If I Should Stay
Part 1 | . . . | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
After pizza—and after El wakes up and eats her own pizza—everyone gathers around again to listen to Steve and Robin. “So I think by now we’ve proven we’re from the future,” Steve says. “We’re here, four years in the past, because a lot of bad things happen, and if we can, we’d like to stop those things from happening. The big one, and really the recurring problem, is a guy named Henry Creel who essentially took control of an alternate plane of existence we call the Upside Down.” He motions El over beside him, and she goes gladly, tucking her feet up onto the couch as she leans into his side, trusting him to hold her up. He does, sliding a protective arm around her shoulders as he says, “He’s also One.”
He watches as one by one the lightbulbs come on. “Oh, shit,” Dustin whispers, and Steve doesn’t even call him on it, just nods.
“Beyond Henry, though, there are creatures in the Upside Down that can and will kill you.” He rolls his eyes fondly at the boys. “For some inexplicable reason, you came up the names, so they’re called demogorgons, demodogs, and demobats. Demogorgons are what took Barb and Will, but they both got away. That doesn’t mean they’re safe, though. Like El said earlier, Barb was safe in the moment, but it’s still a very dangerous place. There are vines everywhere that are connected to a hive mind. You step on one, and Henry knows you’re there.”
He continues telling the story, Robin interrupting when there’s a detail he misses. It’s silent when they finish. Finally, El speaks up. “So, it is… my fault?”
“No, El,” Steve says softly. “None of this is your fault. Things out of your control happened that made you who you are. Those same things created all of this.”
El frowns. “So I am bad? Like One? Like the Upside Down?”
“No,” Mike says sharply. “You’re good, El.”
“He’s right,” Steve murmurs. “You made yourself good.” He pokes her arm teasingly, and she smiles, leaning back into him.
Steve looks around, catches Nancy’s eye, and sighs. “Nance? A word?”
“Steve?” Robin asks.
He shakes his head. “I’ll yell if I need you,” he promises, rubbing her head as he passes. She squawks and bats his hand away.
“Asshole,” she mutters, and he laughs as he disappears down the hallway, Nancy in tow.
They end up in a room Steve thinks was meant to be a study. “You have questions.”
“Understatement of the century. There’s just one that’s really bugging me, though.”
“Us?”
“Yeah.”
Steve sighs and leans against the wall. “On Halloween, Tina throws a party. We didn’t know what we do now, about the Upside Down, and you were still looking for her. I was an asshole, self-centered and unhelpful.” He blows out a breath, crosses his arms, and looks away. “You got drunk, called me, and my love for you, bullshit. Left. I tried to talk to you the next day at school about it and you couldn’t say you loved me. I was still hopeful. I’m a romantic at heart, y’know? I thought maybe if I could be everything you needed, if I changed enough, if, if, if…” he shakes his head. “So we stayed together. I tried. You slept with Jonathan Byers, then broke up with me.”
Nancy looks horrified. “Steve-”
He shakes his head. “I made my peace with it. And maybe this makes me an asshole, I dunno, but Nance, I can’t go back. We’re okay, we’re friends, but I can’t pretend I still have feelings for you. I’m sorry, but we both know I was just convenient for you.”
Nancy takes a breath. “So that’s it?”
Steve shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I tried and got my heart broken for it. I moved on, found someone I think I can really be happy with, without changing who I am. And for the record? It gets rocky for a second, but I think you and Byers are it, too.” He smirks. “Plus Mike likes him better than me.”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “Oh, well, if Mike likes him better…” they both laugh, and she looks at him. “No more feelings?”
He shakes his head. “We make much better friends.”
Nancy grins lopsidedly. “And Robin?”
Steve snorts. “Purely platonic, I promise. Neither of us want anything else with each other.”
Nancy looks at him then. Studies him. “You’ve been through some shit,” she decides. “But you look happy.”
He smiles. “I am, for the most part. I know who I am.”
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in which steve is sick, eddie is in love, and floor time is being had
Eddie is in the kitchen when he hears the sound of footsteps approaching him. The smile is on his face before he even turns around to catch a glimpse of Steve, gloriously disheveled from all that sleep he’s been catching up on. He’s wearing one of Eddie’s big, fuzzy sweaters that Steve always hogs when he’s sick — which, thankfully, isn’t all that often —, a thick pair of sweats and mismatched socks.
Sickness is the time to wear mismatched socks without judgment, Edwin Munswin, Steve had huffed the first time Eddie saw him with a runny nose and ridiculous socks that definitely didn’t belong together. It had been the first time he admitted to himself that he was absolutely gone for Steve Runny Nose Harrington.
And so it doesn’t come as a surprise to him that his heart stumbles in his chest and the smile on his lips widens. Steve might hate being sick, but Eddie can’t really help but love him even more when he gets like this. When Steve allows himself to be a little weak and for Eddie to take care of him.
“Hi, sunshine,” Eddie says, turning down the heat on the stove to go over to his Stevie, wrapping his arms around the blanket Steve still has around his shoulders. “Sleep well?”
“Mmh.” It’s nothing more than a raspy grunt, a pathetic little noise as Steve cuddles further into Eddie, seeking out his warmth and comfort so freely that Eddie presses a kiss to his slightly sweaty forehead. “Missed you.”
“I’m right here,” he promises, running a hand up and down Steve’s back. “Just made you tea while the soup is warming up. Because you’re gonna have to eat.”
“Okay,” Steve nods, sounding solemn as he does, and Eddie wants to laugh. Gods, he’s so in love, it’s disgusting. Ridiculous. Absolutely laughable. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” A whisper, another promise, another kiss. He unwinds his arms and looks back at the giant pot of soup he made yesterday. “Do you wanna go back to bed or stay here?”
“Here,” Steve sighs and promptly sinks down the counter until he’s sitting on the floor, looking up at Eddie with those beautiful brown eyes, so big and and full of love that Eddie can’t resist ruffling his hair, which earns him a little giggle from Steve.
Oh, right, he’s had the good stuff prescribed from the doctor. This is going to be fun in a few hours.
“You ridiculous man,” Eddie murmurs, trailing his hand from the crown of Steve’s head down across his cheek all the way to his chin in a gentle caress.
“Go back to your soup, you most ridiculous of men,” Steve says in retaliation, but he reaches for his hand to hold as Eddie returns to the stove.
“Technically it’s your soup.”
“That’s what I said.” Eddie looks down to see the most adorable of frowns on Steve’s head, and his heart explodes a little in his chest.
He snorts and squeezes Steve’s hand. “Sure is, baby.”
“See? I’m smart sometimes.”
“No argument from me there,” Eddie says, and he means it.
A hum comes from Steve and then he leans his head against Eddie’s leg. “You’re so nice to me, Eds. I like that you’re nice to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And then it’s quiet, and the weight of Steve against his leg becomes heavier by the second to the point where Eddie is pretty sure Steve’s fallen asleep again. He doesn’t dare to move, but dear God he wants to laugh, he wants to cry, wants to scream at the world how much he loves this ridiculous, adorable, possibly delirious and high on cold medication man who is wrapped in his blanket on their kitchen floor.
“Stevie,” he whispers at last, the soup hot, the tea just cool enough, and cards his hand through Steve’s hair to wake him. “Sunshine, wake up, I have soup for you.”
“Soup?”
“Soup.”
“But I love soup.”
“Then I have great news for you,” Eddie laughs and tilts Steve’s head up so he’ll meet his eyes. “It’s plenty, it’s warm, and you can have some. It’s right here.”
“You made me soup?”
“Yeah, babe,” Eddie chuckles, his heart tearing itself apart at the way Stevie looks up at him with such wonder and awe and love. “I made you so much soup. All for you.”
Steve nods, thinks for a moment and then looks up at Eddie again. “Can we share?”
“You wanna share your soup with me?” Eddie says, crouching down so he’s on eye level with Steve and can brush a kiss to his forehead again.
Steve nods again and reaches for him, clinging to Eddie’s sweater — well, it’s Steve’s technically. “Wanna share everything with you.“
“Even your blanket?”
Steve smiles and nods again, lifting one arm to invite Eddie in, which earns him a laugh. “Alright, let me just…”
He grabs two bowls of soup, Steve’s large mug of tea, two spoons and two pillows from their chairs so they can eat the soup on the floor without uncomfortable heat in their laps.
Later, when soup is but a distant memory of half an hour ago, Steve lets himself fall to the side and slumps into Eddie, head nestled on his shoulder.
“Sleep time again?” Eddie asks.
“No,” Steve slurs, definitely already on his way to half asleep. “Just. Just love you.”
Eddie hums and leans into Steve in return, warm underneath their blanket, surprisingly comfortable on the floor, backs against the counter. “Just love you, too, sunshine.”
And if Eddie closes his eyes, too, lulled into a sleepy state of comfort and warmth, then that’s just one more thing that happens with a sick Steve around.
In sickness and in health, he thinks with that same smile on his lips.
for @seidenbros, i besmooch your forehead with this 🌷🤍
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