Steve knew he was rhyming—"Freedom, Aspiration—"

"Freedom from what?" he asked, interrupting, Steve looked thoughtful for a moment before shrugging,

"I dunno," his voice pitched up as he spoke, curiosity piquing him briefly, "You're the one who knows," he offered helpfully, twisting his mouth to the side as Eddie gave him a bemused look. He shrugged again, then continued, "Duty, Conformity—" As if, Eddie would sooner die than conform, and his thoughts must've been written all over his face, because Steve hesitated, giving him a curious look before touching his thumb to the second thread along, pulling it back over his hand with a subtle caress. "—Stability, and, of course, Nothing."

'Nothing' was a curious one, "What do they mean?" he asked, rephrasing in the hopes of a real answer as he gestured at the five remaining threads, Conformity was gone at least, but the options he was given were abstract and confusing,

"I couldn't tell you." Steve answered, which was part of the game, Eddie supposed, it was his job to figure them out and pick the right one.

"Do I just go with my gut and guess?" he scratched his eyebrow, closing one eye and keeping the other on the strands, as if their meanings would become clear, Steve didn't answer, "they're not in order." he knew that much when Conformity got removed, they were shuffled,

"I suppose not." Steve was still watching him when he looked up, soft eyed and airy as he kept his arm outstretched.

"Is there a right choice?" his voice felt too quiet, child-like as the weight of this bizarre game sat heavy across his shoulders, like it might somehow affect the rest of his life,

"What do you mean?" Steve cocked his head to the side, "whatever choice you make is your decision, so it's the right one for you." that wasn't exactly the answer he was looking for,

"Do any of these choices—" he hesitated, he felt stupid and small, like his question was too simple, too naive, "—Will any of these choices make me happy?" the look on Steve's face was oddly reassuring, that weighty seriousness lifted with the slight raise of his brows, a sweet smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, baring teeth that glinted sharp in the dome light,

"Two of the six offer… fulfilment, what you do on the path you choose is where happiness is found." it was a strange way to phrase it, two of the six, had Eddie already discarded one of his chances? That didn't seem right, he'd discarded Conformity, there wasn't a single timeline in which conforming could end in Eddie being fulfilled, conformity would be a wife, a litter of kids, a house with a picket fence, a cushy job, that sounded like Hell, not the recipe for a fulfilled life.

"I take it you know which two." he huffed, regretting it when he chased that smile away and painted a frown across that painfully pretty face,

Steve reached across the center console, tugging Eddie back into the truck by the back of his belt, eyes shifting back to the road as soon as he saw him bounce in his seat as he landed. He spat hair out of his mouth, working to tame the wild, windblown curls as he grinned mischievously at Steve.

"Aww, what's wrong, Harrington, don't want me having the rest of the town trying to exorcise me?"

Steve rolled his eyes at Eddie's playful quip, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the gear shift, as he accelerated to highway speed, the Leaving Hawkins sign in the rearview mirror.

"Jesus Chri- no, Munson, I didn't want you to fall out of a moving car. And buckle your seatbelt!"

Eddie stuck out his tongue at Steve petulantly, swiping over his shoulder to grab the seatbelt. He missed the first two times, having to turn and look where it was before he grabbed it and buckled himself in.

"Well, Steve, it isn't every day you finally manage to get yourself acquitted of a murder you didn't commit, thus granting you freedom to the world outside of Hawkins, now, is it?"

Eddie spoke with his hands, using broad, sweeping gestures and punctuation, with emphasis added through chopping or pointing motions. The emotion and theatricality were turned up to eleven today, with the news coming from Hopper last night of Eddie's acquittal and travel release.

With such a high-profile case, their secret government babysitters (and NDA distributors) determined that time needed to be taken with his case before he was let off charges. Having it dismissed overnight after Hopper had just returned from the dead would hinder Eddie more than help him. Nancy was the one who had managed to keep him out of a jail cell, going on an absolute tirade about how he shouldn't have to pay for the government's mistakes. So Eddie avoided a prison cell but was not allowed to leave Hawkins.

Eddie was in a state the past week from not being able to leave. It seemed like a good deal (anything is better than the jail cell), but it was deceptive. Many of Hawkins's buildings were destroyed by the gate faults that cut through downtown, and at least half the population packed up and left right after the gate opened. Which meant the record shop: Closed. Library: Destroyed. Book Store: Destroyed. No game store to even begin with. Family Video - under renovation after the roof collapsed. Even searching the destroyed ruins of some of the places turned up nothing usable, vinyl melted from the heat, and books scorched from fire.

There was the WSQK, with Robin and Steve remaining the hosts, Nancy the station manager, and Jonathan the…Well, Steve wasn't actually sure what Jonathan did. Either way, the station was able to scratch some of the music itch left after the destruction of the Munson trailer, but it wasn't exactly his preferred genre. Their selection of metal was also greatly lacking, which wasn't a surprise, but man, he needed some new tapes.

Thus, the Steve-and-Eddie Road Trip to Indianapolis. 80 miles of open road away from the oppressive air that has weighed heavily on them since March. Now, July was just around the corner, and Eddie could go somewhere that people didn't stare at him or hurl slurs or hide their children from him. No longer Eddie the Banished, now he could just be Eddie for a day.

Steve lifted his ass off the seat, reaching in his back pocket to grab something, tossing it to Eddie once it was free.

"Made that for our trip, if you want to listen?"

Eddie held a clear case with a mixtape, "Steve and Eddie's Road Trip Radio" scribbled on the front, with a few included doodles. Eddie smiled softly, pulling the tape out as he spoke dramatically, shaking off the fuzzy affection and hiding it under bravado.

"Well, now, Stevie, I don't think I've had someone make me a mixtape before. This part of the Harrington Experience?"

Steve reached over to smack Eddie on the arm with the back of his hand, causing Eddie to squawk indignantly.

"Can it, Munson," Steve warned playfully, fighting off a smile as he tried to fake sternness, "Now are we going to listen or not?"

Eddie was still laughing as he put the tape in, hit play, and cranked up the music. Slow synths and drums filtered in first. Not his taste, but it's the thought that counts, right? Okay, more synths, might as well be, right? Then the singer started-

"Steve, is this The Cars? Did you seriously put Drive by The Cars on a road trip playlist?"

"You got a problem with that, Eds?"

Eddie was laughing in disbelief, unsure whether to heckle him for his poor choice or give him props for his creativity. Eddie knew how time-consuming mixtapes were to make, so for Steve to start out with a carefully crafted music soundtrack to their road trip with this. Ridiculous. Eddie shook his head, still chuckling at the very on-the-nose choice.

"Steve, this is absolutely ridiculous," Eddie started, leaning back in the seat as he propped an elbow on the bench back to turn toward Steve.

Steve just beamed widely, seeming to have gotten the reaction he wanted from Eddie.

"I mean, seriously? This is probably the most stereotypical choice you could have gone with."

"Stereotypical, or absolutely fitting to what we're doing right now?"

"Steve, I'm pretty sure this song is about someone who drinks too much at a bar or something."

Steve rolled his eyes and tapped his index finger against the wheel where he held it.

"I swear, Steven Eleanor Harrington, if you make me listen to a mixtape full of this shit, I'll just go jump out that window like you thought I was doing earlier," Eddie joked, reaching down to grab the handle of the window.

"That's not my middle name Ed- absolutely not! Eddie, Eddie, hands off the window crank! Eddie, I will pull this car over!"

"Steve?"

Steve tilted his head toward the quiet call of his name, cracking an eye open to see Eddie standing in the doorway of the little room where the toilet was. He was backlit by the bathroom sconces, Steve hissing at the stabbing pain that felt like it traveled through his eye into his brain, tilting his head back down to press his eyes into his forearms. He heard the soft click of the light switch and heard the shuffle of fabric as Eddie returned to the doorway.

"Are you…is everything okay, Steve?" Eddie questioned softly, reaching out as if to touch him but second-guessing and pulling back.

"Mom, mom, I'm okay," Dustin sighed, clearly having been through this multiple times already, "I'm with Steve, he's letting me crash here until we can figure out how to get home. No, no I- ugh, yes mom, I'm behaving my- mom, we will be okay. We just can't get anywhere because of the roads. I'll come home as soon as I can."

Steve laughed at the back and forth between Dustin and his mom, slowly slipping into sleep as he lay back on the chaise.

"w'sat…smell?"

Steve jolted awake, sitting up and scrambling to sit next to Eddie as his eyes fluttered open, chocolate brown meeting warm hazel.

"Ss…smells…good," Eddie slurred, smiling goofily at Steve, "Make…make 'at jus…jus for me?"

Steve huffed a breathy laugh as he looked at Eddie's glassy, unfocused eyes. Eddie was high as fuck, loopy from the pain medicine they had been giving him. Steve looked down as the arm next to him began flopping about, attempting to find a handhold to pull himself upright. Steve shifted, slipping a hand behind Eddie's back and helping him into a seated position, propping pillows up behind him so he could be somewhat upright.

"Buh…buy me dinner firsss…big boy," Eddie grinned, attempting to lift a finger to poke Steve's nose but missing widely, arm flopping back to the bed.

Steve then heard the thud of a walkie hitting the hallway floor. Dustin stood in shock, frozen to the spot as he stared at Eddie's upright form. Eddie squinted his eyes at the doorway before finally recognizing who stood in the doorway, a wide grin splitting his face as they locked eyes.

"Dus…bun!" He warbled, attempting to shift off the bed to greet him, but Steve stopped him, Eddie slumping against Steve's side.

"Eddie?" Dustin questioned, voice cracking as he looked over Eddie's wide, but loopy, smile.