Chapter Text
Steve Harrington is fine. He always is. After monsters with too many teeth, torture, and evil wizards, Steve is fine. He walks away with a smile on his face and reappears whenever one of the kids needs a ride. Steve is fine.
Until he isn’t.
There’s no grand cosmic clue that this day will be different. But then again in all their years of dealing with alternate dimensions there rarely is a warning that someone’s world is about to be flipped upside down.
Steve drags himself out from underneath his warm covers, does his lap around the house to check for robbers (unlikely) or monsters (unfortunately much more likely). Then he goes to make himself breakfast. Of course the first sign of the incoming disaster is the complete lack of anything edible in the kitchen. Somehow the leftover pasta has gone moldy and the kids had cleaned him out after a movie night.
Steve stares in bafflement at the container on his counter. He could have sworn he made that only a few days ago!
But staring like he might spontaneously transform into El and laser blast the mold away isn’t going to fix anything, so he shoves the pasta away and goes to find his keys. He’d been putting off grocery shopping but it looks like it can’t wait anymore.
The fall air stings against his skin but the grocery store isn’t that far away and he doesn’t want to go searching for a jacket.
Steve finds himself standing in the brightly lit aisles comparing cereal boxes. Normally he’d be looking at the fresh ingredients and occasionally snacks for the kids but he doesn’t really feel like going through the motions of cooking today. He crosses his arms as he tries to find the most appetizing box. One of them is brightly colored with an assortment of patterns but the other has a big weird cartoon person on it. The kids would get a kick out of it , Steve smiles to himself, even if I am going to break up the fight when one of them (Max) compares it to another (Mike) .
He reaches up to grab it, wincing when the motion exposes his side to the cold grocery store air. He folds his arms back around, silently promising to turn the heat all the way up in the car. Steve makes his way quickly to the register.
Technically he got what he came here for: food. Could he get more? Yes. Should he get more? Definitely. Does he want to? Absolutely not. Dinner was a problem for Future Steve not Present Steve.
Present Steve who wants to go sit in a blanket nest on his couch and watch whatever movie Robin forgot to bring back last time she was over.
So with that goal in mind he flings the door open and immediately bowls someone over.
“Woah!” Warm hands grip his biceps and stop him from eating pavement.
“Where are you going in such a rush big boy?” Steve looks up to see Eddie, face inches from his own.
Face burning, he jerks back, stumbling in the opposite direction this time.
“Sorry! Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“No worries! No harm done, see?” And with that Eddie twirls around, arms sticking out like some bizarre metal ballerina. Steve has to smother a laugh at the thought of Eddie in a bright glittery ballerina outfit. And smother the thought of Eddie in anything skin tight and revealing.
Realizing he’s been staring for way too long he sputters out, “Yeah! Yeah great, glad you’re fine.” He rubs his palms over the bare skin of his arms, trying to prolong the feeling Eddie’s hands had left behind.
Eddie’s eyes catch on the movement and he finally takes in how Steve’s dressed. With an old t-shirt and threadbare pajama pant he looks like he just rolled out of bed. Steve has to squash the brief embarrassment that flares us and he wishes he took more than five minutes to get dressed.
“What are you wearing? It’s cold out, Stevie!” Eddie says, slipping an arm out of his jacket sleeve.
“It’s not that bad really—” He’s interrupted by Eddie’s leather jacket being shoved into his arms, a weird parallel to their trip to the Upside Down.
Which he still needs to return. It’s sitting on his desk chair where he’d put it after scrubbing for hours to get the blood out of it. It’s not perfect, there are some discolored and worn down spots and a few of the patches had frayed but it’s leagues better then when they were fresh out of the Upside Down. Steve didn’t mean to steal it but every time he goes to finally bring it back something in his chest seizes and he ends up wearing it for the next few hours.
“I— I can’t take this Eddie.” Steve says, looking up from the jacket, leather soft beneath his stiff fingers. “You’re going to be cold and I’m going home anyway.”
“‘Course you can sweetheart. No need to be miserable on your way home. And I’m actually dressed for the weather, I’ll be fine. You need it more.”
Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart
The pet name bounces around Steve’s head, effectively killing all thoughts. All he can do is shrug the jacket on and sigh in relief at the warmth he hadn’t known he’d been missing. The jacket is a bit big on Steve, the shoulders wide and sleeves long. It’s soft and smells just like Eddie. Like smoke and something uniquely Eddie that he’d never be able to name but always able to recognize.
Steve wraps the jacket around himself tighter. “Thanks, I can give it back to you Monday.”
“Huh? Monday?” Eddie looks caught off guard, like Steve had just walked up and started talking to him about D&D out of nowhere. “Oh! Hellfire! No no you can keep it, it looks much better on you anyway.” He finishes off with a wink.
Steve’s entire face is on fire now and not just from the cold. He somehow manages to force out a goodbye and hurries back to his car. Eddie is still standing in front of the store when he looks back. He’s watching him with an expression Steve can’t name despite how much practice he’s had at home and school. It’s not noticeably happy or angry, just intense .
He raises one hand in a wave. Steve waves back, pulling the collar of the jacket up to cover both the blush on his face and the stupid smile threatening to break free. He feels almost like a child huddling under their blanket like it’ll protect them from anything. It’s silly but Steve feels his shoulders relax under the comfortable wieght of Eddie’s jacket.
The house is empty when he gets back. Robin is out of state visiting family. The kids were busy with some thing for their dragon game. His parents are never here anyway, off on a business trip or maybe a vacation. It’s not like they bother to tell him wherever they do end up going. It’s been months since he’s been graced with their presence and never longer than the day or two it takes them to pack their bags and berate him for whatever fault he’d displayed this time.
The sound of the door echoes through the house. Steve muffles a yawn with his hand. He starts towards the kitchen but ends up laying on the couch and eating his cereal by the handful.
Sometime at night he falls into a restless sleep, waking up staring at the ceiling, then the wall, and then the pillow.
He’s in a car. Someone is screaming. Kids? He’s lying down. He’s sitting up.
Bizarrely it gets warmer the later it gets. At one point he wakes up enough to toss the blanket on the couch over the edge.
He’s driving? The lights are flickering. Screaming. He’s throwing something. Someone is screaming.
Eventually Steve does wake up enough to realize he should probably move to his bed. Maybe he’ll sleep better there. The material of the couch feels almost like the steering wheel of his car when he leverages himself up and starts stumbling upstairs.
The bathroom is even warmer, he registers as he grips the counter, staring into the mirror half expecting to see the black eye the Russians had given him. Which doesn’t make sense because hadn’t Billy been the one—? No, he was just at the mall… with— Dustin? No, with Robin.
Steve splashes his face with water, letting it run down his neck and in his shirt. He needs to call Robin. He can faintly taste buttered popcorn and bile in his mouth from his dream. Not dream? Because what if Robin was still there? What if she got stuck in that stupid theater and shitty bathroom and didn’t move forward with him. Robin is back there. He needs to go get Robin.
Steve makes it halfway down the hall before the heat rushes over him again and he has to run back to the bathroom. He braces himself on the sink and leans over the toilet, gagging. It’s so hot in here. Why was he wearing a shirt?
He gags again, spitting out the bile that made it into his mouth. Fuck, that’s what he gets for trying to stand up straight. Maybe he could just spend the rest of the night right here. No need to move and make things worse.
For a second he lets himself wonder what would happen if someone else were here. Would his mother press a hand to his forehead and fret over his temperature? Would his father get him something to drink? Would Robin tell him he was going to be okay? Would Dustin start going over his textbooks to figure out what was wrong? Would the rest of the kids try to drag him to bed? Would Eddie put his hand on his back?
But there is no one else here. Just Steve as always. And if he wants something done he has to do it himself.
An indeterminate amount of time later—could be minutes, could be hours— Steve forces himself to stand up. When that doesn’t immediately make him gag he lunges for the sink and sticks his head under it. He’s unfocused enough that most of the water ends up on his face and shirt instead of in his mouth but he can’t bring himself to care. The water is cool against his skin and he really doesn’t want to try to go downstairs for a glass.
Steve feels marginally better after that but he can’t do anything else until morning. He needs to go to sleep. He wishes he went to sleep hours ago.
Walking to his bed with a hand on the wall, Steve barely manages to move the blankets out of the way before he flops down on the bed and is asleep soon after.
Whatever is going on is a problem for tomorrow.