#also if you catch the horror movie references well. i am unfortunately hyperfixated on scream so. they came naturally 😭

[sexybabystevie]

okay but. i woke up today Thinking of the whole kas!eddie thing (courtesy of a friend i explained my evidence to the other day :) ) and. well. i've got something stewing in my mind right now. and this is a half-baked thought so bear with me. (also steddie post under the cut because this got a little longer than expected).

it's around two weeks after the events of season 4. two weeks after the town rips into four large tectonic-plate-like things and too many people are lost to keep count of how much loss there has been in general.

steve is trying to sleep, trying because it's pretty much a failed attempt - from still living in his parents' shitty home with nothing but blank memories to trying to cope with what his life even is anymore, sleep is far, far away - when a strange noise comes from his bedroom window. he's too tired to really put together what it sounded like, whether it was a grating, scratchy noise or whether it was more of a loud and spontaneous bang, and so it takes another two times of the same noise appearing for him to truly be aware of his surroundings. and he is terrified.

the noise is like nails on a chalkboard - or, perhaps, some kind of metal scraping against glass - and steve can already conjure about fifty scenarios that are horrible which could be his reality right now. from vecna being the thing at his window, ready to take vengeance against him for even thinking he was capable of stopping him that day with nancy and robin, to the gruesome image of the scratching coming from something - someone - dead, steve harrington is pretty sure that this life - this new life, after everything has transformed and shifted into depths of the unknown, after his town, as shitty as it was, has turned into nothing but a reminder of all that was lost, after even a minor sound or discrepancy sets all who remain of his little family on edge - has become fifteen types of his own personal living hell combined.

steve stays paralyzed, stuck in his head, for much longer than he ever has before. but then he remembers that he's the brave one, the one who fights off monsters he doesn't even understand - didn't even know of their existence prior - to protect those that he loves, those that he's meant to protect. his mind haphazardly wanders to the kids, a moment frozen in time that feels so far away now, back before anything was too amiss and they thought maybe they had a shot a happy, normal life, when the convinced him to take them to get ice cream at midnight and all jokingly - but was it so jokingly? - yelled out "thanks, mom!" afterward. it's this moment that gets him out of bed and moving towards the window, but not before grabbing the bat that he now hides just beneath his bed. just in case, which he hoped was a hypothetical never meant to happen.

it's too dark to see outside, 2am sky pitch black without the warmth of the moon, and steve's arms are tingling numb from an uncomfortable combination of fear, anxiety, and a little bit of rogue adrenaline. he acts against all better judgement, offhandedly thinking if he were in a horror film, he'd certainly be paying the ultimate price for this, and slides the latch on the window up and pushes the thick glass open.

for moments, there's nothing except the chilly bite of the wind, setting steve's body rigid, stone-like, against the darkness that's creeping in. the anticipation is palpable, heavy in the air, and steve thinks to himself that, if whatever it is is trying to kill him, he wishes it would just hurry up and get it over with instead of toying with him.

as if on cue, a dark figure seems to pass right outside the window - as well as can be seen when one is searching for shade against the shadows, at least - and steve grips his bat a little tighter and readies himself for the strongest swing of his life when a familiar voice calls out to him.

"woah, harrington, chill out! it's me!"

and steve freezes again. because truly, this cannot be real. he has to have fallen asleep and is in the midst of some wild fever dream.

but then the figure steps into his room, is visible due to the bedside lamp he has stationed to his right at all times, and steve feels exceedingly dizzy because eddie munson - the eddie munson who dustin claimed died weeks ago, the eddie munson whose funeral was scheduled for next thursday - is standing in his bedroom.

it takes him moments before he lets his bat fall to the floor, the exhaustion overtaking the adrenaline and practically causing his grip to falter. he's still guarded, memories of billy being something he wasn't in his final moments keeping him on edge, prepared for the worst possible outcome when in reality he should be celebrating, he should be relieved and happy. and as fucked up as it may be, he is.

out of everything his mind imagined, this was not among any of the possibilities, and it made sense why - this was good. maybe dustin was wrong, somehow eddie hadn't died in that swarm of hellish bats in the upside down, somehow he had just been mistaken. that night was hard for all of them, more stressful than any other inter-dimensional fight from before, so maybe... that could explain why eddie was now here, in steve's room, painfully familiar, almost bashful smile natural on his lips.

"how the hell are you even here, munson?" steve asks, voice low, no traces of venom found in his inquisition.

"let me crash here and i'll explain everything?"

steve makes his next horror-movie mistake while staring into eddie munson's soft brown eyes. he's not stupid enough not to notice it - the deep, dark bags underneath his eyes, the way his skin is disturbingly pale, his lips stained a dark red that's too bright to be normal - but he's also reminded of how he felt when he was walking in those haunted woods with him, when eddie had tried convincing him to start pursuing nancy again. steve had thought about telling him then, that he was actually into someone who he had previously misjudged, someone he really never expected to be into, and that nancy was really only the result of him being confused by the insisting of his other friends.

but he hadn't. they were too close to danger and steve thought expressing himself would set one of their fates into stone as being the next victim - wasn't that always a trope that was prominent too? - but he wasn't aware that their fates had seemed to be sealed with or without his confession.

he had spent weeks wallowing in guilt, wondering what could have been if only he had been at the scene of the crime, if only they had a little more time together. and lo and behold, two weeks after the dreaded incident, here he was, sneaking into steve's room in the middle of the night like he would've if they would have ever gotten a real chance at being anything other than a dying wish.

so, he lets his loving nature take over and moves forward to wrap his arms around eddie, in a sort of welcome back hug that he hopes can also express a few other things he's been thinking, and ignores the shiver that rumbles down his spine as his hand brushes against the other's. eddie munson's skin is ice cold.