#anyway. I really enjoyed the Harrington's as a looming presence in the story. Haunting Steve in their absence

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 99

Part 1 Part 98

Steve spends a short three days in the hospital before they start the discharge. It’s surprising, somehow, that spending time slowly dying in the Upside-Down is more traumatic on the body than literal possession. Eddie can’t wrap his head around it. 

He’s sitting on Steve’s bed, hopefully for the last time, hip to hip as he kicks his feet out over and over again at the same tempo of his beating heart. Steve’s got their fingers interlaced on Eddie’s thigh, flexing his own fingers to that same rhythm Eddie’d started up. 

“You think it’ll be much longer?” Steve asks, slumping his head to the side and atop Eddie’s shoulder.

His hair tickles Eddie’s cheek. Eddie wants to reach up and smooth it back, but Steve’s still holding his hand, and the other one doesn’t quite reach. 

“Nah, the old man’s good at getting what he wants.”

“That’s because he’s got the same big, sad eyes as you.”

Eddie squawks in fake affront even as warmth pools in his cheeks. Few people have mentioned a resemblance, and it makes him go soft and gooey every time.  “I don’t have big, sad eyes!” He shakes Steve’s hand around gently in his - he’s always, always gentle. “I’m too tough.”

Steve snorts, small and tired. Even with relatively minor injuries, neither of them have been sleeping well in the small hospital cot. It’s starting to show in the circles beneath Steve’s eyes. Eddie wants to bundle him up in the backseat of Wayne’s truck and tuck him into their bed at home.

They won’t even have to come back. All they’ve got is some sort of cream for Steve’s burns, and Eddie’s bruised ribs and broken nose  are supposed to heal all on their own. His concussion’s already behind him, even if things still go a little wonky if he moves his neck too quickly. 

They can just convalesce. Maybe Wayne will bring them soup. Or burgers from the diner and a strawberry milkshake to split. Anything will be better than the mind-numbing sterility of the hospital, as long as they’re together. 

If only Wayne would hurry the hell up. 

It’s not Wayne who walks in. It’s not any of their friends, or family, or an unnamed doctor in blue scrubs. It’s not anyone he recognizes at all.

It’s a perfectly matched pair - like salt and pepper shakers at a fancy diner. Eddie feels his shoulders curl, a silent question mark to their upright forms. 

The woman looks like a mannequin, in her gray pencil knit skirt and matching cardigan, belted tight enough to make her look like a wine glass. Her hair is a windswept brown and her chin’s raised just so. 

The man’s suit is a pewter gray, matching her skirt perfectly. He has his hands stuffed into the pockets of his slacks, like he’s posing for a catalog as he looms imposingly on the threshold. 

She knocks on the frame of the door, calling a quiet, “knock knock,” as the man strides in. 

Eddie feels Steve’s hair brush against his cheek as he sits up and twists, to look at the new arrivals. Eddie doesn’t look toward him, can’t tear his eyes away from the pair, as the woman comes to stand beside the man, photogenic smile plastered to her face, even as the man glares down at them.

“Steven,” he says, eyebrows furrowed in an expression Eddie knows intimately. He’s seen it on Steve’s own face enough times. It’s less charming on the older, meaner model. 

Steve drops his hand covertly and shuffles slightly to the left and away, leaving Eddie’s hand to flop to the mattress, bereft. 

“Dad,” Steve replies.

Eddie turns, can’t not when Steve’s voice comes out so even, so lifeless, so dead. It’s just like when the mind flayer was running the show. Like Steve’s not there at all.

He is though. And that feels worse, because as Eddie stares at Steve’s perfect profile, he can almost see the years of distance and berating stacking themselves into the clench of his jaw and that familiar furrow of eyebrows. 

“What do you have to say for yourself?” His Dad doesn’t shout, but the hiss somehow still feels like it’s echoing off the bare walls of the hospital room.

Steve flinches back. Eddie sits on his hand as it twitches without his permission to grab onto Steve’s own. 

“For what, sir?” Mrs. Harrington’s perfect face scrunches up into a wince as she looks sidelong at her husband’s stony face. He opens his mouth, eyebrows angrier than ever, and Steve blurts, “I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t help. 

“Sorry,” he says evenly, like his fist wasn’t clenched in preparation for a strike. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

Steve sits, wordless, as he stares up at him, unblinking. 

Mrs. Harrington sighs. “Oh, Steve.” It sounds sympathetic, but Steve’s back curls in, arms wrapping around his ribs as he looks down at his own hanging feet. 

Eddie sits on his other hand.

Steve remains silent while storm clouds bloom above Mr. Harrington’s head.

Mrs. Harrington sighs, crossing arms and tapping perfectly manicured fingers against her own forearms, that same familiar beat that Steve gravitates toward without any of the soul.

“Sweetie,” she starts, no warmth in her voice or eyes. “I understand that you might have been feeling a little sick, but that’s no excuse for the state you left the house in.”

Eddie looks at Steve out of the corner of his eyes, and sees Steve looking right back, eyebrow quirked up in a silent question Eddie doesn’t know how to answer with witnesses.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again, looking back down to the linoleum between his feet. 

“You’re sorry?” Mr. Harrington demands, voice raising with each syllable he utters. “You flooded the house, Steven!”

Steve flinches at the sound of his name. Eddie reaches out for the connection between them and plucks it, thrumming it like a guitar. Steve smiles, just a little, down at his socked feet. 

It’s a mistake. Mr. Harrington’s nostrils flare. Eddie sees the resemblance in the way his nose leans just slightly to the left, almost charmingly crooked. But there’s none of that familiar light behind Mr. Harrington’s eyes. He’s an empty pit, a bottomless well.

“We’ve had to replace all of the carpeting on the second floor,” Mrs. Harrington cuts in, looking down at her nails, uncaring as Mr. Harrington’s incensed further by her words.

“We wouldn’t have even known if the Allen’s hadn’t called us!” He’s shouting now, gesturing wildly toward the open door like whoever the Allen’s are, they’re waiting right outside, watching the show.

Mrs. Harrington sighs. “Oh, Richard. Don’t make a scene.”

As if spurred on by his wife’s chastising words, Mr. Harrington’s voice only gets louder. “You soiled the carpet beyond repair.” He punctuates his words with a raised finger, like he’s counting down all the sins he’s ready to lay at his son’s feet. “You made a spectacle of yourself in front of all the neighbors.” Another raised finger. 

He points both fingers  at Steve’s face, finger close enough to his nose that Eddie wants to snap out and bite it. “You left the garage open to be ransacked!” And here comes raised finger number three. 

Steve’s curling further and further into himself, creating distance between his Father’s wagging finger and his vulnerable face. 

“Leaving the door open, Steven?” Mrs. Harrington asks, just as aloof and uncaring of the scene in front of her, even as she says, “we could have been killed.”

Eddie can’t help the snort that comes out. It’s all just such a cartoonish display, almost unbelievable even as he watches it play out in front of him. He slaps his hand over his mouth, but both their gazes have already snapped over to him. 

Well, better him than Stevie. Stevie, who Eddie’s seen with that same curled posture hiding in his closet, and looking up at his own goddamn house from the passenger seat of Eddie’s van.

He’d been straight backed facing down a demogorgon but just the sight of his parents has him fading into himself. No fucking way. Not on Eddie’s watch.

Eddie slaps his own thighs once, sharp enough that it stings. Mrs. Harrington jumps, just a little, at the sound. Eddie stands, shifting on the balls of his feet until he’s just slightly in front of Steve, ready to defend. 

“Wouldn’t you have to actually be home for that?” Eddie asks.

Mrs. Harrington gasps, hand over her cheek like Eddie had slapped her. “Excuse me?” she asks, at the same time that Mr. Harrington demands, “who are you?”

Eddie puts his pointer finger to his chin, pouting like he’s really thinking this through. “You know, I think you’d know that if you were ever actually around.” 

Steve stands, shoulder to shoulder with Eddie as his Dad takes a threatening step toward Eddie. 

“This is Eddie,” Steve says, voice flat and cold. King Steve’s come out to play. Eddie grins, manic and wide in that way that’s always worked to rile up cops and teachers alike. It works just as well on the Harrington’s. He sticks out his tongue and almost laughs again when Mrs. Harrington takes a startled step back. “You’d know that if you gave half a shit about me.”

Mr. Harrington scoffs as he looks Eddie up and down, eyeing the rips in his jeans, the frayed hem of his t-shirt, the unkempt length of his hair. He turns away, dismissing him without even a word as he looks back at Steve. 

“It’s time to go,” he says, glaring down at his son. “We’ll talk about this at home.”

Steve takes a step away from Mr. Harrington’s grasping hands. Eddie reaches out, interlocking their fingers again and squeezing tight. The splint on Steve’s finger sticks out awkwardly, digging into Eddie’s own hand as Steve squeezes right back.

“Eddie is my home,” Steve says, like that isn’t the most romantic thing he’s ever heard.

He almost swoons, even as Mr. Harrington rages, looking between the pair of them, making connections Eddie desperately hopes are true and even more desperately hopes the man won’t go spreading around. 

“Last chance,” Mr. Harrington says. “Or we’re-”

He doesn’t get to finish. Wayne chooses that moment to walk in. His stance goes loose immediately, gaze sharp. 

“Richard,” he says. Calm, cool, and gruff as he meets both their enraged eyes, one after another. “Nora.”

Mrs. Harrington sucks on her teeth, mouth pursed as she holds her silence. Mr. Harrington has no such compunction. 

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Wayne raises his eyebrow before turning his back on them to run his eyes over Steve and Eddie in turn. “You boys alright?” Steve nods, but Eddie raises his hand to flap it back and forth in a wishy-washy gesture that Wayne grimaces at. “Ready to go home?”

Richard scoffs, taking a threatening step forward. “What do you mean home?” Steve flinches as the last word lands with derision. Steve doesn’t respond, just looks down at his own shoes with a clenched jaw. 

Mrs. Harrington sighs, and it lands in the room like a blow. 

Wayne’s eyes have gone hold and hard as he turns around and steps fully in front of Steve. “Steve’s been staying with me for over a year,” Wayne says, tone modulated and controlled even as his hands clench. “And you didn’t even notice.”

“Steven,” Richard says, a warning hidden in his tone. “Last chance.”

Eddie leans around Wayne to look between the pair. He resists the urge to pull Steve behind him. Eddie squeezes his hand and is floored when Steve’s shoulders immediately straighten, chin raised just so, like he’s keeping his crown straight atop his head. 

He stands, shoulders back, head held high. Eddie stands right along with him. 

“I’m not going with you,” Steve says, boring holes into his Father’s head with the force of his conviction from behind Wayne’s shoulder. 

Mr. Harrington’s  jaw clenches with whatever he sees on Steve’s face. He reaches his hand out, palm open and beckoning. “Give me your keys,” he demands, curling his fingers like he’s in a cheesy karate movie and begging his opponent to make the first move. 

Steve laughs. “You want my car?” His laugh is hollow. “You’ll have to go get it from the trailer park.”

Mrs. Harrington eyes Eddie and Wayne like she’s putting pieces together he’d rather she not have. Even still, she turns away with an airy, “Come on, Richard.” When he doesn’t immediately follow her directions, she continues, “this isn’t the place.”

Mr. Harrington’s snarling like a dog, finger still raised in threat as he hisses, “this isn’t over,” before turning and striding through the door with enough careless force that his shoulder hits the frame with a meaty thwack. 

“See you next year, then!” Eddie calls, waving bitchily at their backs. 

They all stare at the open door, waiting for an attack that never comes until Mrs. Harrington’s heels stop echoing down the corridor. 

“What the hell was that?” Wayne asks gruffly. 

Steve’s jaw is clenched, as he glares out the open doorway, but at Wayne’s question, he slumps, stepping closer to Eddie until he can lay some of his weight onto Eddie’s shoulders. It hurts his ribs, but Eddie takes it gladly, wrapping his hand around Steve’s waist. 

“Just the usual,” Steve says, sounding exhausted. 

Wayne eyes him critically as Steve avoids his gaze. Eddie squeezes Steve’s side, flickering his fingers against his waist just to feel him wriggle against the feeling. 

“Alright, kid,” Wayne says, reaching out to squeeze both their shoulders comfortingly. Steve slumps further into Eddie who gladly takes his weight. “I think it’s about time we all get home.”

Eddie smiles, bumping his hip into Steve. 

He was already home. After all, Steve’s right here. 

Part 100

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