Reading Time: 64 Minutes

Title: Sing a New Song
Author: Twigen
Fandom: Stranger Things
Genre: Drama, Family, Future Fic / Post-Canon, Horror, Paranormal/Supernatural, Romance, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, minor/background pairings
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Violence-Graphic (Canon Typical)
Beta:
Alpha: GalahadsGurl, CorgiQueen14
Word Count: 67,454
Summary: He couldn’t leave him. No matter what Nancy said, Steve couldn’t leave Eddie’s body in the Upside Down. And like hell was his best friend, Robin, letting him go alone. She was his ride-or-die for a reason! Somehow, Eddie was still alive, but when they finally got out, they found themselves somewhere they never expected to be. Hawkins, 2016. Well, crap.
Artist: NotSally

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Chapter 13

The room around them was tense as they waited for the technicians in the gate room to finish their last tasks on the drone. Eleven looked on through the observation window, watching as the suited scientists finished setting up the drone and checking the cameras, verifying one last time that they were in working order.

There was no guarantee that they would get anything usable back from inside the Upside Down. Each time they’d attempted this in the past, they’d gotten nothing back but a brief glimpse and then static. The drones had always stopped responding, so they could only assume there had been nothing left to respond from.

In retrospect, it seemed possible that part of the problem had been the profound time differential between the two worlds. Given that it took thirty years for their friends to make it out of the Upside Down when a relatively short amount of time had passed for them. Whatever they sent into the Upside Down would no doubt be impacted by that time differential in a matter of moments.

“Are we ready?” Eleven asked when the lead scientist in the room below looked towards the observation room and gave a thumbs up.

“Confirmed. The drone is ready to go,” the tech at the drone control desk said.

“Send it in.”

The other people finalizing the drone preparation stepped away from the device as it powered up fully, propellers spinning into a blur. It lifted from the ground in one smooth motion and started moving toward the gate embedded in the wall.

“The drone is passing through the membrane,” the controller reported as the drone did just that.

The drone slowly pushed through the barrier separating the Upside Down from their world one inch at a time. Finally, it was utterly consumed.

Eleven looked at the large monitor, moving to stand next to Dustin as they waited for images to feed back. The room around them was largely quiet, with only the occasional shift of people as they did their work.

“Activating camera.”

The image on the screen changed to show the surrounding area. The drone was in a tunnel of vines and trees, with darkness on all sides. The slow fluttering of ash falling from the sky drifted through the image on the screen.

The image persisted longer than any of their previous attempts had made it.

Next to her, Dustin shifted, propping his hands on his hips as he stared at the screen. “Didn’t they say that the ash stopped falling?”

Eleven nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, they did.”

“Well, that’s not good.” Dustin sighed. “We’ll need to bring Eddie back in for more tests?” he asked, still quiet.

“Yes, though that can wait until tomorrow morning. They went shopping today,” she said, still staring intently at the screen. “We will speak to them tonight, though.”

“Yeah, I have their identity paperwork ready to go, too,” Dustin agreed.

Eleven nodded, then looked towards the controller. “Take us further in.”

The drone started moving again, the ash still falling gently around it. Eleven watched the vines for any hint of movement, but so far, the only thing that moved was the drone and the ash. She hoped it stayed that way.

“It’s stabilizing,” she murmured under her breath as her mind whirled with the potential ramifications.

***

Eddie couldn’t keep his eyes from straying back to Steve. He was glad they’d been tucked way in the very last row of the SUV, despite how cramped it was, because it meant he could continue to gaze at the other man without anyone else noticing. The new haircut his…boyfriend…was sporting accentuated his features perfectly.

Eddie only hoped his haircut was half as good. Losing the hair that had become something of a safety net had been difficult, and he was glad he’d retained as much of it as he had. The first time he’d looked in the mirror after the stylist had finished had been shocking, but he’d been reluctantly pleased with the results.

He and Steve were touching in several places from shoulder to foot, and Eddie reached out to run his fingers along the back of Steve’s hand. His injuries were healing well. And seeing Steve all afternoon had made his libido feel like it was roaring back into active status.

At the very least, there was a long makeout session in his future.

That thought made the memory of the couple they’d seen in the mall pop back into his mind. He was still shocked that the people around them had barely seemed to acknowledge the same-sex couple exchanging a small kiss as they stepped out of the store they’d been in, holding hands as they wandered through the mall’s crowds.

It had shocked Eddie to his core to see such a casual display of affection in public from a gay couple. He didn’t know what to make of it or how to bring it up to Nancy, Max, and Brianna.

Were things so different now that being in a gay relationship wasn’t treated with the kind of bigotry and homophobia rampant in the eighties?

Could he and Steve actually have a relationship in the open that they didn’t have to hide from everyone?

It was a daydream, a fantasy. Surely, Eddie would find the flaw in the idea before he got much further. But he couldn’t help the hope that welled within him as he gazed at Steve in the back seat of Nancy’s SUV.

Steve looked over at him then, a soft smile on his face as he met Eddie’s gaze. The mid-afternoon sun coming through the windows caught Steve’s face, showing off the beautiful blend of browns, golds, and greens that made up his eyes.

The world swam for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over Eddie, and he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, Steve looked at him with a concerned frown instead of the soft smile of before.

“You all right?” he asked, keeping his voice at a murmur that wouldn’t carry to the front of the car.

Eddie nodded. The world had restabilized, so he wasn’t lying. “Yeah. Just a bit dizzy for a sec.”

Steve reached out and gripped his hand for a second before letting it go again just as quickly. The soft smile had returned to his face, but the concern was still there.

The uncertainty of the situation they were in twisted his stomach. Not knowing what was happening with this link the Upside Down had to Eddie’s mind was causing him almost as much angst as the actual side effects were. He hated the mild dizzy spells he’d been getting hit with all day. They were a consistent reminder of the link to the Upside Down and everything that had come along with the last time he’d been in the alternate dimension.

He was dragged from his thoughts when Nancy pulled the car into the driveway of El and Mike’s house. The engine shut off, and the six of them sat in silence for a long moment, the cooling of the engine ticking gently in the background. Finally, Nancy and Max opened their doors, followed quickly by Brianna and Robin. Steve and Eddie were left in the car for an all too brief moment before the hatchback opened behind them, and Brianna flipped the seat forward on her side in front of them.

They climbed out, carefully not exchanging glances as they moved to help carry everything they’d piled into the back inside the house. Eddie half wondered if it had multiplied in the back of the car on the drive home.

While they were unloading, Eleven’s car pulled into the driveway next to them, followed closely by another car that parked along the curb on the road. Dustin hopped out and quickly walked over to them. Glancing between them, Eddie felt a frisson of foreboding at their carefully neutral expressions. Dustin’s hair looked particularly disheveled like he’d been relentlessly running his fingers through it.

“Hey,” Nancy said, greeting the others as they got close enough.

Eddie nodded in their general direction but kept his focus on unloading the car. He really didn’t want to know what they were here to say. His luck was such that it was no doubt terrible news.

“Hey, gang,” Dustin said.

A glance at Steve showed the other man mouthing the word gang with a soft smile and shaking his head. It was particularly dad-like of Dustin. Eddie wanted to meet Dustin’s kids at some point.

If he lived long enough.

The morbid thought caught Eddie off guard. Everyone had been adamant that he would make it through the situation with the Upside Down. While Eddie desperately wanted them to be correct, he didn’t believe it deep down. He gathered a few more bags and hurried inside, feeling eyes on him as he went. The abrupt departure was going to get poked at, no doubt. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to care. His priority was a moment alone to breathe before the others descended with their news.

After making it to the guest room he shared with Steve, Eddie slipped inside and dumped the bags he was carrying into a pile on the floor in front of the dresser. The room’s silence was soothing, and he slumped onto the mattress as the room swam in front of him again. He didn’t understand how he made it all the way through the mall while experiencing repeated spells of dizziness. Granted, the one he had just experienced was worse than all the others that day.

Several minutes passed before there was a gentle tapping on the door. “Eddie?” Steve called softly.

“You can come in,” Eddie said. He let himself flop back onto the bed, his legs still dangling over the edge. The movement made him wince slightly as his healing wounds pulled. A heavy breath gushed out as his eyes slipped closed, and he let himself sink back into the cushy comforter covering the soft mattress.

The thump and rustle of another set of bags being dropped to the floor alerted him that Steve had entered the room. A moment later, the bed dipped as Steve sprawled next to him. Eddie let his head roll in Steve’s direction, and he blinked at the other man, who was propped up on one elbow, head resting in his hand, as he gazed at Eddie.

There was something about Steve’s gaze that both comforted and inflamed Eddie. Every moment spent in the other man’s presence was a dichotomy of emotion, impossibly tangled in his head. Eddie couldn’t find any disappointment in himself.

Steve’s other hand stretched out and gripped Eddie’s where it was lying listlessly on the mattress next to his body. He squeezed gently but didn’t say anything, letting the solidity of his presence speak for itself.

Eventually, Eddie rolled onto his side and collapsed against Steve’s front. The arm that had previously held his hand wrapped around his back, carefully avoiding putting too much pressure on the bandages covering Eddie’s side.

It was precisely what Eddie needed to ground himself and prepare to hear whatever bad news El and Dustin were going to drop on them.

They stayed like that for a while, though Eddie had no idea how much time had passed. He didn’t honestly care. If he could postpone the inevitable for a few more minutes, he would grab at the opportunity with both hands.

Finally, though, Eddie inhaled a deep breath of Steve’s scent, picking up the notes of whatever new products had been used in his hair at the salon earlier that day. Even though it was different, Steve’s underlying scent was still there.

He released his breath, rolled to his back, and sat up in one movement. The room spun again as he did, and Eddie wasn’t entirely sure if that time was due to the link or just from sitting up too fast. Either way, it passed quickly, and Steve got to his feet, holding a hand out to help Eddie up.

“They have news, don’t they?” Eddie asked, voice a murmur in the stillness of the room.

Steve nodded. “Yeah. They said to come down whenever you’re ready. No rush.”

“Well. I guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be. Time to pay the piper or whatever.”

Leaning forward, Steve pressed a soft kiss to Eddie’s lips. They stayed that way for a few moments longer, exchanging small kisses and enjoying the closeness of each other. Eddie really hoped he got the chance to see where this relationship of theirs could go because the potential of just these few days was intoxicating.

With one last kiss, Eddie stepped back and pulled Steve with him to the door. They dropped hands once the door was open, though Eddie’s thoughts flashed again to the couple they’d seen in the mall as they made their way down the stairs.

The others were settling in the living room when Eddie and Steve joined them. The seats on the couch next to Robin had been left open for them, and there were three drinks on the coffee table in front of her. Eddie assumed the extra drinks were for him and Steve. Robin confirmed as they sat down.

The silence grew as everyone waited for someone else to be the first to speak. Finally, Eleven exchanged a look with Dustin and leaned forward.

“We have an update on the situation, Eddie,” she began, voice carefully neutral.

Eddie nodded. “I figured you might.” He sighed. “What did you find out?”

“The link you share with the Upside Down appears to be stabilizing it. There is no longer a discrepancy between the amount of time that passes there versus here. Also, the ash has begun falling. However, we did not detect any creatures, though it may just be a matter of time,” Eleven explained.

Eddie cleared his throat. “And what does that mean for me?”

“That is still unclear. We have several hypotheses, but based on the data we have already gathered, we believe that as the Upside Down stabilizes, the tether will eventually either drag you into the Upside Down or…it will kill you,” she said in that blunt way that Eddie still found disconcerting.

Eddie reacted the only way he could.

He started laughing.

Of course, the universe let him survive the demobats in the Upside Down, only to turn around and take his life when he was on the verge of surviving and starting over.

***

After Eleven’s revelation, Eddie asked for some time to himself and returned to their room. Steve watched him go up the stairs, half wondering if he should follow Eddie anyway. Before he could decide, Dustin walked up to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“You have a minute, Steve?” he asked, smiling at him softly.

Steve looked at him for a moment, wondering what could be next. “Uh, sure.”

“Great. Come on. We’ll head into the office for a bit.”

They walked into the front room, and Dustin spun the chair from the desk around to face the daybed. Steve took the hint and sat down.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing bad. I hope,” Dustin said, making a face to go with the words.

Steve stared at him, eyebrows raised. “Uh, Dustin, that’s not exactly reassuring, buddy.”

“No, no. Really,” Dustin insisted, waving his hand. “We got your new IDs finished. Everything’s good there. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“You’re such a dad, dude,” Steve said, mouth quirking up in a half smile as he looked at Dustin. He sighed, smile dropping away. “I missed so much of your lives. You’re all old enough to be my parents, you know? I have no idea what happened to my parents. Everyone else I knew thinks I’m dead. It’s…it feels like I lost something,” Steve admitted, gaze dropping down to focus on the floor.

Dustin was silent for a long moment. “Yeah. I can’t say I understand because I’m not in your shoes, and I can’t send you back to the eighties, but I can be here for you now.” He reached out and gripped Steve’s shoulder with one hand. “I will always be glad that we got you back, Steve. The Upside Down has taken so much from all of us. And even though we didn’t have you in our lives for the last thirty years, you will be for the next thirty and more. This isn’t going to be an easy transition for any of you, but we’re going to see you through it, all right?”

Steve nodded his head slowly. “Yeah.” He looked up, meeting his old friend’s eyes. “So, how many kids do you have, man?”

“Four. And yes, you’re going to meet them. I just didn’t want to completely overwhelm you with masses of new people when you’re still trying to find your footing. Especially with everything Eddie’s dealing with, you know?”

“Wow, yeah, no. That makes sense. Good thinking,” Steve said, then fell silent. He couldn’t quite picture the teenage Dustin with four kids, but it was easy with this man sitting next to him.

The silence stretched for a moment. Dustin cleared his throat. “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he began.

Steve frowned, tension instantly creeping across his shoulders. “That sounds…ominous.”

“Oh, no. Like I said, it’s nothing bad,” Dustin repeated, shaking his head. “No, just, Nancy mentioned that you guys saw a couple earlier. A gay couple.”

Steve flushed, remembering the couple that they’d passed in the mall. “Oh,” he said, unsure how to respond to this topic of conversation. “What about them?”

“It occurred to us that that’s one thing that’s definitely come a long way since the eighties, and we haven’t exactly given you a crash course in all of the sociological changes that have happened,” Dustin began. “There’s a ton of vocabulary to bring you all up to speed on, but we’ve seen a lot of progress in homosexual rights in the last thirty years. Same-sex marriage was legalized nationally last year due to a Supreme Court case.”

Steve was dumbfounded. That was so far from where things had been in the eighties he didn’t know what to make of it. “So, what…it’s okay to be gay now?”

Dustin frowned at him. “Well, there’s still a fair bit of bigotry and homophobia in the more conservative circles, but it’s always been okay to be gay, Steve.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I have no problem with it! I just…it seems like a lot. Being openly gay in Hawkins in ‘86 would have meant beatings and, like, banishment or whatever.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still not perfect in Hawkins, that’s for sure, especially among the older crowd. The younger generations have, on the whole, embraced accepting people for who they are. There’s a lot to be said for the things kids talk about and social media, of all things,” Dustin said.

“Social media?” Steve asked, frowning at the phrase. He felt like he’d heard it before, but all the new information about the future was starting to blend together a bit.

Dustin looked a little perplexed, as well. “It’s…well, it’s basically what it sounds like. The internet allows for communication on a level we could never have experienced in the eighties with the technology of the day. Now, there are websites and applications where people can post their messages on, share news, and that sort of thing. I’ll show you Facebook later,” he added. His face did something complicated that Steve couldn’t quite read. “Though you might regret that as soon as it happens.”

Clearing his throat, Steve tried to pull them back to the earlier conversation. “Uh, yeah. Okay. Um. So, it’s really not a problem to love someone that’s the same sex?” Steve asked.

Dustin agreed with a nod and a small smile. “It’s really not a problem, Steve,” he said.

Steve was lost in thought for a long moment while they sat silently in the office. He didn’t know quite what to make of Dustin’s words, and he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get used to it.

After a long moment, Dustin spoke again, his voice quiet and firm. “I just want you to know it’s okay to be who you are, Steve,” Dustin said. “Whoever that may be. It took Brianna a while to come to terms with everything for herself and feel comfortable coming out to her parents. It’s definitely not an easy thing.”

“Coming out?” Steve asked.

Dustin nodded again. “Yes, she decided to tell her parents that she prefers the company of ladies rather than guys.”

“Huh,” Steve said, nonplussed. Was Dustin suggesting something with his words?

Silence descended on them again as Steve’s thoughts whirled.

Eventually, Dustin looked over to him and asked, “I know it’s way too soon to ask this, but I want you guys to start thinking about living. You’ve spent so much time trying to survive, and you never got the chance to actually live. El and I both think it’ll be vital for Eddie, in particular, to get his focus set on living. We don’t know exactly what’s going on with the tether, but mindset has made a difference in the past when dealing with the Upside Down.”

Steve’s shoulders tightened as tension ran through his body. This was almost exactly what Brianna had asked them earlier in the mall, and Steve still didn’t know what to do with the thoughts. They’d barely started putting together the basics about life in the future, how were they supposed to know what they wanted to do with their lives?

Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face. Dustin reached over and dropped a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t stress about it, though, all right? I know it’s a lot to take in, but there’s plenty of time. Just let yourself mull things over as you learn more about the present day. That’s all I’m suggesting. You have a lot to work with between the new identities and being in a new century.

“Whatever you decide to do is going to be fine, and all of us will help you get it figured out, all right? We’ll always be here to support you, and you have plenty of time to figure it out.” Dustin paused a moment and let his hand fall away from Steve’s shoulder. “Robin was planning to go to college at one point, right?” he asked.

Steve nodded. “Yeah, she wanted to go to college. I was going to go with her to wherever she went and just find a job,” he said, shrugging.

“Well, she can still do that. We’ll make sure that it happens. The new IDs that we set up have full histories behind them. You’ve all graduated from high school already, so you don’t have to worry about that, at least.” Dustin grinned. “We actually set it up so that you can get into just about any school you like,” he said with a wink.

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, that’s something to think about,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m really cut out for school, though.”

Dustin clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder and stood. “If you have any questions about anything, Steve, you know where I am. I’ll always answer your questions, no matter what. We’re family. It even says it on paper now,” he added with a wink. “You and Robin are my half-brother’s kids. Welcome to the Henderson family!” he said, standing up and holding his arms wide for a hug like the giant dork he was.

Steve grinned and accepted the hug, letting the weird dichotomy of teenager and father-figure settle into his brain. Dustin hugged like Steve imagined a dad should. After a long moment, they pulled apart, Dustin clapping his hand on Steve’s shoulder again.

His face grew somber, and he looked at Steve with earnest eyes. “Seriously, Steve, we’re your family. We’ll always be your family.

Steve smiled up at him, blinking several times to clear the mistiness from his eyes. This guy was going to make him cry if he kept this up.

“I’m, uh. I’m gonna go check on Eddie.”

Dustin gave him a look that was far more knowing than Steve thought it should be as he nodded. “All right. Let us know if you need anything.”

Steve Henderson. As he went up the stairs, he couldn’t help but think how much he liked the sound of that

Chapter 14

Eddie lay back on the bed with his eyes pressed closed as he tried not to think about anything in particular. It was much more difficult than he wanted it to be. The thoughts of everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks since the start of this whole mess’s playing behind his eyelids. From the last game where Lady Applejack defeated Vecna, Chrissy driving home with him and then somehow ending up dead on his ceiling, hiding from the basketball team, finding out about an interdimensional monster bent on killing them all, making out with Steve Harrington, being half-devoured by bats, and then falling out of a tear in the universe to land thirty years in the future.

It was too much for anyone.

He sighed deeply, wondering when all of this would be over. He didn’t have high hopes that he would make it out of this whole thing all in one piece. The healing that he’d received from the link with the upside down made it clear that he couldn’t catch a break, and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder what the final cost would be.

All he wanted was to go back to before this whole thing happened and try again. Find a way to avoid having Chrissy die in his trailer. It killed him to admit it, but he knew he would give everything he gained with Steve if it meant Chrissy and the others could survive. Especially if he kept the memory of having Steve in the first place because that meant he could go after him again.

The bedroom door creaked, and Eddie opened his eyes, looking up to see Steve poking his head around the door.

“You okay?” Steve asked quietly as he slipped into the room once he saw Eddie awake.

Eddie shrugged. “Dude, I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again.”

Steve slumped down on the edge of the bed next to Eddie’s hip and rested his hand on Eddie’s far side, bracing himself over Eddie’s body. “I know it’s been rough,” he said, “but don’t give up, okay? We figured out Vecna, and we will figure out this thing with the upside down, too.”

Eddie shrugged again but nodded. “It’s not so much about the tether,” he said, “but that any of it happened at all. I don’t know how anyone gets over seeing someone die in front of them. How do you deal with it?”

Steve frowned and looked away, taking a long moment to think about what he wanted to say. “I, uh, don’t think you really get over that. I think you just learn to live with it, and eventually, it stops being front and center, you know? Like, I’ll never forget seeing what I’ve seen, but I’m also not going to let the Upside Down take the rest of my life away from me either.”

The silence grew between them as Eddie stared at Steve. He knew what Steve was trying to say, but it didn’t make it any easier to put into practice. It was a lot to think about. But there was time, he guessed. Maybe.

Maybe for Steve and Robin. Eddie wasn’t so sure he had the same kind of time. Not if the tether to the upside down had anything to say about it.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Steve asked quietly, reaching up to brush the hair away from Eddie’s forehead.

Eddie shrugged and glanced away, wishing he could pull that hair back over his face as protection from Steve’s all-too-knowing gaze. “I don’t know what will happen when I go to sleep. I don’t want to chance another nightmare like last night.”

Steve leaned down and brushed his lips against Eddie’s. “You need to sleep. You’re healing faster than you should, but you’re not fully healed. You’re going to exhaust yourself. Would you feel better if I stayed with you while you sleep?”

Eddie looked up at Steve from under his lashes with a sly grin. “I’d feel better if you stay, and we do something other than sleep.”

Steve huffed a laugh and shook his head. Expressions that Eddie couldn’t quite read flashed across Steve’s face as he looked at Eddie.

“What is it?” Eddie asked softly.

“Just…something Dustin said,” Steve started. “You, uh, remember that couple we saw in the mall? The gay couple?”

Eddie nodded slightly. He still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that whole thing.

“Dustin and I were talking, and he brought it up.”

“Why?” Eddie frowned. “That seems random.”

Steve lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Yeah, Nancy mentioned it to him. And, uh, they thought we should know a bit more about how things have changed in the last thirty years.” He swallowed. “Uh, same-sex marriage was legalized last year.”

A million thoughts flashed through Eddie’s head so fast he couldn’t keep track of them long enough to make sense of any of it. He’d been rendered totally speechless by what Steve had said and could only stare at him with his mouth hanging open.

“Uh…what?” he asked. “What?”

Steve nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s…yeah. It’s wild. I guess it’s not perfect, but it’s way more accepted now than it was for us.”

“So…” Eddie started, voice trailing off as the words continued to resist his efforts to string them into coherent sentences.

“So…we don’t have to hide our relationship,” Steve said softly, tracing patterns into Eddie’s hand. “I mean. We don’t have to do anything other than what we’re doing now, but it’s something to think about. If you want to.”

Something in his voice made it clear to Eddie that Steve wanted to be open about their relationship. He reached up, cupping Steve’s cheek in his hand. “I want to,” he whispered, still reeling from the idea that Steve wanted that. His hand slipped around and rested at the nape of Steve’s neck, urging him down again so their lips could meet.

Steve obliged, pressing their mouths together in a soft kiss that quickly grew heated. He slid down, resting on his side next to Eddie and pulling his legs up onto the bed. Their bodies pressed together along their full length, and Eddie groaned softly as he pulled more of Steve’s weight to rest against him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve murmured, pressing delicate kisses against Eddie’s newly healed jaw.

Eddie sighed, melting back against the bed as Steve continued to pepper kisses along the column of his neck. “You keep saying that, Stevie. I’m fine. Still sore, but I’m good. You’re not going to hurt me.”

Shifting to hover over him, Steve gazed down at Eddie, so close all the different shades in his hazel brown eyes were visible. Slowly, Steve nodded and dropped one knee to settle on the bed between Eddie’s thighs, effectively straddling one leg as he settled back down to capture Eddie’s mouth with his own.

They exchanged slow, deep kisses for what could have been a moment or an hour. Eddie honestly had no idea, but he wasn’t in any hurry to stop. The heat between them built steadily, and their breath came in pants and gasps. Eddie ran his hands up under Steve’s shirt, fingers trailing lightly over the bandages still covering Steve’s sides from the bat attacks. He wanted the shirt gone, so Eddie kept dragging it up until it was bunched under Steve’s arms.

“Off,” he whispered against Steve’s lips.

Steve nodded breathlessly and pushed up to sit back on Eddie’s thigh, the hardness hidden by his jeans pressing deliciously into Eddie’s leg. He couldn’t help but nudge upward slightly, and Steve breathed out a quiet moan as he pulled his shirt off and slung it away.

For a moment, he stayed where he was, letting Eddie look his fill. Even though half his torso was covered in bandages, Eddie couldn’t help gazing longingly at the revealed skin. The thick thatch of hair on Steve’s chest was irresistible, and Eddie reached up to drag his fingers through it.

Then Steve was tugging on Eddie’s shirt, dragging it up and off as Eddie lifted up enough to let him take it away. They were both shirtless and together, finally in a position to go further than they’d had the opportunity to do previously.

Eddie swallowed hard, watching as Steve’s gaze trailed down his body. His own injuries had healed rapidly, with only scabs remaining a few days later. Some of the smaller ones on the edges of the wounds had fallen away, leaving only slightly blemished skin behind. Sports for Eddie had mainly involved running away from assholes, leaving him more leanly muscled than Steve. He tried not to feel self-conscious about it.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Steve murmured, trailing his fingers gently around the scabbed area. “I can’t wait until you’re totally healed, and I can kiss every inch of you.”

He leaned down, pressing his lips to the uninjured skin in the middle of Eddie’s chest, slowly shifting until he gently teased Eddie’s nipple with his teeth. Eddie arched up under the sensation, and he wondered how he’d never realized how sensitive his nipples could be. One hand came up to rest against the back of Steve’s head, gently ruffling the buzzed-short hair at the nape of his neck. Longer pieces from the top tickled his chest as Steve lavished attention on his nipple.

Just as it was on the verge of becoming too much, Steve shifted again, and the kisses drifted further down, staying to the center line of Eddie’s torso and carefully avoiding the wounded areas. He reached the waistband of Eddie’s pants and hovered there for a moment before casting his eyes up the length of Eddie’s torso, chin teasing the button.

Eddie could only nod jerkily at Steve’s request.

Instead of immediately undoing the button and zipper, Steve nuzzled into the hard length beneath Eddie’s jeans.

Suddenly, Steve was too far away, and Eddie fumbled at his shoulders. “Come here,” he rasped, breathy voice trembling with emotion.

Steve obliged, and they were in each other’s arms again. Fingers trembled as they fumbled with buttons and zippers, pants and boxers shoved away as efficiently as they could manage. Then their bare bodies brushed together as they explored each other carefully. The quiet moment grew heated as they reached their peak, pressed tightly together.

For once warm and peaceful, Eddie slipped into sleep, content in Steve’s arms.

***

The cold was the first thing that Eddie noticed.

He could feel it down to his bones, and he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to get warm, but he knew there was no chance of it changing anything. Somehow, he ended up back in the Upside Down. He didn’t know how that could be possible. The last thing he remembered was lying in bed with Steve.

So how had he ended up in this forsaken place?

Around him, the trees pressed in from all sides. Flicks of ash fell from the sky, landing gently on his jacket-covered arms.

He knew he was being watched. But he didn’t know what was watching him.

What he did know was that he needed to get out of this place, and he needed to do it now.

Pushing away from the tree he was leaning against, Eddie started making his way through the woods. He had no idea where he was going, but he had to go somewhere. If he stayed where he was, he knew whatever was watching him would eventually catch him.

A break in the tree line appeared ahead of him, and his pace picked up as he moved toward it. He paused as he reached the opening looking out over what he recognized as Lovers Lake. It looked exactly like he remembered, empty, barren, and covered in vines. The sky overhead was red and covered in grey clouds. Flashes of lightning pierced the light.

He’d thought this was supposed to be gone and that they’d managed to end it all. He’d thought he had a chance at a new life in the future, even if that new life was without Wayne.

Eddie stumbled forward into the dry bed of Lover’s Lake. His only hope was that the gate was still in the middle of the dry lake. At least the skies were empty of bats, which helped ease some of his anxiety.

Avoiding the vines that covered the base of the lake was brutal. At some points, it felt like he was playing hopscotch, trying to get past them. But finally, he made it to the center of the lake where the gate had once been.

He looked down at the place he remembered the gate being, but only the rocks that had lain at the bottom of the lake were present. His heart sank. How had he ended up here in the first place? It didn’t make any sense to him.

He looked around, desperately hoping for some kind of clue to help him understand the situation he’d found himself in. A dark mass on the ground caught his eye, and he stumbled toward it, heart racing as he feared what he would find. As he got closer, the shape became clearer, and he could see it was a person.

The body was slumped over on its side, one bare shoulder rising toward the sky. It was male, and Eddie was sure now that he knew what he was looking at. He dashed forward and fell to his knees next to the body.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This couldn’t be happening.

Ever so carefully, Eddie extended his hands out and let them hover over the form slumped onto the ground. If he touched it, it would be real. And he didn’t want it to be real.

But he also had to make sure that he wasn’t imagining this.

Slowly, he let his hands drop until they settled on the cold skin of the body lying slumped on the ground. It didn’t disappear.

His breathing increased as he sat staring at Steve’s cold body. There was no movement that he could detect. That could only mean that Steve had somehow lost his fight with the bats instead of winning, as Eddie remembered.

Thoughts swirled in his head. Nothing made any sense, and he had no idea why this was happening or how. All he wanted was to wake back up in that room with Steve still breathing and alive.

The body beneath his fingers twitched.

Eddie reeled back, lifting his hands off of the body. He slowly let them drop back down and shook slightly. “Steve?” He asked.

There was no response at first. Eddie shook the arm beneath his hand gently again, hoping to get some kind of reaction that would tell him Steve was still alive.

What he got, though, was something altogether different.

Steve started to roll to his back slowly, and Eddie scrambled out of the way. Looking back at Steve’s face, what he saw made him fall back to the ground in shock.

Steve’s face was gone.

In its place was what he could only imagine was the demogorgon face that had been described to him by the kids.

Eddie’s entire body quaked with terror and shock.

He scrambled back, tripping over his feet before he managed to get them under him. The Steve-gorgon was also climbing to its feet, and Eddie whirled around, dashing back toward the cover of the forest. He ran blindly through the woods, jumping over vines when he saw them but otherwise not noticing when he trampled them.

Eddie ran until he tripped, falling to his hands and knees, skin scraping across the roughness of the ground beneath him. The crisp yet stale air that he drew into his lungs burned with each breath, but he couldn’t stop heaving after his dash through the woods. He barely noticed the ash that drifted down around him.

Body shaking from head to toe, Eddie eased back onto his butt, sitting in the middle of the decaying woods pressing in around him. A bright red drop of blood fell from the palm of one hand, landing in the leaves covering the ground.

This had to be a dream. How else would he have ended up inside the Upside Down from Eleven’s house? The pain from his torn skin and blood pooling in his palms as he stared was inexplicable, though. Eddie couldn’t remember any other time he’d actually bled in a dream.

He brushed his hands off on his legs but felt no pain from the scrape of the jeans he wore. The reason for that was evident when he looked at his palms again. Both were completely unblemished from injury. The wounds had healed.

Even if he was asleep, this was no ordinary dream, and he desperately wanted to wake up.

With one last deep breath, Eddie pushed back to his feet. His legs wobbled beneath him, but he forced himself to steady, reaching out one hand to brace it against a tree trunk.

A vine twitched below his hand.

Eddie reeled back, suddenly reminded that he couldn’t touch the vines. But who would the hive mind alert?

Like dots connecting to draw a picture, several realizations struck Eddie, one after another.

Vecna was supposed to be dead.

He was dead. His body had been burned to a pile of ash.

But Eddie was supposed to be dead, too, and he was alive. The only difference was that Eddie’s body hadn’t been consumed by fire.

Everyone had left Eddie behind in the Upside Down, thinking he was dead.

And then…

And then, Eddie had been revived, somehow.

Vecna wasn’t linked to the hive mind.

The hive mind was connected to Eddie.

His eyes closed, and he breathed again, trying not to freak out anymore than he already was. Eddie knew the only reason he was alive was because the Upside Down had tethered to him. Without it, he knew he would be gone.

When he opened his eyes again, Eddie suddenly knew where he was. He set off on a slightly different path that he seemed to know instinctively and emerged from the trees into the small clearing surrounding Skull Rock a few moments later.

The vines twisted and writhed at his feet, each step sending them into something like acknowledgment. Further away from where Eddie stood, they grew increasingly still, barely twitching here and there as his eyes fell on them.

Calm suddenly rushed through him as he drew closer to the towering rock. He knew this place. Something about it drew him in and comforted him with its familiarity. A smaller, flat rock seemed like an excellent place to rest for a while, just long enough for him to figure out what he needed to do to escape this nightmare.

Eddie sat, staring out unseeing over the writhing vines surrounding him, wondering if he would actually get out of the nightmare or if he would be trapped here for however long it took him to die.

A rustling in the trees caught his attention, and his head whipped toward the direction it came from, though he felt no fear.

He knew what was coming through the trees, and it meant him no harm.

The Steve-gorgon emerged a moment later and walked over to where he sat, dropping to the ground at his feet.

On some level, he got why the creature had the new form. He knew Steve cared about him and would protect him to the best of his ability, so his subconscious had replicated that and created a protector he would feel more comfortable with than the slimy creature modeled after Vecna.

Eddie sighed and chose to ignore the monster his mind had created.

But why couldn’t he wake up?

***

Steve had no idea what had disturbed his sleep. He bolted upright in bed, looking around the room and instinctively reaching for his nail bat that was usually within arm’s reach of his bed.

It wasn’t there.

Eleven and Mike’s guest room slowly came into focus around him, and he realized why the bat wasn’t where he expected it to be. His racing heart started to calm down slowly. Something had disturbed his sleep, but Steve had no idea what it could have been.

He glanced around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Next to him, Eddie hadn’t stirred at Steve’s abrupt movement. Frowning, he leaned closer to Eddie, whose breathing was coming in short, sharp pants, like he was running.

“Eddie?” Steve called, reaching out to touch the other man’s shoulder.

There was no response.

“Hey, Eddie. Wake up,” Steve said more urgently, turning in the bed to kneel next to him.

There was still no response.

A dark smudge on the light fabric of the bedspread caught his eye, and Steve turned to look more closely. It was blood soaked into the material beneath Eddie’s lightly clutched fists. Picking one of his hands up, Steve turned it over to look at the palm, noting that there were no injuries he could see.

But the blood must have come from somewhere.

He needed help.

“I’ll be right back, Eds. Just…don’t do anything,” he said, still holding Eddie’s hand before gently putting it back on the bed.

He pushed off the bed and hurried to the door, opening it only to find Eleven already on the other side, her hand poised to knock. She blinked when Steve opened the door, cell phone pressed to her face.

“Eddie won’t wake up,” Steve breathed.

Eleven pushed past him with a nod, moving quickly to Eddie’s side, Steve hot on her heels. She kneeled on the edge of the bed and pressed her fingers to his neck before speaking softly into the phone for another moment.

“Yes, his heart is racing, and he is breathing shallowly.” A pause as she listened, then, “Good. We will be ready.”

“What’s going on?” Steve asked. Anxiety was racing along his nerves.

Eleven looked at him, brown eyes wide with concern. “The lab called to say that Eddie’s readings started spiking a short while ago. I came to check on him. Did something happen?”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t know. Something woke me up, but I’m not sure what it was. He was panting pretty heavily, though, so maybe it was that. I tried to wake him up, but no luck.”

She nodded. “They are sending a van to collect us and take us back to the lab so that we can monitor him more closely.”

“How are we going to get him to wake up?” Steve asked, running a hand through his hair. The other hand came to rest on his hip, and his gaze flicked between Eddie and Eleven.

“I do not know the answer to that yet, Steve. But we will figure this out,” she said, sighing. “Now, get dressed if you want to go with him to the lab. I need to change, as well.”

Steve nodded as she swept past him again, disappearing into the hallway.

He looked back down at Eddie and slumped on the edge of the bed beside him, brushing his short hair back from his face. Eddie was still panting heavily in quick, shallow puffs of air. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids.

“Don’t worry, Eds. We’re going to figure this out,” he whispered, leaning forward to drop a quick kiss on Eddie’s forehead before hurrying to tell Robin what was happening.

Chapter 15

The van pulled into the bay at the lab, and the team inside sprung into action right away. Doors slammed open, and Eddie was gone in a whirl of motion. Steve and Robin jumped out of the van. He paused, though, turning to help her down as he somehow remembered that she was behind him. She gave him a sympathetic smile and quickly followed the team rushing into the lab.

Eddie had stopped breathing on the way there, and they had been forced to start lifesaving compressions and breathing for Eddie. Eleven didn’t understand how the connection to the Upside Down was causing this particular reaction, but she intended to find out.

She swept into the building, Steve at her back. Worry was practically radiating off the young man as he clung to Robin’s hand like he was holding onto a lifeline.

Maybe Nancy’s suspicions about Steve and Eddie were correct.

El stopped at the entrance to the trauma room that had been there since the lab had been reopened. She had insisted they needed to be able to treat emergencies related to the Upside Down on-site if they were going to be there at all. Too many people had already died due to being too far from the hospital to reach it in time.

Eddie was still unconscious on the bed. “We’re going to have to intubate,” the doctor called, and the rest of the team jumped into action to get him the needed equipment. A tense moment later, Eddie had a tube down his throat and a machine breathing for him.

It was not how she wanted to see the young man.

Turning, she saw Robin and Steve clinging to each other like scared children. But really, that’s what they were – frightened children.

“I am going to the observation room,” El said. “Do you want to stay here?”

Steve nodded, not looking away from the form lying unconscious on the bed.

“Yes, we’ll stay here,” Robin answered for them both.

Eleven nodded and turned, striding forcefully toward the elevator. The doors closed behind her, and she jammed her finger on the button for the observation level. A moment later, the elevator swooped downward, rushing her to the level the gate was on.

When she entered the observation room, the activity level was significantly higher than it should have been at that time of night.

And, of course, Brad Reyes was at the center of the hive of activity.

She stormed over to him and stopped abruptly at his side. “Brad, what the hell is going on here?”

Brad looked startled to see her. “Jane, what are you doing here?”

She fumed at him, annoyed anew that he was avoiding her question. “I am here,” she growled, “because something happened to make Eddie Munson stop breathing.”

For a brief moment, something like guilt flashed across Brad’s face. But it lasted all too briefly before it was gone, and firm determination took its place. “I’m sorry if I had anything to do with that, but our work here is too important. The higher-ups ordered this incursion into the other realm. They want to know what is happening inside and why it has become active again after so long. And,” he shrugged, “if we find anything useful, they want to know that as well.”

Fury radiated through Eleven, and she could feel the power building under her skin. She breathed deeply in and out several times, trying to calm her reaction down. Still, she knew it was only a matter of time before small objects started shaking around them. The only thing she wanted to do at that moment was find a way to save Eddie and close the gate forever.

“You have to pull them out,” she ordered. “Their presence in the Upside Down is causing some kind of reaction. If we’re not careful, Eddie will likely die. This is not the way to investigate.”

Brad shook his head. “I can’t do that, Jane. I have orders to follow.”

Eleven whirled on her heel and stormed away, heading for her office. She had a phone call to make.

***

After the briefest of knocks, Dustin burst into Eleven’s office, followed by Max, Nancy, and Mike. She looked up, slightly startled by the intrusion.

“What’s going on?” Dustin asked, stopping in front of Eleven’s desk with his hands on his hips.

Eleven shook her head and sighed. “Brad got orders to send a team into the upside down. Whatever is connecting Eddie to it reacted strongly.” She shook her head. “He stopped breathing on the way over here.”

Mike stepped on the desk and placed his hand on her back. The gesture was appreciated. He always seemed to know exactly what she needed.

“What can we do?” Nancy asked, chewing on her lip, arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Brad won’t stop due to the orders, so I made a few calls,” Eleven said. “It will likely be a few hours before I hear anything back, though.”

“So, in the meantime, we are just supposed to let Eddie stay on life support?” Max scoffed.

Eleven tilted her head, eyebrows clicking as she acknowledged the statement. “I cannot stop Brad’s team from staying inside the upside down. But, I am going into the void to see if I can find anything else out.”

Next to her, Mike frowned. She knew he wouldn’t be happy to hear her plans, but it was the only way to discover what was happening between Eddie and the upside down. They already had all the data they could gather from the outside. And Brad’s team would at least be useful for bringing back information from the upside down.

“I will be careful. I promise,” she said, reaching out for his other hand and clasping it within hers. They had been together for so long, and she knew he would ultimately understand why she had to do what she was going to do.

“Haven’t they been through enough? Especially Eddie,” Dustin complained, shaking his head with a sigh. “Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”

Eleven looked at Dustin, contemplating his words. She nodded slowly and said, “See what you can get from Brad. We need all of the information his team is sending back if we are going to sever the link between Eddie and the upside down.”

“Roger,” Dustin said. He turned and left the room without another word.

Next, she looked between the other three still left in her office. “If you three could keep an eye on Robin and Steve, I would appreciate that. They were both taking this hard the last time I saw them.”

Nancy and Max agreed right away, but Mike shook his head. “I’m staying with you, El.”

Knowing it wasn’t worth the argument, Eleven agreed and smiled at him with another squeeze of his fingers. “All right. That is probably a better idea anyway.”

She glanced at the other two women who had been embroiled in this mess nearly as long as she had and smiled softly. “I am glad you are here,” she said. “I hope this is the last time we need to gather for the upside down. I prefer to go back to gathering just because we want to.”

Nancy and Max both nodded and smiled back at her. Worry was written all over their faces, and they glanced at each other.

“We’ll get going,” Nancy said.

A moment later, they were gone, leaving Eleven and Mike alone in her office. She looked up at him. “We should get going,” she said. “The room has not been used in a while, so we will need to make sure everything is ready.”

***

The tank was ready and waiting.

Eleven had gotten changed into her sensory deprivation suit and was ready to go inside. The last update on Eddie had shown no change in his vitals. She was holding steady for the moment.

Dustin reported that Brad’s team had only encountered the basics – decaying buildings, trees, ash, and violence. They did see the vines move, though, which was another bit of evidence that the upside down was stabilizing. It bothered her for many reasons, but the worst was the gut feeling that they would lose him if they didn’t break the link between Eddie and the Upside Down soon. The other dimension would consume him as it fought to save itself.

Her thoughts flashed back to when she first tore open the fabric between the two dimensions and sent One to the other realm. She had encountered a world that had no attachment to their own. One’s presence had perverted and shaped the upside down into what it would become.

Only after Will was taken into the Upside Down did the duplication of Hawkins happen. Somehow, a link had been formed with her brother when he was taken that had further shaped the other dimension.

But it had existed before both of them. EI couldn’t help feeling guilty again for her part in the whole thing. She knew it wasn’t her fault, but her actions would lead to the eventual destruction of the Upside Down if everything happened as she hoped.

One way or another, the Upside Down had to be severed from their world.

When that happened, she could not know if it would eventually revert to its former state or be obliterated.

Either way, she didn’t care beyond getting Eddie free of the link and alive and closing the gate.

“Ready?” Mike asked, coming to her side.

“Yeah.”

With that, she stepped into the deprivation pod, and Mike closed the hatch behind her, sealing her inside utter darkness. The only sound was the water as it rippled from her entrance, lapping gently against the tank’s walls. Slowly, she laid back, letting the saltwater take her weight as she floated on her back. Her eyes were tightly closed, and she reached for that place in her mind that would take her into the void.

When she opened her eyes, Eleven was surrounded by empty blankness. She started walking in the direction her instinct insisted she go.

A large misshapen boulder appeared before her, and she circled it, wondering why it was there. Another step showed her Eddie perched calmly on a smaller rock in front of the boulder. She looked around, unsure where she found herself, but Eddie seemed relatively comfortable. She stepped forward carefully and called out to Eddie to let him know she was there.

“Eddie,” she said.

Surprise crossed his face at her presence as he looked up at her and smiled. “El! Hey, I didn’t expect to see anyone else here,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She smiled at him. “I came to see you,” she said. “We are trying to find a way to get you out of the Upside Down. The link is stabilizing it, but it’s destabilizing your body in turn.”

“Destabilizing my body?” he asked.

“Yes, Steve couldn’t get you to wake up. We brought you to the lab, but you stopped breathing. You are currently on life support in the lab.”

Eddie lurched to his feet and began pacing in a small circle back and forth in front of the rock he’d been sitting on.

“How are you going to get me out?” He asked.

“Well,” El began, “we are still trying to work that out. Perhaps if you can find a gate in your dream, you can cross back into the real world that way,” she suggested.

Eddie shook his head. “I’ve been to all the gate locations, and none were there. I, uh, did find, uh, that,” he said, pointing to his left.

El looked in that direction. Crouched in the darkness provided by the forest around it, she saw a human–sized shape. She took half a step closer, then jerked back when the details of the form became visible. It was a Steve–shaped demogorgon. Her jaw dropped open, and she glanced back at Eddie momentarily. She had no words for the moment.

Moving back to stand next to Eddie, she stared at him wide-eyed, looking back at the creature in the woods frequently. “What is that?”

“I don’t really know,” Eddie said with a shrug. “I found it at Lover’s Lake, and it followed me here when I tried to run away. But I am connected to it,” he said. “It hasn’t tried to hurt me. I think it’s protecting me, actually.”

Eleven frowned. “Protecting you from what?” She asked.

Eddie shook his head again. “I don’t know. Maybe the team that was sent in?”

Tilting her head to the side, Eleven observed the young man in front of her. She hadn’t mentioned that a team had been sent in yet. “How do you know about the team?”

Eddie looked blank for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said again, looking frustrated at his lack of knowledge. “I…just know.”

Eleven’s thoughts swirled rapidly as she tried to make sense of the situation. The link was stabilizing, and the sense that they were running out of time only grew stronger.

“Did you check the gate inside the lab?” she asked.

“There is a gate in the lab?” he asked in return.

Eleven nodded. “Yes, it is the only gate we know of that’s open in the real world.”

Between one moment and the next, Eleven blinked, and they were inside the lab.

He obviously didn’t know where the actual gate was. He looked over to her, a frown of confusion on his face.

“Where to now?” He asked.

Eleven cocked an eyebrow but started walking toward the stairwell. She didn’t think that the elevator was likely to work in this alternate dimension. They quickly climbed down several flights before arriving at the observation level. Eleven continued to lead the way showing Eddie to the observation room so that he could see the gate for himself.

Just as she was about to open the door that would lead them to the stairs that would take them down to the gate, Eddie caused and looked confused for a long moment.

“What’s wrong?” El asked, looking at Eddie with concern.

“I don’t think I can leave yet,” he said. The expression on his face was distant.

“What? Why?” El asked.

He shook his head, still frowning. “They’re still in here,” he said. “They can’t be in here when I leave. You have to get them out.”

Eleven stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once. “Understood,” she said. “I will get them out.”

Eddie nodded.

“Will you know when they’re out?”

He took a moment to think about the question. “Yes, I think I will. I can tell they’re in here, like something scratching at the back of my mind. They’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

“Then you’ll know when you can leave,” Eleven said.

“Yes. I’ll be ready.”

With one final glance around the scene of the lab she could see in the void, Eleven nodded. “I will see you soon, Eddie,” she said.

Eddie smiled briefly at her and nodded again.

El opened her eyes to darkness again and for her feet back under her. The hatch opened a moment later. Mike had obviously been monitoring her. She accepted his help stepping out and the towel he offered.

“We have to get that team out, “she said.

“Were you able to find Eddie?” Mike asked.

El nodded. “Yes. He was able to get to the gate in the lab but seems unable to leave with… interlopers in there. “

“Ah,” Mike nodded but clearly didn’t understand the significance of it all.

“I also believe the Upside Down is starting to create monsters based on Eddie’s mind, much like it did with Henry, the demogorgon, and the other creatures,” she continued.

Mike looked at her for a long moment, then sighed. He hopefully understood the significance of what she had said. If Eddie’s mind was creating creatures, there was no telling what might decide to pop out of the gate in the lab – or even if other gates would be opened to release things into the real world around them.

The highlight of the whole situation was that Eddie was a highly creative individual with years of experience playing Dungeons and Dragons. He likely had very imaginative horrors that could be unleashed upon the rest of the world.

They had to close the gate, and time was growing increasingly short.

***

Stepping back into the fray of the main observation level, Eleven looked for Brad and found him very near the last place she had seen him. She walked over, trying to embody a spirit of cooperation.

“Brad,” she said.

“Jane,” he replied, voice neutral.

She sighed. “I entered the void and located Eddie Munson within a mental projection of the Upside Down. I believe it has started to generate new creatures based on the connection Eddie shares with it.”

He raised his eyebrows as he finally turned to look in her direction. He didn’t say anything for a moment as he considered her. “So?” He asked, seemingly unconcerned.

“If it is creating new creatures, the Upside Down is evolving and becoming more active. We must close the gate, Brad. The connection between the Upside Down and Eddie must be severed, and the gate closed before it develops something worse than we have already faced,” Eleven argued, hoping that Brad would get his head out of his ass long enough to understand the implications of what she was trying to tell him.

Brad sighed. “Look, I hear what you’re saying, Jane, but I have orders from my bosses to get inside and learn whatever we can from the place. It’s been closed for thirty years, and we didn’t have the means to investigate things at the time. Now that we do, they want to know how the place works.

“And I suspect we won’t have to worry about Munson for long.”

Eleven stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “Let’s just say…I think his care is going to be taken off our hands.”

“I don’t like what that implies, Brad,” Eleven said, voice hard.

Brad shrugged. “Yeah, well, what can you do?”

“I’m going to close the gate.”

“My team is still in there. You can’t do anything while that’s the case,” he argued, crossing his arms over his chest.

Eleven stared at him, anger burning brightly as she tried to figure out how to get Brad to remove his head from his ass. They didn’t have time for this nonsense. Before she could do anything else, a scream caught her attention, and she turned to the gate in time to see the team start to emerge.

***

The Upside Down was writhing around him.

Eddie could feel the connection with the interdimensional realm as it wound its insidious way through his entire being. Tendrils of sensation were sinking into him, extending his senses through the hive mind.

No longer was he one being separate from every other living being. Instead, he was one part of a larger organism, like the tree trunk with branches shooting off in all directions. It was like having a million new limbs, each able to do a task he set for it.

The fact that it wasn’t overwhelming him at all was curious.

More worrisome was the sensation of power and control.

The only way he could describe it was intoxicating. The knowledge that he had a literal army at his disposal, all waiting to move at his command, gave Eddie a rush of something he had never felt before. The temptation to just…forget everything and let himself sink into the web of the hive mind, to be fully consumed by it, was more attractive than he liked admitting.

For the first time in his life, Eddie felt powerful and indestructible.

And it scared the crap out of him.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Eddie pressed a hand against the glass separating him from the gate room. Below him, the room was still and appeared empty. But he could feel them, the team from the real world that had invaded his territory. Eddie knew they were there, even if he couldn’t see them. The sensation of their passage as they moved through the room, trodding on his limbs like they were of no concern, causing spikes of irritation to crawl over his skin.

They were there, and their movement through the vines created almost a ghostly outline of their presence in his mind.

The interlopers needed to leave.

Swallowing again, Eddie closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, desperately trying to hold onto the fraying pieces of his sense of self. He knew if he didn’t get out of this <word> place, he would be trapped here forever, seduced by the torrents of power he could sense just under his skin from having control of the entirety of the Upside Down’s denizens.

He needed the outsiders to leave.

There were several reasons for that desire, but the only one Eddie could seem to focus on was that they were in his space when it was vulnerable. It hadn’t finished revitalizing itself after the severing of the former bond.

But it was capable of responding to the needs of its current leader.

A swarm of creatures that had only resided in the deepest parts of Eddie’s mind entered the gate area. He could see them clearly, despite knowing they existed on the same plane as the interlopers. They existed in both this version of Eddie’s mind space and in the real world.

The creatures surrounded the outsiders’ impressions, looming over them in a threatening way. Eddie knew, somehow, that they wouldn’t attack the invaders unless he wanted it. If they didn’t leave, it might become the next step, but for now, the threat they posed just with their presence would hopefully be enough.

The vines between him and the interlopers writhed more obviously, slinking sinuously closer to them. One curled loosely around an ankle, which had the desired impact and sent at least one of the intruders scurrying back and shaking the vine away.

Instead of being terrified as they should have been, the invaders lingered and seemed interested in the creatures as objects of study. Eddie sighed, and with barely a thought, one of the creatures stepped forward, opened its maw, and roared. Even in the dream state, Eddie was trapped in, there was no missing the roar or the vibrations from it that shivered through the building and his body.

Finally, it had the desired reaction, and they began retreating quickly toward the gate.

With another thought, the creatures dispersed.

For a brief moment, Eddie let the feeling of the hive mind settle over his skin again. There was something almost soothing about the presence of all those creatures. Again, Eddie could feel the temptation to sink into the hive becoming to him like a siren song.

He shook his head. This wasn’t how he wanted to end his life. He had no desire to remain in the Upside Down as its overlord. With one last deep breath, Eddie pushed open the door that was all that blocked him from the stairs between himself and the gate below.

The vines at his feet became more active with every step he took toward the gate. A certainty swept over him that if he didn’t make it through the gate soon, he wouldn’t make it ever.

In the back of his mind, he felt the creatures he’d previously sent away start heading back to his location.

“Shit,” he breathed, feeling them edge ever closer, and he kicked into a run, dodging the vines that reached for him, even as the creatures started to draw closer.

The gate was just ahead of him when a vine finally made contact, wrapping tightly around his ankle. He stumbled and nearly fell to his feet. Only instinct saved him as he pushed away with his mind, and the vines retreated. The creatures stuttered to a halt.

And Eddie stumbled headfirst through the gate into blackness.

Slowly blinking against the influx of light that assaulted his eyes, Eddie came back to consciousness with something lodged in his mouth. He lifted his hand to swat at it, but another hand quickly gripped his fingers.

“Eddie?” Steve asked softly, leaning over to be in Eddie’s direct line of sight. “Hey.” His face broke into a relieved smile. “It’s good to see your eyes open.”

Eddie squeezed his hand and gestured at his mouth with the other. He wanted the tube gone.

“Oh,” Steve said, then looked around. “Hey, Dustin. Eddie’s awake! Can we get the tube out?”

Dustin joined Steve at Eddie’s bedside and smiled down at him. “Let me tell El first. It might be a better idea to leave it alone until after she does what she needs to do. Just in case,” he added with concern before he turned and left.

Eddie tried to groan but didn’t manage much. Having a machine breathe for him was both very uncomfortable and made him feel incredibly vulnerable. While he felt drained of energy, he also felt relatively fine.

Fear rushed through him. What did Dustin think would happen when Eleven did whatever she was going to do?

Steve squeezed his hand again, the other coming up to brush back Eddie’s hair. “It’s going to be okay, Eds. It’ll be over soon,” he whispered, leaning close to kiss his forehead like he didn’t even care who saw him.

Eddie would have sighed if he didn’t have a machine breathing on his behalf. As it was, he squeezed Steve’s hand, and his eyes closed for a long moment. He tried to settle himself to wait for whatever came next.

***

Alarms began blaring throughout the building.

A nightmare creature, different from anything they’d seen before, ripped through the gate in the observation level. The team that had just been in the other realm was still in the isolation room, along with several other lab employees that had assisted the team’s preparations.

Without pause, the nightmare creature fell on one of the technicians with deadly force, and blood spattered the others trying to get away as their coworker was ripped limb from limb.

Eleven glanced at Brad, whose sudden pallor at the sight below them was obvious. She didn’t say a word, though, as she stormed over to the door, and it slammed open at her approach.

The remaining lab employees had already scattered through the other entrance into the prep room on the lower level as Eleven stepped up to the railing at the top of the gate. Guards were swarming in, rifles already firing at the creature.

She had more pressing concerns before her, though.

The gate had to be closed before any other creatures came through.

Focusing on the gate, she let her mind reach out, sensing the edges of the tear. Lights began flickering all around her, but she paid it no mind. The last time she’d done this, she’d still be very young, her abilities fledgling and untrained. Then, it had been brute force that had closed the gate.

Now, she had thirty years of practice under her belt.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the tendril that crept through the tear and traveled through the lab in what could only be Eddie’s direction.

With as much care as she could spare, Eleven began pulling the edges of the gate in toward the center, knitting them together as they touched. The tendril still emerged like a tail from the middle, but she wanted to leave it for the last push.

Blood started trailing from her nose and over her lip, something that had stopped happening years before as she grew stronger and more flexible with her abilities. Eleven knew she was pushing the boundaries of her strength to do this.

But that was fitting, as she had pushed past all the boundaries when she opened the gate.

Inch by inch, she forced the edges of the gate to do her bidding and draw closed. Finally, when it was almost done, and just the tendril remained, she paused. She had no idea what the outcome of her next action would be, but there was no alternative. It had to be done.

With the last dregs of her strength, Eleven wrapped her mind around the tendril and pulled, ripping it free of whatever moorings it had laid in Eddie and shoving the loose end back through the gate before sealing it closed, once and for all.

Eleven stared for a long moment, mind probing where the gate had been.

There was nothing.

No remnant of the tear that had been there for so long remained.

It was done.

With that, she allowed herself to rest, her vision going black before she hit the ground.

Chapter 16

Eddie was tired of waking up like this.

He blinked his eyes open, the faint light in the room causing slight discomfort as he took stock of himself. Thankfully, the tube that had been down his throat the last time he was awake was gone. A faint scratchiness remained behind, making him wonder when it had been removed. And how long he had been unconscious.

Something warm weighted one of his hands down to the bed. He looked toward the source and found Steve in a chair pulled up to the bedside, slumped over with his head resting on the mattress next to Eddie’s hip. Smiling faintly, Eddie extracted his hand and settled it in Steve’s limp hair. It was relatively clean, but the lack of product made it clear he’d not taken the time to do anything beyond washing it.

His heart fluttered at the thought of Steve rushing back to his bedside while he was unconscious. Eddie’s feelings were very much engaged with the other man, but he hadn’t been sure of the extent to which Steve reciprocated.

This was an obvious sign that they were on the same wavelength.

A long moment passed where Eddie could float without worrying about anything. The fact that he was awake and not in the Upside Down was evidence enough that he had survived whatever Eleven had done. The memories of what had happened were hazy, though he remembered a blinding moment of pain before there was nothing else.

Eventually, Steve began to stir under the gentle rustling of his hair. He sat up abruptly, staring at Eddie with wide eyes surrounded by dark circles. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“Eddie! You’re awake!” he breathed, reaching to take Eddie’s hand again.

Smiling up at him, Eddie nodded. “Yeah, looks like I made it,” he rasped, voice rough from dryness or the tube that had been down his throat. “Water?”

“Oh, yeah!” Steve said, turning to the bedside table and pouring water into a cup. He unwrapped a straw left for this purpose before holding it in front of Eddie’s face.

Eddie raised his eyebrows and moved to take the cup. When he lifted his hand, he realized how weak he felt and was suddenly glad that Steve was holding onto it. Instead of taking the cup, he adjusted the straw and sipped, the cool water immediately soothing the dryness in his throat.

“Thanks,” he whispered, letting his head fall back onto the bed.

“I should probably let them know you’re awake,” Steve said, a conflicted look on his face as he glanced from Eddie to the door and back again.

Eddie grabbed his hand. “No, wait. Just tell me what happened first?”

Steve swallowed and glanced down at their joined hands. “I’m not entirely sure of all the details. El managed to close the gate. We were waiting for…whatever was coming after Dustin left. Then your eyes just…rolled back, and you let out this… high-pitched sound that I never want to hear again and passed out.” He stopped for a minute, and his other hand squeezed Eddie’s gently between both of his. “You died for a minute, Eddie.”

Blinking, Eddie nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I don’t really remember any of it after I woke up. Just…a lot of pain and then nothing else.” He grinned. “But, hey! They got me back, right? I’m alive when I probably shouldn’t be, so that’s a win.”

Steve shook his head, something like devastation on his face as he looked at Eddie. “You’re not allowed to die again, okay? I don’t think I can take it.”

The grin faded to a soft smile, and Eddie tugged at Steve’s hand, pulling him closer. Steve got the hint and leaned over Eddie’s bed, and they briefly shared a soft, chaste kiss.

A brief knock on the door interrupted them as Jackie entered the room. She grinned at seeing Eddie awake. “Well, hello there, Sleeping Beauty!” she greeted as she stepped across the room to look at the monitors Eddie was hooked up to.

“Hey, Jackie,” Eddie said.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, noting things on her tablet.

Eddie thought about it for a moment. “I…feel fine, I think. Like, I feel like I’ve been in bed for a week, but other than that, nothing really hurts or feels wrong.”

He raised his eyebrows at the glance Steve and Jackie exchanged.

“What?” he asked, drawing out the vowel sound as much as possible while looking at them.

“You’ve been in a coma for the last two weeks, Eds,” Steve said, reaching out to pick up Eddie’s hand.

“Oh,” Eddie said, non-plussed. “So, when do I get out of here?”

Jackie huffed a laugh. “It’ll be at least a day, probably two. They’ll want to run a bunch of tests to make sure everything’s all right now that you’re awake. But if everything’s good, there shouldn’t be a reason to keep you here any longer than that.”

Eddie nodded. “All right. I guess that works,” he said, still frowning a little. He didn’t want to be in the lab any longer than necessary. If the link to the Upside down was finally gone, he hoped that meant the dizzy spells would finally be gone.

“Good. I’ll let them know you’re up,” Jackie said, leaving the room with one last smile.

Eddie looked up at Steve once they were alone again. “So, have you been here the whole time?”

Shrugging slightly, Steve slumped back into the chair at Eddie’s side. “I mean, where else was I going to be?” he asked, still holding onto Eddie’s hand. “I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

Eddie’s heart thumped in his chest, and he couldn’t keep the sappy smile from spreading across his face. “I’m glad you were here when I woke up,” he admitted quietly. He would have been fine if he’d woken up alone, but Steve’s presence made the whole thing much easier to bear.

Instead of answering right away, Steve lifted Eddie’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back. “I know we haven’t been doing this long. Hell, we haven’t known each other that long, but I can’t help but think there’s something real here, Eds. I want to see where it goes, and if you hadn’t made it…” He trailed off, sighing and shaking his head.

“I did make it, though. Somehow,” Eddie reminded him.

“What do you remember about being in the dream?” Steve asked, eyes searching Eddie’s face.

Eddie shrugged slightly. “Power. It was…really tempting, being in control of all of that life. Knowing they would respond to my commands.” He sighed and shook his head. “I was like…the leader of a hive mind.”

Steve’s face took on the adorably confused crumple he always enjoyed seeing on the other man. “So…you were, like, their queen bee?”

Eddie huffed, a smile stretched across his face as he looked at the boy who was very quickly claiming his heart. “Yeah, I guess I was. Of everything, I think I might miss that part a little.”

“Well, I’m really glad you decided to give up all that power and come back to the real world,” Steve said quietly.

“How could I not?” Eddie returned. “There was no way I actually wanted to stay in that hellscape. Plus…” he started, trailing off as he looked at Steve from the corner of his eye. “I far prefer the real you to the weird half-Demogorgon version I created.”

Steve stared at him, face blank, before he grinned. “Aww, you missed me.”

Eddie just rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Yeah, yeah. It just wasn’t the same without you.

Steve exhaled, and his head dropped forward to rest against their joined hands. “I’m so glad you made it.” He swallowed. “I think it might actually be over now.”

Pressure built in Eddie’s chest as emotion overcame him. He couldn’t believe how grateful he was to have Steve with him when he woke up. Staring at the other man, he let everything he was feeling show through his eyes, hoping to convey the message in his heart. Eddie wanted to have a long time with Steve to figure out their relationship and where they were headed. He hoped Steve would be with him all along the way.

A grumbling rumble sounded from Eddie’s stomach, and he glanced down at it.

“Hungry?” Steve asked, grinning at him.

“Sounds like it,” Eddie said. “Would you mind tracking down some food?”

“Yes, my queen,” Steve said, a lopsided smile on his face as he gazed down at Eddie, eyes flooded with fondness.

Eddie could only roll his eyes again as his smile grew. “You dork,” he chided, then grew serious as he pulled Steve’s hand toward his chest. “Thank you for being here.”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Steve said, rising from the chair and pressing another kiss to Eddie’s lips. “Do you need anything before I go see about food?”

Eddie took quick stock of everything and shook his head. “No, I should be fine until you get back.”

“Okay,” Steve said. He grabbed the tray table that fit over the bed and wheeled it into place before refilling the water and setting it within easy reach. “I’ll be right back.”

Eddie reached for the water and settled back against the pillows again. He knew it would take more than a day to get used to the idea of being able to build a life, to feel like he deserved to make a life when so many others had died. He only had to think of Chrissy and the life she wouldn’t get to build to feel his spirits plummet back into the grave he probably should have been in.

The little that Eddie had known of her, though, made him feel sure she wouldn’t want him to throw away a chance at living. Her sweet nature had shone forth, even with terror and insecurity chasing her. The memories he had from her last day had been overshadowed by how she had died, but those weren’t the only memories he had of Chrissy.

And Eddie wanted to remember her laughing.

It hit him that while he couldn’t help her, that didn’t mean he couldn’t help others who were struggling. Eddie had been given a rare gift, a chance to do something meaningful with his life, to honor Chrissy and help keep others from suffering the way she had leading up to her death.

If he couldn’t help her, he would help others in her name.

Tears blurred his eyes at the overwhelming emotion he felt at having a direction for once in his life. He took a deep breath and rubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to get a handle on his emotions before Steve returned. He didn’t want his emotional rollercoaster to be their topic of conversation.

There was so much more to discuss.

***

The graveyard around them was quiet. Only the sounds of nature could be heard beyond the rustling grass as he moved. Steve had given him a bit of privacy when they first arrived so he could talk to Wayne without an audience.

When he’d first learned Wayne had been dead for ten years, it had felt like one more straw being added to the camel’s back, bringing him ever closer to the tipping point. Eddie still wasn’t entirely sure he’d passed that final straw yet, and that something else they encountered in the future would set him off into a mental breakdown. He would deal with that if it happened.

Sometimes, it still didn’t feel real that they had skipped thirty years. Seeing Wayne’s gravesite in person had helped somewhat. The ache of missing the old man settled in his chest, and he knew proper mourning for the man who was his father, for all intents and purposes, would crash over him when he least expected it.

Grass crunching underfoot heralded Steve’s return. Eddie glanced over his shoulder from where he was kneeling next to Wayne’s grave. His smile was shaky, but at least it was there.

“He died thinking I was dead.” He turned back to the grave and ran a hand carefully over the name etched into the gravestone. “We missed so much, Steve,” Edie said with a sigh.

Steve settled into the grass next to him, one hand rubbing up and down his back as he nodded. “Yeah, like, the nineties and computers. We would have seen the early evolution of computers.”

Eddie knew Steve was trying to lighten his spirits, and he appreciated it. “Dustin said there was some really great music in the nineties, too,” Eddie said, still feeling morose.

“Hey, at least we’ll get to see the continued progression of computers, and I’m sure there’s great music now, too,” Steve said, nudging Eddie with his shoulder.

Eddie cut his eyes at Steve and shook his head. “Well, yeah. But our peer group is fifty, Steve. They’ve all lived as this stuff has developed.”

Steve was quiet for a long moment. “Our original peer group is fifty. We have a new peer group.”

“Yeah, one we’ll never fit in with completely. We came of age when the internet didn’t exist, Stevie. These kids have been using this technology since they were babies. We’ll never catch up,” Eddie said, deflating.

He knew they would have an uphill battle getting integrated, but sometimes, it was overwhelming, and he didn’t think they’d ever get there.

“Hey,” Steve said, leaning closer and reaching out to take Eddie’s hand. “It’s not all bad, you know. It might take us a while to get there, but I know we will. And, in the meantime, there are some definite silver linings, you know?” he said and leaned closer so they shared breath. “I mean, no way could we have done this in the eighties in public.”

A smile teased at Steve’s lips as he leaned closer, capturing Eddie’s mouth with his own. He kept the kiss light, which was probably for the best, honestly. For all that they could be a same-sex couple exchanging kisses in the middle of a wide open area where anyone could see them, they were also still in a cemetery. It was probably just more respectful to the dead to keep their kisses light.

Eddie couldn’t help smiling back before he looked back over to Wayne’s gravestone. If an afterlife existed, he hoped Wayne was at peace and smiling down on them.

Epilogue

Five Years Later

“I now pronounce you married!” the officiant said, grinning at them. “You may now kiss your husband,” she said with a wink at both of them.

Steve leaned in toward Eddie, an action as familiar as breathing, and Eddie met him halfway, as they usually did these days. Their lips tangled together, and everything else was forgotten for the endless moment they shared in front of all of their friends and family.

Eventually, the cheers and wolf whistles from the crowd made them pull apart, laughing as they did.

It was still sometimes hard to believe that they were in the future, that their lives had altered so drastically on one fateful day in 1986. It hadn’t been easy, and there had been numerous bumps along the road that led them to where they were today.

As Steve gripped Eddie’s hand tightly in his and they began their walk back down the aisle, finally married, he knew he couldn’t be sorry for the path that had led them to where they were. Each moment along the path, every person that had been lost, had ultimately brought them to that moment and formed who they would be for the rest of their lives.

There was no going back, only forward.

They piled into the back of the limo that would take them to the reception hall, and finally, Steve and Eddie had a moment alone.

“I love you,” Eddie breathed, their noses inches apart.

“I love you, too,” Steve replied. “I’m so glad I’m married to you.” Their lips reconnected, and Steve was lost again in sensation.

A sharp knock on the window pulled them apart, and the door opened.

Robin’s head appeared, and she eyed them suspiciously. “You’re lucky you’re both still clothed. Dinguses, the honeymoon hasn’t started yet. You have a reception to attend.”

Steve loved Robin, his platonic soulmate and sister in their new future, but he still made a face at her. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, you’ve been here for ten minutes, making out in the backseat of a limo while your guests await your arrival.”

“Oh, damn. We’ve been here for ten minutes?” he asked sheepishly, looking to Eddie for confirmation.

Eddie shrugged. “I didn’t even feel the car move, Stevie. I was otherwise occupied.” He leaned in for another kiss.

Robin cleared her throat. “That cake isn’t going to cut itself, you know.”

Steve sighed. “Yes, boss,” he said, rolling his eyes and climbing out of the car, Eddie in tow behind him.

The reception was everything Steve could have wanted and then some. It was also longer than he wanted, but seeing everyone in one place again was great. Weddings were one of the best reasons to get together outside their annual family gathering.

He and Eddie made the rounds, talking to everyone that had become their family over the years. The core group, of course, and the people they’d brought into the fold, each one bringing Eddie, Steve, and Robin into their hearts.

Their birth families might have been left behind in 1986, but this family they made from the ashes of interdimensional horror, pain, and grief formed something stronger than blood.

There had been losses along the way, but love would always prevail over darkness.

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