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loveinhawkins · 9 months ago

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ao3

A gnawing sense of foreboding creeps up on Steve as they head to Eddie’s trailer, armed with weapons.

He tries to outrun it through action: ensuring he’s the first one to go through the Gate; jumping back and forth between The Upside Down and their world whenever someone forgets something, “It’s okay, I’ve got it!”; triple checking that the cables for Eddie’s amps are long enough; searching for the slightest thing than seizing upon it with an enthusiasm bordering on desperate, “Hey, we could use this, right? Better take it, just in case.”

But that only works for so long, and then Steve’s just standing in Eddie’s kitchen, the real one, staring blankly at the cupboards, all out of distractions.

Out of time.

He hears a grunt of exertion behind him, then an unsteady landing, a muffled curse. Eddie.

“Jesus Christ, Steve. Wanted to fit your aerobics routine in?”

He’s teasing, so light-hearted despite it all; Steve can’t stand it.

Keeps his back turned, gut twisting, opening the cupboards then slamming them shut, thump, thump. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. He never has.

“Uh, so I was thinking,” Eddie continues, like Steve’s not doing anything weird, “that I could stretch out the, um, the song? My playing? Could buy you some more time, anyway.”

“Sure, great,” Steve says shortly.

He thinks—with a numb kind of calm—that he’s going to be sick.

He gets to the bathroom, tries to shut the door, but his grip slips on the handle.

Turns on the faucet, scoops cold water from his hands into his mouth, and it helps until it doesn’t, until he’s almost choking on it, and he’s been here before, the feeling familiar: a shadow looming over him, just waiting, waiting, and he knows it’ll pass, it always does, but he can’t stop thinking of Robin, it might not work out for us this time, and what if, what if—

He can hear Eddie knocking on the doorframe, just out of view—as if he’d seen Steve’s failed attempt at shutting the door and wanted to respect it.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Then Eddie mutters to himself, “Obviously not, get a fucking clue.”

Steve’s laugh is strangled but real. He wipes his mouth dry and shuts off the water.

“You don’t need to talk to a wall, dude,” he says.

And Eddie steps into view, leans against the open door. His eyes flicker across Steve’s face, and Steve doesn’t want to know what he’s noticed, so when Eddie opens his mouth hesitantly, he speaks first.

“We should—they’re gonna wonder where we are.”

Eddie pauses on the verge of speech; Steve watches him reevaluate whatever he was going to say.

“Well,” Eddie says, gesturing to the bathroom, matter-of-fact, “we could be peeing.”

Steve manages a chuckle. “You’re an idiot.”

Eddie grins like he’s saying yup, that’s me, like he’s won a prize.

Steve has seen him wear something close to that expression not even an hour ago: when the kids had started a line to use the bathroom in the RV, and Eddie had snorted, giggled with a childish kind of delight, “You—ha! You all look like you’re on a field trip,” before joining the line himself—calling out that he hoped their plan accounted for bathroom breaks because, “There’s no way I’m pissing in the alternate dimension,” and that had made Nancy break, laughing in a way Steve was certain he hadn’t heard since ‘83.

Eddie steps into the room and shuts the door quietly. Steve gets why: his breathing’s still all wrong, and if Dustin happened to see him, he doesn’t think he’d ever forgive himself.

“Sorry.” Steve sucks in a breath, tries to hold it. Loses it in an exhale that shudders at the edges. He speaks through the tail end of it, hoping that’s enough to conceal the sound, “Gimme, like, two minutes.”

“Make it ten,” Eddie says.

The way he says it makes it seem like it’s already a done deal; he must’ve spoken to Robin and Nancy before he tumbled through the Gate.

Despite himself, Steve feels a wave of relief: just for a little while, he has time; it overpowers the shame, leaves him sinking down to sit on the closed toilet seat.

He closes his eyes, just breathes. In… out… in…

He doesn’t realise that Eddie’s sitting down, too, until he hears the clunk of his boots, the rustle of clothing as he moves.

“Sorry,” Steve says again, and it annoyingly still comes out a little shaky, like he’s in the pool and he’s left it too long to snatch a breath. “You can go back, man, I’ll… I’ll be right there.”

He opens his eyes to see Eddie shaking his head, sat with his back against the bathtub.

“Stop apologising,” Eddie says, and then it’s as if the seriousness of it is too much for him, because he adds, with a self-deprecating smile that Steve hates, “I get it. You’re walking into the dragon’s lair, I’m just putting on a concert.”

“Don’t,” Steve says, and he doesn’t intend for the word to come out as sharp as it does, but that doesn’t change the fact that he means it. He means it.

Eddie’s smile fades.

“Don’t,” Steve repeats, quieter. Not quite an apology.

Slowly, he moves off the toilet seat, until he’s sat next to Eddie. There’s just enough space that they don’t need to touch, but Steve presses his shoulder against Eddie’s anyway, like he can somehow pass on everything he means through that alone.

Eddie sighs, presses back for just a second. “Don’t what?” he asks. He sounds tired all of a sudden.

“Don’t—don’t joke like that,” Steve says. “Like you’re not—” He swallows. “Like it’s not dangerous.”

There’s a pause. Eddie reaches across and puts a hand on Steve’s knee. Squeezes briefly and pulls back; already Steve finds that he misses the warmth of him.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Eddie says. There’s no joke in this, not a trace. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to Dustin.” Another smile. Gentle. “Swear on his mother.”

I’m not worried about that, Steve wants to say, but of course that’s not true; he’s tried hard not to look at Dustin directly ever since they arrived at the trailer, because his throat would start to close up alarmingly whenever his gaze lingered, and he knows the kid’s doing that whole semi-aloof teenager thing lately, but a part of him still wants to hold him tight and never let go.

It’s more that the shape of Steve’s worry is different to what he thinks Eddie’s imagining, covers more than Dustin’s safety alone—that the cold dread in his stomach brings him back to the tunnels in ‘84; to clutching Dustin, who was so small, Steve desperately trying to shield him with his own body, thinking the kid’s thirteen, only thirteen, this isn’t fucking fair; and that if this had to end one way, all he could do was pray that he’d be the only one to…

And Steve hadn’t wanted to die, but he was suddenly facing it anyway, and Christ, looking back at it, that was crazy, the whole damn thing was crazy, but it all made a twisted kind of sense at the time.

Eddie must spot that his train of thought’s gone down a dark alley because he knocks their knees together, but he doesn’t say anything. Just breathes, slumped against the bathtub; it’s probably the first time he’s been still—truly still—in a long while.

He must be exhausted, Steve thinks.

The gnawing feeling digs in, grips his heart.

“I can hear you thinking,” Eddie says quietly. “Listen, Steve, I know I’m new to, uh… all of this shit, but I’m on it, okay? Got it all up in here,” he taps the side of his head, “trust me—”

That’s not what—I trust you, of fucking course I do, but—

“—no deviations, and—”

“Plans change,” Steve says, and he hears himself, the calm decisiveness, just get ready; Dustin’s scream carrying across the junkyard, Steve, abort, abort! “Just… just promise me.”

“Promise you?” Eddie murmurs.

Steve feels the words on his tongue, the weight of them. Don’t do anything stupid.

He swallows them down—afraid suddenly that if he really puts a name to it, it’s going to happen.

Fuck it, he’s exhausted too, and for a long moment he evades speaking: gingerly rests his head on Eddie’s shoulder. Feels his body heat, the swell of his breathing.

Eddie doesn’t tense up, just lets him rest there.

If I kissed you, Steve thinks, drained, would you stay?

He doesn’t say it. Instead he lifts his head and asks, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

Eddie chuckles. They’re still so close, Steve can feel his amused sigh.

“Tomorrow? I’ve not really… like, hopefully I’m not in jail. Anything else is a bonus.”

“We’ll fix it,” Steve says fiercely. “Trust me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Eddie says, grinning fondly, but he sounds genuine. “Shit, man, I think you could do anything.” He gestures outside. “Got the fucking dream team out there.”

“We solved a secret Russian code last summer.”

Eddie laughs. “Did you?” His eyes sparkle with mirth.

You’re beautiful.

“Gospel truth, I swear,” Steve says. He tries to stay light, but he makes the vow anyway. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

I have so much to tell you.

They stand up, and Steve doesn’t know who’s the first one to move—just that they both probably sensed the time dwindling.

And maybe it’s that, the inescapable thought that something’s coming to an end that does it. Steve doesn’t know for sure, just knows that his eyes are burning suddenly—mortifyingly—with tears. He looks up at the ceiling, hurriedly trying to push them back, but Eddie notices anyway.

“Steve, what is it?” he whispers, with a look of utter devastation.

Steve shakes his head. “Just being stupid,” he says, voice brittle, cutting himself off before he can say something ridiculous.

God, Eddie, let’s just stay here and grow old.

“You’re not stupid,” Eddie says, heartfelt—he stops just short of touching Steve; he clearly wants to help so badly, but he doesn’t know how.

Steve wants to tell him it’s fine. He doesn’t know either.

Maybe nothing can help this.

They leave for the Gate in unspoken agreement; at first Steve finds comfort in the sight of Eddie dangling on the rope, not quite in either world. Like every possibility is laid out before him.

I’ll tell you tomorrow.

But there’s a near imperceptible shift as Eddie keeps climbing, and Steve needs to look away, anything to avoid the pit in his stomach: the suspicion that the path’s already been chosen.

#they’re all just scared kids #Steve “desperately trying to escape a tragedy” Harrington #Eddie “if I make a joke it isn’t real” Munson #steddie fic #pre steddie #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie

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eskawrites · 1 year ago

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Arren tracked her down in the training yard. It was hardly impressive, this is where she always went when she needed... Time. Space. Alone and busy enough to shut her mind up.

"This is how you're getting ready? You want to be all sweaty on your wedding day?"

"Leave it be, Arren." She notched an arrow and took aim at the farthest target. It was no challenge, really, but it was the best she could do unless she wanted to shoot at Arren. Which, under the circumstances, she just might.

"It's a big deal, you know," he prodded at her.

"It's nothing. What difference does it make?" She asked. She had been asking it of herself since Tenar had proposed this arrangement. She hit the target dead on. It was cold out, and quiet. Flurries fell around them, muffling everything but their conversation.

"Lark," he set his big hand on her shoulder, weighty and familiar even through her armor and the quilted padding underneath. "You're gonna be queen. That's a pretty big difference, I'd say."

She scoffed. "Tenar is the queen."

He let go of her and leaned back against the outer wall of the barracks.

"And what will that make you?"

She notched another arrow. She drew and fired and split her first arrow in two.

"Whatever Tenar needs me to be. It makes no difference."

Bro how’d you know Lark would be having a crisis the morning of???

But also akgjalgkakfjdahs whaaaaat this is incredible wtffff. Just gonna cradle this close to my chest. It’s them! My kids! My dorky rogues turned heroes turned royalty!! They’re so lost and stressed and good and they love each other so so much!

#genuinely could be straight out of my notes here #dufrau what! WHAT!#I’m very 🥺😭🥰🥰🥰 about this #tenar ALSO finds lark before the wedding. like very very close to time she sneaks across the castle into lark’s room #breaking every sacred royal tradition and scaring the shit outta lark #these kids just doing their best not realizing they’re all the best thing that’s ever happened to this kingdom #Erathia #tenlark #ngl this is reallyyy making me wanna write an Erathia trilogy #which ironically wouldn’t even include any of these things but still!#asks #dufrau #are you KIDDING me I love this what a gift

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