#did I just give a 1300 word snippet? you bet your ass I did

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

WIP Wednesday

Dreamwalker (Eddie’s Story) Summary: Steddie Canon compliant/fix-it fic paired with a corresponding story in Steve’s POV, each chapter happens in tandem with the other. Eddie wakes up alone in the Upside Down, not knowing how he survived, and unable to reach anyone topside in Hawkins. Wounded and alone, he finds shelter at Steve’s house (the place is a damn fortress after all), and while hiding out there discovers that he has gained the ability to walk into other people’s dreams. As long as they are asleep in the same place on either side of the gates. He just happens to find this out after sleeping in Steve’s bed, now to figure out how to get himself rescued…

(unbeta'd snippet from chapter 01; Eddie has only just made it to the Harrington's house and deemed it safe enough to call his hideout for the foreseeable future. He's still very much wounded, and has been in Flight mode for the past several days. It's the first time he's been able to close his eyes and know without a shadow of a doubt that he is safe. He just wasn't expecting the dream that takes place the moment he does.)

—

Eddie wakes up, and he’s in Steve’s bed.

It’s still the Upside Down, he’s sure, except the bed feels much more comfortable for some reason, less mold and dust, and more well formed lumps in the mattress belonging to someone who sleeps there every night. As he looks around in the dark, he also feels like there are less cracks in the walls, more vibrancy to the shadowed colors of the posters.

But then he sees what woke him in the first place. Light.

It’s coming through the slivers surrounding the bedroom door, the small gap beneath it. But it’s not the eerie glow of neon red he saw earlier in town. At the bottom of Lovers Lake days ago. (Or was it weeks?) It’s golden, like sunlight.

His lips part, he sits up and stares with wide eyes, but before he can move the door opens.

It’s blinding, the difference, so Eddie never gets to see what’s on the other side. Because in walks Steve Harrington, decked in tough army surplus clothes coated in sand and blood like he just stepped out of a Mad Max movie. He’s out of breath, flushed, the warmth of a blaring blistering sun soaked into his clothes, and there is red splattered on his face and hands. It looks more like paint than blood; they both knew all too well how thick and black blood can get. Tacky and sticking to every line and crevice in your hands. Outlining your fingerprints and palm lines.

He doesn’t see Eddie. He just shrugs off his jacket, golden white sand particles falling to the dark carpet, and looks around his room in dazed recognition. Face blank, exhausted, but he doesn’t turn to the bed – his eyes lock on the window. The single solitary window Eddie nailed shut hours before he fell asleep. Steve’s eyes stay trained there, and don’t look away.

This is weird.

This is beyond weird.

And as Eddie shifts to swing his long legs over the side of the bed, he notices he’s different, too. Dressed different. His bite marks aren’t there, his clothes aren’t filthy and in tatters. He’s wearing his Hellfire Club shirt, ripped jeans and too many rings. There’s no dark particles tangled in his hair, and no blood caked under his fingernails. 

But this still feels like the Upside Down, maybe even more so than before.

((I’m dreaming)), he concludes. Eddie had heard the stories from the others, saw first-hand what creatures here could do even in dreams. Even in your own head. But movement brings him back from his spinning thoughts, back to center, as Steve moves closer to the window. Eyes narrowed and searching. He can see something out there, in the dark, and like hell is Eddie going to let the dark look back in. 

He’s up and across the room in an instant, hand grabbing Steve’s wrist – not hard, he doesn’t want to startle him. The man has weapons strapped to 60% of his person. Weapons that he shouldn’t have been able to buy at War Zone, Eddie knows now that he’s close enough to see them. That, with the combined outfit and war paint on his face, makes the dots line up pretty quickly in Eddie’s head. Almost immediately, he understands; made all the more clear when Steve doesn’t even seem to notice that Eddie is touching him.

((This is Steve’s dream.))

“Harrington,” he says, his first word in days. There’s a flinch at the sound of his voice from Steve, but the trance-like stare doesn’t move from the window. He heard him, but not enough to knock him free. There’s a sinister red glow somewhere out there, and Eddie can see it reflected in Steve’s brown eyes. That can not be good.

“Steve.” He tries again, this time, and that gets Steve to look down where Eddie is still holding onto his wrist. Eddie’s ring clad fingers and chains and black leather wrist cuffs, black nail polish and guitar-string calluses on his fingers. Trying to pull him back. The gaze travels up his arm to Eddie’s face, and the look that crosses Steve Harrington’s face could floor mountains. He’s relieved, he’s afraid, he’s shocked and sad and it’s all moving and shifting within itself like a kaleidoscope in his eyes. 

“ –Eddie?”

Like he can’t believe what’s in front of him. 

((That makes two of us.))

So Eddie gives him a sardonic, admonishing smile, a tilt of his head, and tries again to pull Steve away from the window. 

“C’mon, Harrington. There’s nothing out there for you. Go back to sleep.”

He’s not sure why he said it. But it feels like the right thing. Steve came here, almost walked right into the actual Upside Down, through his dreams. A rather bad-ass dream, by the looks of it, and if not for Eddie somehow being a literal guardian between the doorways, something out there could have seen him looking in.

“Go back to sleep,” he repeats. It’s easier, now, pulling Steve with him into the room – though Eddie’s not sure if he should be pulling him towards the bed, or back through the bedroom door.

“Sleep?”

“Yeah, hot shot, sleep. The thing all humans need? Looks like you were just kicking ass and taking names, you probably need it.” And that earns him a smile; a true smile from Steve Fucking Harrington, who isn’t looking away from Eddie for anything. ((This is a dream.)) And now, he is the focal point. “Did you get the girl? You macho hero types always get the girl.”

“I’m not a hero,” Steve says, so plainly it couldn’t be anything but what he believes to be the truth. And Eddie about chokes on his own tongue when he says it. Steve Harrington is like romance novel cover levels of heroism, everyone knows that. “You’re the hero here, Eddie.”

He feels his stomach drop to his shoes. Can’t quite believe he heard those words come out of the other man’s mouth. From Steve, who is in a trance state with red paint on his face because blood is meant for nightmares, and has zero filter between his brain and his speech. Eddie does his absolute best to ignore the blossom of warmth filling his entire chest cavity and spilling over to his limbs. Head to toe. And fucking hopes he can’t do stupid shit like blush in the middle of a dream that isn’t even his.

“Now you’re talking nonsense,” Eddie scolds. Misdirects. “Time for bed, big guy.” Steve almost looks like he’s going to protest, and Eddie is having none of that. Hands on his shoulders, making him sit on the edge of the bed that isn’t really Eddie’s in the first place. “Just – just go back to sleep, Harrington. You’ll forget all about this in the morning.”

And isn’t that just the fucking cherry on the cake for him.

He actually tucks Steve into his own bed, like a little kid that needs secured blankets to coax him to sleep, and then – then Eddie turns and glares at the window. 

It mocks him in the dark. Eddie is nothing if not a cautious, paranoid fucker — and he isn’t going to let whatever is out there weasel it’s way back into someone’s subconscious. He creeps over to the window as quietly as he can, just to the side of it so nothing on the other side will see him approaching. He can just make out the eerie red glow, movement in the yard that writhes and slithers, that wants to be let in. That is hungry. Eddie plasters himself to the wall, out of sight, and reaches over as slow as he can. Tugs on the accordion string that slams the blinds closed. Cutting them off; and washing the room in sweet, blissful darkness.

—

tbc

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Series Snippets: - Dreamwalker (Eddie's Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) - Subconscious (Steve's Story) (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)