#i have almost 60k written between the two i am so stoked for this yall

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Subconscious (Steve’s Story)

Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Eddie’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. No matter what he does, no matter who he is with or what is happening in the aftermath of their failed battle with Vecna – Steve Harrington can’t stop thinking about Eddie Munson. He’s even begun to see him in his dreams…

(unbeta'd snippet from Chapter 01; follows almost immediately after the snippet from part 1. Joyce has started having mandatory "family dinners" for the kids and young adults that are in their inner circle. They serve as ways to share information on what's happening in town, keep an eye on each member as they deal with their own repercussions of the past few months, and gives everyone a place where they don't have to hide. Steve makes sure all the kids can make it there and back home again, no matter what, but often forgets that he is also on the health check radar. Not just for Robin, either. Oh no. He's not that lucky.

Robin and Steve just finished checking in with each other, while watching the kids gather under the trees of the Byer's backyard to talk about how much Dustin has been missing Eddie. Because sometimes that stubborn kid actually takes his advice...)

--

“Harrington!” Hopper interrupts, when Robin starts to head inside without him – Nancy and Jonathon are visible through the kitchen windows, and every time Steve sees Nancy these days it makes him stop in his tracks. Their time together during those few days in Spring Break seem like a lifetime ago, now. And all the tense ‘what-if’ moments are eclipsed by what happened, what was lost – and for some reason when he looks at her now, Steve only thinks of another person that should be there, also with wide eyes and a head full of curls. But it’s still just Nancy, with Jonathon by her side. The last ones to arrive. 

The gang is all here.

((Almost.))

“Come over here. Help me with this damn grill.” Steve sees the ploy for what it is, he doesn’t know anything about grills in the slightest. But he stands beside Hopper and accepts the beer offered to him. The irony enough to draw half a smirk from his lips that might be genuine.

“I think the last time you and I were in this situation you were taking the beer away from me,” he points out as he tips back the bottle neck. 

“Yeah, I don’t need you to remind me of how fast I’m aging, Harrington.” The man shuffles the burgers and chicken breasts along the searing hot grill, and then – with no preamble whatsoever, and only a slightly softer edge to his tone – he says, “Tell me about Munson.”

In four words, Hopper had requested the information Steve wished everyone else had the guts to ask. It meant so many things, between the lines, that Steve grew silent as he parsed them out. ‘Tell me how Eddie Munson got caught up in all this mess. Tell me how he handled it. Tell me who he was, when it counted the most. Who he tried to be for the kids. Tell me why he stayed involved when any sane person would have lit out of town and never looked back.’

Tell me about Eddie Munson.

Steve didn’t even know where to start.

“Did you know him?” he asks, instead, because the familiarity was hard to miss in Hopper’s question.

“Yeah, I knew that punk,” he says, a growl of a thing that almost sounds fond in a sad way, poking at the burning coals of the grill with a little more aggression. Channeling frustration, the unfairness of it all. “I’d picked him up far too many times over the years. Only had to process him once. All the rest I just dumped him in Wayne’s lap.” 

He spoke of Wayne Munson like they were friends. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

“... Mr. Munson still puts up missing posters,” Steve tells him, a confidence that aches even as he speaks. Hopper looks even more angry at that. Not at them. At everything.

“He loved that kid.” 

Steve looks up at the group, still huddled together. Having a moment that was giving way to memories, laughter and tears that coincide somehow in the messiness of it all.

“We all did,” Steve mutters, and Hopper is looking right at him, again. Steve has noticed this more and more with every passing ‘family’ dinner. Hop treats Steve like a man, now. An equal. He’s out of school, sure, but it probably has more to do with the fact that he’s somehow adopted six rowdy high school kids and has been taking care of them when their parents couldn’t. And as much as Steve appreciates that, it’s still difficult to level with him and have a serious conversation. To explain everything going on in the group, or in his head, when he couldn’t always make sense of it himself. No matter which way you looked at it, the whole situation was terrible. It sucked. Steve hated being the adult more than he hated being the babysitter.

Really, when it all boils down, he didn’t mind being the babysitter at all. Not after knowing what it’s like to face the consequences and have to deal with the aftermath. Dustin sobbing over Eddie on the ground, the kid not even able to walk with his messed up ankles. Steve doing CPR, time slipping through their fingers. And then… Steve having to drag Dustin away because the gate was closing.

“We didn’t even get to bring his body back,” Steve reveals, swallowing thickly. “We had to get out, I couldn’t –” he couldn’t carry both Dustin and Eddie, so he had to choose. Dustin was alive. Eddie’s body was cold. 

“You did what you could, kid,” Hopper says. The far-away look in Steve’s eyes more telling than anything else the past few weeks. “No one blames you for that, not even Wayne would. Eddie was dead before you left, right?” 

It’s the first time anyone has asked that question. And Steve had never questioned it before. Eddie wasn't breathing, Steve hadn't found a pulse, Dustin's words on the radio echoing in his head to this day. ((Eddie's dead.)) He’d died in Dustin’s arms, and Steve knew Dustin would have done everything possible to shake him back to life if he could. Steve had tried, battered and bruised as he was, to no avail. There was no other answer.

So why did the guilt feel like it was going to eat him alive?

“Yes, he was dead,” Steve murmurs, downing the rest of his beer and wishing it was something stronger.

–

tbc

–

Series Snippets:

- Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

- Subconscious (Steve’s Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)