#maybe his body's a lil wonky when he comes back who knows? depending on your level of monsterfucker you can choose to believe what you want
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Eddie, or something that used to be Eddie, wanders the Upside Down in the aftermath of it all.
He may not know where or who he is, but he knows he belongs. His heartbeat syncs with those of the screeching creatures that soar up above. The thrumming in his veins mirrors the pulsing of the vines that cover the ground at his feet. The hunger at his core is shared by the flower-faced beasts that roam the earth on all fours. He belongs, so he must be home.
Weeks after waking—or months, or years; time is unpredictable in this place, moving at whatever speed it so chooses, sometimes not moving at all—Eddie happens upon a gate. It's located on Morehead Street and small enough that he might have walked right past it if not for its peculiar orange glow.
Curious, Eddie digs his clawed fingers into its center, tearing through the viscous membrane until there's enough space for him to crawl through. He drags his scarred body through the tiny opening, dropping onto the other side with practiced grace. He finds himself atop what appears to be a crumbling staircase, overlooking a decrepit landscape that stretches on for miles.
Gone are the blue-gray skies, replaced with hazy red, roiling fog, and flashes of vibrant lightning. Gone is the air damp with rot, replaced with a sticky blanket of humidity and the scent of acrid smoke so thick he can taste it on his tongue.
Eddie descends the staircase, heedless of the wet squelch his shoe makes when he steps through a puddle of black, oily liquid at the bottom. Intrigued, he runs a pale hand lightly over a nearby tower of stalagmite. The place is littered with them, pointed spires made of knotted, dormant vines.
Eddie steps toward one of the larger spires, taking in the figure encased in its vines. It's a human girl, fair-haired and slight in stature, held upright against her tower by large, twisted tendrils. There's no life in her, just the stench of death and decay.
For a fleeting moment, Eddie thinks he might know her. But that's impossible. He knows only his brethren, knows only their chitters in the dark and their shrieks overhead.
He turns away from the girl, staunchly ignoring the deja vu that grips him as he walks away from her. It unsettles him, that niggling feeling he's missing something important here.
Without warning, a bell begins to toll, its ominous knell crashing through the air like thunder. The distant sound of footsteps reaches his ears next, accompanied by heavy, panting breaths and the occasional hissed curse.
Eddie conceals himself behind a partially standing wall, peering through its broken glass windows in search of his interloper. He spies a figure approaching, running through the fog in a zig zag pattern, as though trying to evade something. As the figure gets closer and Eddie can make out more of its features, he realizes it's a boy, carrying a bat embedded with nails and dressed in a brown leather jacket underneath a battered denim vest.
Denim vest?
Eddie doesn't have time to dwell on the vague sense of familiarity that flashes through him at the sight of this boy—of the vest—because the fog and miasma behind him slowly start to clear, revealing a large, gnarled creature walking calmly after him.
"Why do you run from me, Steven?" the creature says, its voice sinister and seductive, a long-stemmed rose laden with thorns. "You asked me to find you. You begged to be mine. Because you know, Steve, that only I can end your suffering."
The boy skids to a halt beside the body of the girl. He whirls around to face the creature, throwing an arm up to point at her remains. "End my suffering like you ended Chrissy's?"
Steve? Chrissy?
The creature laughs, an ugly, croaking sound that sends shivers up Eddie's spine. "She is beautiful now," it croons. "And you will be, too, once you join us."
And that confuses Eddie. Because despite his dirtied appearance, windswept hair, sweat-slicked face, and scarred neck, the boy before him is already beautiful.
"You want me?" the boy—Steve—spits as he brings both hands together, knuckles going white as he tightens them around the handle of his bat. He raises it between him and the creature, widening his stance and shifting his weight between his feet in anticipation of a fight. "Come and get me!"
As soon as the words leave his lips, the vines at his feet spring to life, shooting up and thrusting him back against a nearby spire. The force of it visibly knocks the breath out of Steve, but he was apparently expecting something like this, because he managed to bring one hand up to the level of his eye before he was fully immobilized, trapping his wrist in the hold one of the vines has against his neck.
"Poor, foolish Steve," the creature says, slowly approaching him. It huffs out a derisive laugh as it steps over the fallen nail bat, then reaches out a thrawn, leathery hand, hovering it over Steve's face, clawed fingers curling as if to grasp him, puncture him. "You cannot run from me."
Steve gasps and struggles against his binds, but goes still when something new resounds through the air—the sudden blare of an electric guitar, followed by a series of deep and distorted notes that Eddie can feel in his very bones.
Drums come crashing in, loud and unapologetic, and he revels in the sheer power of it all, letting the music wash over him and set his nerves alight.
"Try and stay very still," the creature murmurs, giving the noise no mind. "It will all be over soon."
Slowly, Steve's brows unfurrow and he actually smiles. "Yes, it will," he manages to choke out, the challenge in his voice apparent despite its compromised state, "but not in the way you think."
As if on cue, a voice rings out, rough and raspy and angry and perfect above the thunderous melody that fills the air. The words are familiar, seared in Eddie's mind like a memory. Without a doubt, he knows this song. If only he could remember how he knows it.
With the voice comes a gate, though it's unlike the one Eddie came in through. Its edges are wispy, like the fog itself cleared to make an opening, and he can see clearly through it to the other side.
The scene features three unconscious bodies. The first is Steve's, wearing a set of headphones and levitating several feet off the ground. The second is a young girl's, floating in a bathtub with a blindfold tied around her head. The third is a boy's, slumped over the side of the tub with his fingers intertwined with the girl's.
A gaggle of children are split between them, some kneeling by the tub and others standing below Steve, jumping and screaming up at him. Their faces are so familiar. Eddie wishes he could place them. But all he has to go on are the frantic pounding of his heart and the bone-deep feeling that these people, these strangers, are important.
There are older kids scattered about, too, one of which has her hands wrapped around Steve's ankle, yelling as she tries to keep him tethered. Her voice is muffled, but Eddie can make out her panicked, "That's enough, dingus, it's time to come back! They've got it from here!"
The song swells, powerful and ferocious, and Eddie feels the chords right in his very heartstrings. He looks down at his hands, watches some muscle memory react viscerally to the song's fury, watches his fingers start to curl as if itching to rest on a fretboard.
"This is for Eddie, you ugly son of a bitch!" Steve yells up at the creature. He manages to leverage a bit of space with his trapped hand, then—at the crest of an absolutely face-melting guitar solo—drops his head to take a huge, violent bite out of the vine wrapped around his neck.
Several things happen at once:
1) The creature—Vecna—rears back, affected enough by Steve's display of unhinged ferality that the vines loosen their grip on him. Steve bursts out of Vecna's hold and starts sprinting toward the gate.
2) Two figures materialize behind Vecna: the girl and the boy from the other side. He must be Will the Wise, in all his bowl-cut glory. And she must be Supergirl, if the way she blasts Vecna straight through a nearby wall is any indication.
3) Eddie fucking remembers.
He remembers Hawkins and the Upside Down. He remembers Vecna, and Chrissy, and nearly every single face on the other side of the gate.
He remembers Dustin sobbing over his dying body; he remembers Max offering up herself up as bait; he remembers Lucas turning on the basketball team to help his true friends; he remembers Erica thrusting a belt made of literal bullets into his hands; he remembers Nancy wielding a felonious shotgun into battle; he remembers Robin's knowing expression at hunt the freak. He remembers Mike Wheeler, and Jonathan Byers, and—well, not the long-haired guy next to Jonathan, but that's probably fine.
And of course, he remembers the boy who'd stripped off his yellow sweater and thrown it in Eddie's slack-jawed face, who'd worn Eddie's battle vest over his still-bleeding battle wounds, who'd walked side-by-side with Eddie in a forest full of danger and decay, who'd blushed so prettily when Eddie called him big boy, who'd held Eddie's gaze and warned him not to play hero.
Eddie remembers Steve.
Later, once they both tumble through the gate and end up on the ground in a pile of limbs, Eddie will groan low in his throat and try to untangle himself from Steve's heavy body. Steve, terrified that he might have brought something dangerous back with him, will twist on top of Eddie and nearly slam his head down into the tiled floor, stopping himself only once he realizes exactly who he has pinned under him.
Later, once the party finally stops screaming in response to Eddie's sudden appearance—to his literal resurrection—Steve will drag him into his chest and clutch desperately at his back, rocking their bodies back and forth in near-catatonic shock. Eddie will clutch him back just as tightly, drenching his shirt with hot, wet tears.
Later, after Vecna is reduced to mere dust and Eddie struggles to heal from his months of being trapped alone in an alternate dimension, he'll dial Steve's phone number in the dead of night just to hear another person's voice. Steve will talk about nothing and everything, hanging up only when he can hear Eddie's breaths slow and finally even out through the line.
Later, Steve will admit he purchased Metallica's record shortly after Eddie's supposed death, wanting to hear the song he played in the Upside Down, the legendary song he used to brand himself as bait before running off to protect Dustin and buy the rest of the party more time. Eddie will hide the pleased little thrill that rushes through him at Steve's admission by throwing an arm around him and insisting they'll make a metalhead of him yet.
Later, Eddie will bring the subject up again, curious to know how the song became Steve's Vecna song. Surely he had other options that he'd cherished for far longer than the several months he'd known Master of Puppets. Steve will quietly confess that the song made him think of Eddie, of a fiery, vibrant life snuffed out too soon. And though Steve made the mistake of not turning from the Creel house and running back to Eddie that night in the Upside Down, he knew if he'd ever have to fight for his life trapped in a Vecna mind prison, he'd do it right. He wouldn't for one second hesitate to run toward the song—to run toward Eddie.
Later, Steve will gently cup Eddie's cheek and press in, close enough that they both have to go slightly cross-eyed to keep eye contact, that they feel each other's nervous, shallow breaths in the space between them. Eddie will grapple with the slew of feelings swirling messily in his ribcage before his stubborn resolve wins out and he presses his lips against Steve's in a long overdue kiss.
Later, Steve and Eddie will fall in love. But now?
Now, Steve runs.
And Eddie, or the something that never truly stopped being Eddie, follows.
#stranger things#steve harrington x eddie munson#steddie#steddie fic#been fixating on this hc that steve's vecna song became master of puppets after they lost eddie#and instead of being normal and writing about it in his pov i decided to do this instead#also this isn't a full kas!eddie situation but i love the idea of eddie losing himself in the upside down#maybe his body's a lil wonky when he comes back who knows? depending on your level of monsterfucker you can choose to believe what you want#spot the phantom reference lol#fic writing#hbd
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