Chapter Text
It's a lazy Saturday, pale light filtering in through the shutters, painting semi-uniform stripes across the trailer. It’s a day into spring break, and Steve has to go to work, but not for another two hours. He's loose-boned, resting with one arm on the coffee table, and the other one on the couch, his forearm pressed against Eddie’s bare side. Eddie is lying on his belly, barely balancing on his elbows. He’s still in boxers, but on his second joint. Maybe they’re both feeling some type of way, because they have Rumours on, and they keep sighing. Like Billy won’t be back in less than an hour.
“Eddie, man, listen, you’re cooking my brain. Why did I just think this bassline is raw as hell ?” Steve’s doing his fake whining voice, head tilted back and to the side. His hair brushes by Eddie’s back.
Eddie unsticks his cottony mouth to grin at him, face mushed against the palm of his hand. “That a direct quote from your brain, baby?”
Steve shuffles even closer, palm flat right on Eddie’s shoulder blade. The way he’s looking at Eddie, fond and real, makes him want to melt into a puddle. “Yeah, baby , and it sounds like you .”
“Also sounds like it’s absolutely fuckin’ true, though. S’gotta be a good thing then.”
Steve’s smile is big, sunny even, like Eddie replied just right . “You’re always a good thing, Eddie Munson.” It makes Eddie blush, which is dumb because he came in this boy’s mouth not three hours ago. Steve can tell, he’s always very good at knowing just how much he’s making Eddie want to fly into the sun. The corners of his eyes crinkle attractively. He walks his fingers tap-tap-tap up Eddie’s back, from the meat of his shoulder to just above his waistband. “What’s this one for?”
They play this game sometimes, Steve and Billy. Its only rule is to find out what Eddie’s tattoos are about. There’s no structure to this. Sometimes they’ll ask and he’ll make them play 20 questions, and sometimes they’ll make wild guesses, and sometimes Eddie will just tell them because he can’t do otherwise looking at them.
“It’s from those books I was telling you about?”
“With the uh– The rings. Ring. One ring.”
Eddie laughs, feeling softer and softer. “Technically no, but Imma give you a pass. Yeah, those are the ones.”
“So what, some super hot guy has a huge sword and you just put it on your back forever?”
Eddie is incredulous and extremely amused. His smile is hurting his cheeks a little, but it’s a good ache. “Steve. Steve Harrington, did you just get jealous of a fictitious man? While you’re already my boyfriend? While I already have another boyfriend?”
“So it is some hot guy’s sword! And that’s not the same , I also have Billy. And like–” Steve curls a hand around Eddie’s hip and grins cheekily. “I can watch you having each other anytime. So.” He shrugs, all nonchalant.
Eddie slides down and sits up, trapping Steve’s shoulders between his thighs. He cups Steve’s neck with both palms, thumbs at his jawline. “That so?”
“Uh huh” Steve tells Eddie against his mouth, and they kiss as much as their smiles will allow.
.
Nancy Wheeler has a plan, because of course she does. What is surprising is its sheer simplicity. No contingencies, not really, no plans b to f. It’s basically just storming the castle. It's a plan of two parts: One part loud distraction and minor monster killing, and one part quiet sneaking and major monster killing.
Eddie is faced for the first time with an idea he hadn’t really thought about: a minor apocalypse. In his mind, the image of Chrissy floating inside Family Video is a constant. It’s never been a question of stopping Vecna, it’s been a pressing need to keep specific people safe. Logically it all makes sense, but still the magnitude of what Nancy is presenting boggles the mind and brings forth a constant lurking panic.
The Byers are still nowhere to be found, which is starting to seem too fishy to be a coincidence. Nancy informs them they’ll have to make do. In a way, it’s fortunate, and Eddie feels a knot loosening inside him, at the prospect that they can keep the kids out of it. Their reality is this: There’s no superpowered little girl, just them. An uptight aspiring journalist, a jock with great hair and a heart of gold, a tiny cheerleader with a secret sense of humour, a disorganised band geek, a rage-filled traumatised ex-surfer, and Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson, skinny arms and all. It’s more a cast made for an office rom-com, and not for fighting a serial killer with magical powers.
But it’s okay. It’s okay, because Eddie has a contingency plan. It makes him want to be sick, just thinking about it, it makes his head spin and his palms sweat, and it makes him want to cry. But it’s not a contingency for him, it’s for everyone else. So it’s okay.
.
This one is different, but it’s so predictable, Eddie would scoff if he could. His body is smaller, small for a kid that’s six years old really. He’s shivering so hard his teeth are chattering and the ratty blanket that’s wrapped around him. Eddie is standing in the doorway, but he’s also in his tiny body, in his tiny bed, in his mother’s house in Chicago. He remembers this day very vividly, because he never had a fever in the middle of summer before or after this. He’s crying into the pillow, muffling exhausted sobs. Obviously not very well, because his mom yells at him to be quiet, silence, be quiet Ed, goddammit.
Outside his window, there used to be a stoplight. It hung from the wires, just out of reach. If he got the broom, he could make it swing this way and that. Now, there’s no traffic light, there’s no wires, there’s no old woman Pru across the street shouting to her grandkids. It’s only tar-black trees, for miles and miles.
It only serves to break the illusion apart. Because Eddie has been sick again, after this, years after this. A high fever and a dizziness that wouldn’t go away. Wayne Munson spent many years calling Eddie ‘kid’. And over a bowl of noodle soup, for the first time ever, he said “Sweat it out, son.”
His childhood bedroom falls away, the trees untwist, he’s normal-sized. Eddie is at once in the trailer, lights dim and wallpaper peeling. There isn’t a single ominous thing here, in this space. He hears–
A dog barks as Eddie snaps awake, breath short and teeth grinding together. It’s confusing, and unprecedented, to go from one Dream location to a better, safer one. The transition didn’t feel external either, like ropes, like a sick pull, like Eddie’s a puppet. It felt like a choice. There’s only one single explanation. He did that. He did that, he changed the dream.
.
Tomorrow, it’s Plan Day. They’ve decided to stick together, a la casa Harrington. Their supplies are already in order, stacked in Steve’s pristine hallway. It looks a bit like some lackeys dropped by the mob boss’ house and left their equipment right there in the entrance. The pile of axes is probably going to leave some kind of indent on the soft cream-color carpet.
Tomorrow is Plan Day, but tonight is still theirs. The girls have left them to their own devices, and they’ve sprawled on Steve’s roof. Eddie had the forethought to store at least five joints in various pockets before leaving the trailer.
Billy’s shoulder is warm against Eddie’s, a comfort. Eddie thinks maybe he could stay here forever, even if Steve’s head is a bit heavy on his thigh. He watches his own hand disappearing in Steve’s hair and appearing again. Steve is cat-like, languid, his socked feet tucked under Billy.
Billy has been growing more tense since yesterday, since they sat down to finagle the Plan. It's right there in his shoulders and the cord of his neck. An unrest in his hands, flicking his zippo on and off, on and off, the flame dancing around his fingers like he's a very stressed magician. Eddie thinks it's first and foremost the very idea of going in that place, the coldness of it, the wrongness. And he keeps looking at Steve and Eddie, long looks, like he's trying to burn the image of their faces in his brain. And maybe getting high isn’t the wisest way to calm Billy down, but it’s what they have. That, and their own selves.
Eddie watches a slow smile appear on Steve’s face, secretive almost. He opens his eyes and looks at Billy, his grin widening, its effect reaching the corners of his eyes. Steve tilts his head to look at Eddie. “How many Joni Mitchells do you think he has in his shield cassette?”
Billy makes a sound around the joint in his mouth and smacks Steve’s knee. “Fuck you” he tells him, on a plume of smoke.
Eddie hides a grin in his hair. “Oh, I think he prefers Carole King. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
“Reserve the fucking pet names for when you're not being an asshole, Munson.” Billy is despondent, but also he's blushing furiously, and Eddie knows he hit jackpot. It's endearing, really, how much of the music Billy trusts to keep him alive is stuff his mother played for him.
Steve trails a lazy hand down Billy's forearm. “It's okay, Hargrove, we're not gonna tell anyone you're a big softie.”
“Yeah, baby, it can be our big gay secret” Eddie assures him too, and it makes Billy laugh.
Billy leans back on his hands, head tipped to the sky, his throat bared to them. “You're both dickheads” he tells them fondly. There's a beat, a pause he's fortifying himself. “I uh. I talked to Susan. Max's mom?” Billy clears his throat. Eddie and Steve know who Susan is. They nod simultaneously, quiet, cautious of causing Billy to stop talking.
“Told her if– If something bad happens. To me. If I'm not around anymore. She should keep Max away from Neil. You have to make sure she does. Okay?”
Steve makes a wounded sound. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Jesus Christ.”
Billy looks at him impatiently. “Shut up with that hero shit, okay? Not everything fucking works out all the time. You gotta promise. That you'll look out for Max.”
Eddie’s vision grows blurry, and there's a tremble in his hands. But he gets it. “I promise, Billy. But,” he has to stop for a shuddery breath, “but you're not gonna die, Billy, okay? You're going to take care of Max yourself.”
“Thanks, Munson.” Billy's voice has no business being so tiny, not ever.
“You know I– Both of you, you know I really fucking love you, yeah?” If not for fear of death, Eddie would probably not have said this, blurted it out really. He thinks maybe it's an obvious thing anyway, how Eddie feels . But these two beautiful, emotionally inept boys don't know, and it'd be a damn fucking shame if he didn't get to tell them.
Steve shoots up from his prone position, and kneels there, in front of Eddie and Billy. He's crying, and Eddie realizes he's never seen him cry before. “ Shut the fuck up , Munson, what the fuck, what the fuck. You can say that again two days from now, okay? We're not fucking dying. We're not . And you,” he shoves at Billy's chest with two fingers, right under the spot where his pendant hangs, like he did so long ago, in a dark trailer, “I'm not promising shit , okay? Because you're gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine , do you fuckheads understand?”
They push together and hold each other, all three of them. Billy’s knee is digging in his gut, and some of Steve’s hair is in his mouth. It’s not very comfortable, but Eddie doesn’t care at all. He grasps at any part of them he can reach, keeps them close, and breathes them in. Eddie hates the creeping sense that this is a goodbye.
.
There’s two gates in Hawkins. If this is a circle, then the Creel House is smack in the middle, and the lines that extend from the gates to the center are perpendicular to each other. When Nancy has the map open for them, Eddie finds Family Video between the roads and blocks. It’s diametrically opposite to where Fred Benson died, and they realize Vecna is making a big fucking cross, which is just ridiculous and Eddie hates it.
Two parts of a plan and two gates, one for each part. They make their way to their spots silently, on foot, because there’s still a curfew in place. Billy, Steve and Robin should be in the Camaro by now, armed to the teeth and idling next to their assigned gate.
Nancy, Eddie and Chrissy do some light breaking and entering. The church still has caution tape all over it, and its plastic yellowness is jarring in the dark space. The light from the street lamps filters sickly through the stained glass windows, throwing long twisting shadows across the pews. The gate is a vertical gap, a rotting membranous maw, extending from the ceiling to just behind the altar.
“Spooky” says Chrissy, appearing at Eddie’s elbow and scaring the shit out of him.
“Are you trying to kill me , Jesus wept, Cunningham” he shout-whispers at her, and Nancy, in a steady voice of normal volume, tells them “If you’re done?” And she literally just climbs on the altar and steps through the pulsing membrane, gun first. If Eddie didn’t know better, he’d wonder at her flippancy. But, having studied some of the intricacies of Nancy Wheeler, he knows it’s because she powers through most things like throwing herself in cold water. And a lot of things are like cold water for Nancy.
Eddie and Chrissy help each other clamber onto the altar, and they don’t let go when they’re standing there, right at the edge of this world. “Eddie. We’ll go together?” Chrissy asks him.
Eddie tightens his hand around hers and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll go together.” They step onto the other side.
.
There’s something deeply appropriate about the church in the Upside Down, vines wrapping around the half-broken statue of Christ, the pews like rows of orderly gravestones. There’s no working lamp outside, but the sky is an unchanging red/grey. Eddie helps Chrissy down from the altar, because the flamethrower tank is a bit heavy on her back. Apparently, flamethrowers aren’t considered firearms, but tools, and any ol’ crazy can walk up and buy one. So they got one, and Chrissy won at the rock-paper-scissors derby and got to carry it.
It’s evident inside the church too, but it’s massively worse when they step outside, how cloying the atmosphere is, rife with ashy particles. They all cover their faces with pieces of cloth and handkerchiefs. The church is nestled between some real cute good-Christian-people houses, 2.5 kids each and the works. They easily pilfer three bikes. Eddie is starting to get really worried, because everything is going very smoothly. He’d been prepared for lizard-dogs with flower mouths and other hell creatures, but none of that has appeared, and it could be dumb luck. Although with their streak, it’s definitely going to be a trap.
A rumble of movement starts, the earth shaking, and dark slimy bodies flit towards the edge of Hawkins. They hide behind some abandoned cars when a swarm of blackness flies by, shrieking and swooping, like cursed birds. Or “Bats. Bats aren’t supposed to make so much noise” as Chrissy informs them, in a mumble really, chewing on her thumbnail anxiously.
Nancy nods, and gets back on her bike. “Come on, that should be the boys and Robin. We need to get to the house.”
Biking in this grimy air makes Eddie’s lungs burn like he’s been chain-smoking for over six hours. Nancy leads, at a brutal pace, with which Chrissy can easily keep up, and that nearly kills Eddie. When they get to the Creel house, it’s looming nearly identical to its Right Side Up version. It’s also as unguarded, which honestly doesn’t bode well.
Eddie steps one foot inside that house and knows he fucked up. The creeping sense of unease nestles itself on the top bone of his spine, curling there like a cold sweat. “He’s not here. Nancy, he's not here! But he's close.” He knows this instinctually, and doesn’t pause to wonder why or how. “Look for him outside,” he tells the girls. Eddie ignores Nancy’s warning and takes the stairs two at a time, sliding across the hallway and up into the attic. He’s not there. Vecna isn’t there, nobody is there, but Billy is in the Upside Down, mind and body and all.
Eddie has one entire second where he can’t move an inch, nearly shaking with how motionless he remains. Maybe Vecna won’t find it useful to kill them on this side, to open the gates. That is irrelevant though, because Eddie is pretty sure Vecna is a megalomaniac douchebag, and Billy has gotten away from him once already, in July. Eddie is filled with a sick certainty that if he doesn’t do something , Vecna will have first move. And he can’t have that.
This is what the contingency is for. Its first element hinges on the simple idea that if a song can save you, another song can make you feel like fucking shit. He lays down the shotgun Nancy gave him, and takes out the walkman. They all brought one with them, just in case. Certainly nobody else had this case in mind, but no matter.
All his life, he’s only owned one Dylan tape, and it’s this one, which he expressly went and bought for this reason only. Sara starts playing softly in his ears, and Eddie already feels like there’s a crying rock wedged in his throat. He figured this part out when Sinatra came on the radio and Steve turned it off so aggressively it nearly fell off the counter. He’d said something like “It’s– My parents always listen to that stuff” and Eddie knew immediately, what can pull Vecna to him in a heartbeat.
By the second verse, Eddie’s forehead is touching the floor, legs curled under him, the knee with the hole in the jeans scraping bloody against the wooden floorboards. He throws himself into a relentless spiral of every bad thing he’s ever done, of all his short-comings, but nothing is happening . Eddie panics, and scrambles himself open, to the sound of his mom’s favorite song. He thinks about how he never told uncle Wayne he loves him. He thinks about the first boy he ever kissed, dying last year. Dave, handsome Davey from downtown Indy. Eddie was too scared to go to the funeral. He drove to Indianapolis two days later to leave some shitty flowers at the grave and mostly– Mostly he just went to get tested. He thinks about Patrick, whom he could’ve helped. He thinks about them, and for a moment, a wild joy bursts in his chest and he squashes it, relentless. Billy and Steve hardly need him, he’s only going to make things more difficult for them. Eddie thinks what if it’s better this way?
The floor creaks behind him, and Steve says “So you decided you’re going to die instead of trying to fix all your mistakes?”
Eddie’s body shoots up, and he clambers to his feet. “Steve? What are you doing? Where’s Billy?”
Steve tilts his head as he comes closer to Eddie. His fingers are ice-cold on Eddie’s jaw. “Billy, Billy, Billy. Do you even care about me , Eddie?” His breath is frigid cold as it brushes against Eddie’s mouth too. “ I’m here now.” Steve’s thumb digs into Eddie’s cheek. “You killed Billy, Edward Munson.”
Eddie throws himself back away from this cold thing that isn’t Steve. “One, is it?” Eddie says, around the terror accumulating in this mouth.
The toes of Eddie’s shoes drag across the floor when he’s flung to the other side of the room, back hitting the wall, arms spread. The force that pushed him keeps him there, the pressure a crushing boulder.
In the place of fake Steve there’s– A monster, a horrid, cursed creature, skin mangled, eyes frigid. Sara has stopped playing, and it’s silent, except for Eddie’s hummingbird breaths and the creaking of Vecna walking towards him.
“Your sacrifice is in vain, Eddie . I will still get Billy. Don’t you see? He needs to rest , finally. That boy is too weak for the world.”
Eddie feels even more pressure, like his ribcage is shrinking. But he’s also very desperate. And very angry. “Shut the fuck up. Nobody wants your villain monologue, asshole.”
“I might be curious about it” enunciates a voice carefully, shy about approaching language really. Vecna is flung up so violently, he flies up and crashes through the ceiling. Eddie, released, slides down the wall, wheezing and terrified.
There’s a girl in the corner, face round and so fucking young. Eddie logically knows this must be Eleven. She makes an awkward little grimace that’s probably supposed to be a smile. “Are you Eddie?”
There’s someone else in the attic with them, and he appears behind her. Will Byers says “Yeah, that’s him.”
“Hey, kids, sorry, but what the hell?” Eddie already sounds like shit, and he hasn’t even died yet.
They look at each other, in tandem, like creepy twins, in the manner they tilt their heads a little. Will, fidgeting a little, says “We’re in your head, El found you through me. You have to stay in the illusion until she can kill Henry. One. Um. Okay?”
Eddie laughs a little, delirious. “Sure. Let’s try that.”
.
Eddie runs out of the murder house, Will close by. Eleven– Well, the only way to describe what this little girl is doing is ‘stalking’, prowling really, like the deadliest thing you could meet here is her. Eddie doesn’t want to go into the trees, but fucking tough, because the forest twists and moves and appears in front of him wherever he might turn.
There’s trailers between the trees, like a rotten forest grew below and around them overnight. Billy’s trailer is torn asunder, a huge trunk sprouting from its roof. Oh, and this is definitely Eddie’s brain, because the branches extend up and out, shaping a crucifix. And right there in its middle is the body of one Billy Hargrove, ripped apart and gruesome, horrific and unfixable.
Eddie knows it’s fake, he does , and yet. His hands go numb, bile rising up in horror. Steve lays dead on the trailer steps, one hand wrapped around the railing, his chest cavity a cracked open nut, a bitten fruit. Eddie’s face starts feeling numb. Because this is no different than his worst Dreams. But somehow, it feels realer, material, true.
Will says “It’s not real,” at the same time that Eleven sets her feet into the soil stubbornly, at shoulder-width, and tells them “He’s here.”
.
Will and Eddie crouch behind some dead shrubbery. The fight between Eleven and Vecna is a brutal thing, a test in endurance. They throw each other around, heads hitting bark, backs skidding across the ground. Eleven spits out a glob of blood, and Eddie’s pretty sure it contains a tooth.
But in the end, it’s Eddie’s mind invaded by a wizard turned monster. The vines are tight around Eleven’s skinny wrists, and her neck and Vecna says “Feral little girl, I thought we could be family. Alas, how could anyone love a thing like you?” which is really fucking horrible, and unfair, because this is Eddie’s hellscape, and he doesn’t want little kids suffering in it. A thought occurs to him then. In the dream, he could change things.
Will uncurls from next to Eddie, standing, a little hunched still, but taller than before. He makes his hands into fists and he says “She does have a family. She’s my sister. My brother is her brother too. El. We’re your family, okay? Mom wants to keep you forever. We are a real family. We love you, Eleven.”
As Eleven rips out of the vines and pushes back with her power, Eddie keeps thinking about it. And what’s easier than changing the one thing that’s for sure here ? What’s easier than changing himself? He thinks about the sword of Isildur tattooed on his back, shoulder to hip, Steve’s warm hands skimming its length. He thinks about Billy, late at night, humming the riff from Hells Bells , telling Eddie “Dunno where you got this shit that you’re a coward.” He had laughed a little, swiping a thumb under Eddie’s eye. “You’re wild, Munson, you better remember that.”
Eddie reaches behind him, over his shoulder, and there, in his palm is the handle of a sword. It’s heavy, heavier than he thought a tattoo would be. It’s solid and real, as it appears, leaping out of his skin. It’s longer than it should be too, a proper longsword.
Eddie wields it with both hands, and stays silent until Vecna’s back is in his span. His shoulders feel heavy and strained by the weight of the sword, and more so by the strike. Eddie puts his whole fucking back into it, the blade whistling through the air. Eleven screams with the force she packs into Vecna’s body.
Both their aims strike true. And then there is nothing.
.
He gets a bit lost, he thinks, in the nothing place. It’s a blackness of perfect absorbance, total lack of color. His left hand keeps twitching, and it might be in rhythm. But he can’t remember why that’s important, or what the rhythm could mean. He’s tired, he’s so tired. If he could just– Rest, for a moment.
He stays sitting on the nothingness for a long time, he thinks. The floor (although not a floor at all, because this is blankness) is wet, but it doesn’t really do what wet things are supposed to do. He is uncertain, though, of what it should properly be doing. Therefore, he stops thinking about it. He lays his palms down, hands still. Maybe he should stop the tapping of his fingers. It’s confusing, it’s so confusing, and he wants it to stop.
But it doesn’t, not at all. Ta-ta ta-pa, ta-ta ta-pa, again and again and again, and he thinks about some thing . A train platform, he knows what that is. It’s for leaving, leaving leaving– You’re Leaving Hawkins! No, he’s not, because he’s–
He’s a crying boy, a lonely boy. He’ll run away one day, he’ll get away from Hawkins, he will for sure, you know I’ll call once a week, old man , he told his uncle. What’s a soul? he thinks, and. Eddie Munson knows there’s no such thing as a goddamn soul.
He opens his eyes.
.
“ You were the one that they'd talk about around town as they put you down.”
Chrissy’s knees are under his head, crying face leaning over him, and she’s humming around her sobs. Someone is touching his face, and Eddie blinks lazily. He realizes he’s looking at the ceiling of the Camaro, which is moving at an insane speed. There’s five people singing to him, while he lies prone on top of some of them on the backseat. “ Oh, you never cried to them, just to your soul. ”
Nancy says “Is it working? Is the song working?”
Eddie laughs and laughs, ribs still hurting a little. “Yeah, looks like it worked.”
Billy is holding his hand in a crushing grip, his warm rough palm a cradle around Eddie's jawline. He says “Fucking hell, Munson,” voice tight with worry. Steve is hanging between the front and the backseat. It looks like he's spent whole years crying. The sliver of sky that Eddie can see out the window abruptly changes from red to pale dawn blue, as the Camaro breaks through the gate.
Steve says “I'm so fucking angry with you, oh my god , I said nobody was allowed to die.”
.
It turns out, Vecna was hanging out in the creepy playground, and that's where he went into a stasis of the body, while he fucked with Eddie's mind. Nancy, looking harangued, told them she'd been shooting at him, while Chrissy blasted him with fire for over half an hour before he fell dead, disintegrating to rotten pieces like burning paper. If the paper was made of meat, as Chrissy helpfully adds, which unsettles pretty much everyone.
Steve, Billy and Robin flew through the gate driving, and blasting Van Halen like huge fucking clowns. It did work, drawing over beasts and monsters, which they proceeded to hack and slash at. Apparently, Billy and Steve kept count to see who did better at monster killing, which really makes Eddie giggle. The Camaro finds itself, once again, totally mangled. Robin apparently drove over a Demogorgon, and everybody thinks that's super badass.
Steve is truly incensed with Eddie, alternating between telling him he's an idiot, and touching his face, his waist, his hands. As if to check that he's really there. Billy won't leave either of them out of his sight. They hole up in the trailer park, alternating between Billy’s bedroom, because of its yellow-lit familiarity and bigger bed, and Eddie’s place, because it has his amps, his weed, and his supportive father figure. Uncle Wayne has taken up calling Steve ‘Harrington’, and Billy ‘Bill’, which Eddie finds amusing, but also heart-warming.
The Byers appear in town, Eleven in tow, to close the gates, she says. She's a weird little beanstalk of a kid, her and her brother Will. Eddie immediately knows he likes them. With their appearance comes the growing realization that maybe, fuck , just maybe, it worked out. The relief takes at least four days to truly set in, to take the place of a hounding disbelief. Who can believe they just saved the world a little?
.
“Hey,” Eddie says, going over the same riff he’s been trying to fix for ten minutes on his acoustic. “What do you wanna be?”
Billy laughs, sharp and sudden, from where he’s slouched over another one of Eddie’s beat up paperbacks. It’s Interview with the Vampire today. “When we’re all grown?”
Steve takes a drag from Eddie’s stolen cigarette, and blows smoke up to the ceiling. He smiles. “When I grow up, I want– a house. Small-ish? But big enough for guests. I want to like being there, coming home, you know?. I wanna– I wanna be in love in my small house.”
Eddie stops fiddling with his guitar, to wrap a hand around Steve’s ankle. “Domestic, romantic and sensible, what a perfect man,” he says, though he smiles softly at Steve, rubbing at the delicate skin below his ankle bone with a thumb.
Steve smiles back, lazy, but vulnerable too, glad his unguardedness paid off. He pokes at Billy’s side. “What about you, baby?”
Billy tilts his head to the side, nose in a scrunch. He shrugs. “Dunno. Didn’t think I’d be fuckin’– alive to do anything. Maybe I’ll fix up cars. Maybe I’ll be a Corroded Coffin groupie. Maybe I’ll write the next Great American Novel. Maybe I’ll live in a small-ish but guest-appropriate house.” He rubs at his jaw, a bit ruefully. “I just wanna be alive. What are you gonna do, Munson?”
Eddie smiles. He’s happy and calm, tethered, soft-hearted. He catches himself thinking everything is going to be alright , not in a way to reassure himself, but as a certain fact. He looks at them, in his bed, propped up on his pillows, soft with trust and love. Everything is going to be alright.
Eddie grins even harder. “I’m gonna write a song that’ll save someone’s life.”