Archive of Our Own

Eddie Munson is no stranger to hangovers. 

He's practically perfected them, honestly: the ritual of drinking half his weight in water, popping whatever drugstore painkillers he can find in the cupboard, spending the day sleeping it off and becoming particularly well acquainted with the cool edge of the toilet bowl. It's not a big deal, really, and he's used to it: the mouth that tastes like the floor of a public restroom, the acid burning his throat and making his stomach roil all day, the inability to sleep through the pounding in his head. It's just something you have to muscle your way through, the consequences of a fun (or sometimes not-so-fun, depending on whatever dumb shit he got up to) night. Just a fact of life and of inhabiting a body, like getting hungry and needing sleep and having poorly-timed boners. 

Of late, he's been discovering all sorts of fun new things about having a body, like the fact that it's far more fallible than he thought, actually, that it's something that can be lifted into the air and cracked to pieces like dry pasta, like dead twigs, easier than snapping a pencil in half. That it's something that can have weird, heart-fluttery reactions to being near that annoying guy from school with The Hair who he thought he'd never see again after he graduated. That it's something that can feel unfathomable fear and dread and the all-encompassing getoutgetoutgetout of being somewhere wrong, somewhere where particles of whatever the fuck that is get stuck in his lungs and in his eyes, thick and sticky like he's breathing in poisonous spores, a colony of fungi growing in his chest and stomach until he's eaten from the inside out. That it's something that can feel death itself, blood thick in his throat as he chokes it up, his organs failing, his vision swimming, his ears ringing, the fucking kid clutching onto him and crying as he tries to make him feel better, to tell him to take care of the others. He's dizzy with the feeling, almost like being drunk, the knowledge that he didn't run, the fuzzy adrenaline tingling through his extremities and taking the pain away. The sky is vast and black and the world is so far away, too far away to hold onto, everything dim and unreal and honestly kind of funny in a what'd you get yourself into this time, Eddie? kind of way. 

Then, there's nothing at all. For a long time. 

Nothing until the hangover of his life, that is. 

Eddie thought he knew everything there is to know about hangovers, he really did. This, though, is something else, a whole other beast, something that feels less like a hangover and more like a flu-slash-infection-slash-zombie-awakening. He's confused, at first, thinks he's at home in bed, which he is, technically. It's all wrong, though, everything quiet and heavy and strange , the air thick as he struggles to breathe it in, everything in the trailer broken and sticky and rotten as he slowly blinks his eyes open enough to look around. For a brief moment he wonders what the hell he had to drink the night before until he tries to sit up, the violent twinge in his stomach reminding him of everything all at once: the murders, the Upside Down, the feeling of teeth burrowing into his stomach. When he reaches a hand down to touch his stomach, though, it's smoothed over in freshly pink scars, no more open wounds that he remembers spitting blood all over the ground. He's also not on the ground, which means that he got here, somehow, back into his trailer. He realizes that Dustin probably dragged him here, tried to give him the closest thing he could to a final resting place. "That's fucking heavy." He says aloud, his voice a feeble scratch, his throat thick and dry like he'd swallowed super glue. Just the act of trying to speak is too much, and he rolls over to spend a good ten minutes vomiting bile into an old Upside Down-ified cereal box. This is the part of a hangover he's more familiar with, though he doesn't have any water or food to settle his aching stomach. 

When he can finally stand he stumbles his way to the bathroom, everything around him sharp and tingly, like he can feel it against his skin, every noise amplified. He can feel the Upside Down everywhere, the creeping vines and the dying bats and the feeling of something torn open, like he can feel this world bleeding out into the one above, jagged and kind of suffocating. He realizes with a muted kind of anxiety that he feels connected to it all, like this world really has started to coat every inch of him in weird inter-dimensional death-mold from the inside out. Only, he's not dead despite remembering the feeling of dying, of knowing without a doubt that that's what was happening. 

He peers at himself in the dingy mirror. Speaking of zombie-awakenings, that's about how he's looking. His skin is dull and grey, his hair is matted with old blood, his eyes gleam sharp and alien, almost red when he tilts his head back to look at himself. "What the fuck?" He mutters, voice still low and scratchy. Something catches the light when he speaks, a glint from his mouth, and he opens his mouth wider to see elongated incisors, sharp and pointy and definitely different than they were before. He laughs, a rough sound that sends him into a coughing fit, and leans closer. "No goddamn way." He says, prodding at them with his tongue and feeling the tell-tale prick, the easy way they almost slice his flesh open. He lifts up his shirt again, looking at his stomach. Still no open wounds. There are bite marks where they had been, but they're all old, like it's been years since he got them. 

Holy shit, has it been years? Has he been in a bat-bite-influenced coma? A frozen twilight state while everything carried on above him? Did everything carry on above him?

He puts a hand on the wall for support, trying to get back to the living room without falling over, and he forces himself to be brave, to look up. 

It's still there. The tear between this world and the other one, both of them blending together in a way they hadn't before. It's dark up there, like it's nighttime or like this place took over after he didn't-die and everybody up there is already dead. Only one way to find out. 

"It's been nice, and all," He breathes, lurching towards the tiny kitchen to grab a chair, "—but I really gotta go. Thanks for the, uh, fangs, I guess, and the death and the dying and the horror, that was fun, but I'm gonna scram." He pushes the chair towards the center of the room and, ignoring the way his stomach and vision both swim with the effort, climbs on top. He gives a final bow, ignoring the way it feels like the Upside Down whispers around him, asking him to stay, and jumps up to grab onto the edges of the tear and haul himself up into the land of the living. 

He lands on the floor on his back with a wham and has to spend the next ten minutes puking into a normal cereal box, this time, eyes squeezed tightly shut to avoid seeing whatever's become of his old place, his old stuff, of his uncle. When he finally opens them, digging his blunt nails into his hand to manage it, it seems like it is night time, everything still and silent and empty around him. There's still police tape and shit everywhere, but he doesn't care. He's going to have a fucking shower. 

The water still works, even shittier than it usually is but still usable, and he scrubs layers of grime and blood off of himself that coat the plastic floor and swirl around his feet. He uses what's left of his old soap out and coats himself in it, scrubbing at his hair and praying that the lack of good shampoo doesn't dry it out too much, the cold water making him shiver violently like all of the warmth in his body has long-since-left. He tip-toes to his room to find clean clothes, wrapping them around himself with reverence and newfound appreciation for clothes that aren't covered in bat juice, and ignores the lump in his throat at the sight of all of his belongings rifled through and broken and forgotten. Even his baby his gone, her usual spot on the wall empty. Did the cops take his guitar? Did his uncle? Does he think he's dead? That's a stupid question. Of course he does. 

He doesn't linger, just grabs a blanket to wrap around himself and a pillow to bring to his mattress. He's too tired to move it but the thought of sleeping under that gaping maw gets under his skin, makes it itch with the way the grey-scale world seems to whisper for him to come back. He decides to eat something before sleeping, this gnawing sort of hunger buzzing in his bones, so he pulls out some crackers and tries to get them down, the salt wicking away every last bit of moisture from his mouth and making him choke. He almost immediately throws them up in the sink, his body wracked with powerful convulsions like the crackers themselves are poisonous. Okay. Water, then. He turns on the sink and tries to drink from cupped palms, the water a balm for his ashy throat, but his body doesn't seem to like that much either, the water coming back up less than a minute later. 

"It's just a hangover it's just a hangover it's just a hangover it's just a hangover." He mutters, teeth starting to clack as he begins to shiver again, moving away from the sink. It's getting hard to focus on anything at all, to think of what to do next, and all he wants to do is collapse into darkness and rest. The mattress still won't do, still too open and vulnerable and wrong. He needs something darker, something more confined, so he goes back to his room, throws the blanket over his desk and crawls underneath it, curling up into a ball on the old carpet and, the wall pressed firmly against his back, feels slightly less panicked, slightly more right. He doesn't ponder it, doesn't ponder anything, just shuts his eyes again and lets himself drift away. It's just a bad hangover. He just needs to sleep it off. 

⚰

Steve probably shouldn't be doing this. 

It feels like the right thing to do, though, as misguided as it might seem to ride his bike out to the all-but-abandoned trailer park in the middle of the night, a bat shoved into his backpack just in case. 

It's just... Dustin, man. He's been so down the past few weeks, prone to long lapses of staring off into space, of trying to make jokes that his heart clearly isn't in, of wandering off to be by himself while the others talk and clean and catch up, all wrapped up in each other. Nancy and Jonathan, Joyce and Hopper, Eleven and Mike. Lucas and Max, too, over at the hospital, though Max hasn't woken up yet. Now Robin and Vickie, too, over at the high school. Dustin seems lonely. Will, too, but he's always kept to himself. 

So, Steve thought it might be nice to…do something for Dustin. Bring him something to remember Eddie by. He'd mentioned it the other day, seeming choked up: that it's bullshit that Eddie doesn't get a funeral, that Eddie doesn't get to be remembered for what he was, a hero, that Eddie's uncle isn't even allowed to live at his trailer, just to pop in to grab a few things and leave again. Eddie's death is hitting Dustin the hardest, sitting heavily on his shoulders, and Steve can see him whisper to himself sometimes, like he's imagining what Eddie might say. Something theatrical and sarcastic and bizarre, no doubt. 

He knows there's a chance that his uncle has already taken it, that most likely he did take it, since Eddie's guitar was his greatest possession, but he wants to look for it anyway, fueled by picturing the look on Dustin's face when he brings it to him—that excited, puppyish smile, an attempt at strumming a few artless chords with his fingers. Just something to hold onto, something to help him mourn.

It's creepier out here than ever, a ghostly breeze stirring the dying grass, the weathervanes still stuck onto caved-in roofs. The forest stretches beyond, so dark these days that it might as well be the upside-down.

He swallows and makes his way to Eddie's trailer, finding the front door unlocked and creeping in. It'll be easy. Just pop in, grab the guitar or some other memento if the guitar's gone, and pop out. He won't even have to look up, to stare into the abyss that drips down into the trailer, into the air itself. Nope. He can feel it above him, can feel the chill that seeps underneath his clothes, and he shuts his eyes until he's away from it, until he's at Eddie's room. It's empty, from the looks of it, old posters and beer bottles and records and clothes strewn everywhere, evidence that Eddie had once existed, had lived and breathed and listened to records and played D&D and read stacks of novels despite failing in school. Steve glances around but sees no guitar anywhere, not in any of the obvious spots where one might be. He'll have to take something else, then. 

He steps over a pile of books to get to his desk, looking for anything that might make a good memento. There's a blanket draped over the top, covering it, so he frowns and tugs it down, scanning the desk. Nothing much to go off of, just more nerdy shit that he figures Dustin might like but doesn't know enough about to really judge. He's about to grab a clay wizard when suddenly there's a vice grip around his ankle, one that makes him jump and let out a high pitched scream, flailing backwards and thrashing to try and get it off. Nails are digging into his skin, the grip impossibly strong, and he falls backwards onto his ass, landing on a pile of records with a crunch that he thinks is his back, at first. 

"What the hell, dude?" A voice says, rough and tired. "You couldn't have fallen a foot to the left? You crushed my records!"

"WHAT THE FUCK." 

"You didn't land on my Zeppelin, did you? Can you check?" 

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

"Stop yelling, dude, I'm hungover!" 

"You're dead!" Steve blinks, rubs at his eyes, blinks again. That's it, he's officially lost it. He's seeing things. Maybe Vecna's back, or something, making him hallucinate, because why else would he be seeing a very much alive Eddie Munson right now? A very much alive Eddie Munsom who's staring at him from where he's hunched under his desk, his hair everywhere and his eyes strangely liquid, yelling at him for breaking his records, of all things. 

"Evidently not." Eddie says, gesturing a lazy hand over himself and trying a sharp-toothed smile but mostly just looking exhausted and scared.

"Um." Steve slowly stands. "Are you…is this real?" 

Eddie sighs. "I've been asking myself that since I woke up."

"You. You woke up?"

"Yeah. In… there." He jerks his head to the ceiling. "On my mattress. Then I came here. Then I slept some more." His eyes are heavy and wavering. "I'm exhausted, actually, I could fall asleep again right now even though I objectively know that you being here is, like, a thing that I should probably do something about." 

"But…your wounds. Dustin said you bled out, that you died." 

Eddie pats his stomach, strangely unbothered by what Steve assumes would hurt like hell based off of his own still-healing bite marks. "Yeah, um. That did happen. Then it…un-happened?"

"What do you mean?"

Eddie lifts up his shirt, enough to see pink scars stretching over his stomach where angry purplish-red marks should be. Something about the move feels strangely intimate, the way that he holds his shirt up, watches Steve watch him. Steve clears his throat. "That doesn't make any sense. Mine haven't done that." 

"Nothing makes sense anymore." Eddie says, clunking his head against the wall and pulling his knees up. "You should be used to it by now, you've had years to get used to weird shit happening. I've only had…" He trails off. "How long has it been?" 

"A few weeks." Steve says. "You…you don't know anything that happened, do you?" 

"Nope!" Eddie tries to sound chipper, like it's funny, but he glances anxiously past Steve, at the window, like the very thought of going outside terrifies him beyond all reason. 

"....Okay." Steve slowly lowers himself to the ground, avoiding the broken records. "How about I go then you go, yeah? Everything we remember from the last few weeks." 

"Sounds like a plan, Harrington." Eddie says, talking through a yawn. "But I might fall asleep again if we don't hurry it up." As he yawns Steve notices something…different, something stretching out over his teeth. Or two somethings.

"Have you always had those?" He asks weakly, pointing to his own teeth. 

Eddie just smiles, his sharp canines gleaming. "Had what?" 

"Those…those…" He doesn't want to say the 'F' word. He really, really doesn't. "Those teeth." 

"We can't all afford braces, Harrington." 

"Come on, man." 

Eddie's face drops, suddenly slightly more vulnerable. "No. They're….they're new. I'll tell you all about it, but you have to talk first. It's only fair." 

Internally, Steve's brain is mostly just Well that can't be good but externally he just nods, crossing his legs and taking a breath to begin speaking like any of this makes any sense at all. 

⚰

Thirty minutes later and they're both caught up, the watch on Steve's hand telling him it's four AM and Eddie barely able to prop himself up against the wall. "So, Max is just…in a coma?" Eddie asks, voice muffled where his face is mashed into his hand.

"Yeah. Not like yours, though. She didn't get bitten by anything, she got…" Steve doesn't finish. 

"Vecna." Eddie whispers. "Who's still out there somewhere."

Steve winces. "Yeah, pretty much."

"I can feel him, I think." Eddie says, refusing to meet his eyes. "I can feel all of it. The ash, the storms, the trees, the vines. Like it's breathing, like it's alive."

"Yeah." Steve says, scrubbing at his hair. "That's how it is for Eleven and Will, too. Once you're marked…you're marked." 

Eddie perks up. "So they know what I'm going through?" 

"Well…no. Nobody's ever…died there and come back, before."

Eddie sighs, knocking his head harshly into the wall. "So what you're saying is that I'm a zombie?" 

"Not a zombie, more like a vam—"

"Don't say it." Eddie says, shutting his eyes with a hysterical laugh. "I really can't bear it right now." 

"We have to consider it." Steve says. "I mean…they were bats."

"Yeah, but you didn't get weird teeth or skin or senses or an inability to eat regular food and they bit you, too."

"They didn't kill me, though. You can't eat?" 

Eddie shrugs. "I just throw everything up, even water. But I'm starving."

Steve tries to stay calm despite the part of his brain that can't decide if he should take Eddie to the overloaded hospital or keep him very far away from any other humans, just in case. He seems mostly normal, behind his appearance, but there's something in the way he watches Steve from the darkness, barely blinking, that feels almost predatory, different from the way he'd looked at him before. Not that he'd been paying attention before. "Okay, and the weird senses? Is that just from feeling the Upside Down?" He's trying to be systematic about this, to gather the data to go off of the way that Nancy might. Calm, rational, not freaking out or jumping to reckless conclusions. He's not very good at it. 

Eddie swallows, eyes dropping to Steve's neck. "I can hear your pulse. I can hear the grass moving outside. My skin is all sensitive, like everything makes it prickle. I can…I can smell you."

"Calvin Klein. Obsession. It's new."

"Not your fancy cologne, asshole, your…your skin." 

"My skin?"

Eddie looks slightly embarrassed, which is a look Steve is not used to seeing on him at all. It's all wrong, like someone's replaced him with a slightly different version. "Yeah. And your…" He sighs, rolling his neck in an agitated motion like he can't believe he's saying it. "And your blood."

"Holy shit." Steve breathes. He leans forwards. "Do you… vant to drink my blood?"

"Fuck off." Eddie throws a book at him, which he narrowly dodges. His dark eyes narrow, almost red. "Or else I will." 

Steve scoots back on instinct, the way someone might react to a predator in the wild, and Eddie throws his head back in a laugh. "Hah! You're scared!" 

"I'm not scared." Steve huffs, standing up and brushing off his jeans. "Come on, we can't leave you here." 

"Wh—where else would I go?" 

"Somewhere where you aren't a room away from an open doorway to the place that's making you like this, for starters. Not that outside is much better."

"I don't know if I should be around people, Steve."

"Pshh, don't be so dramatic." Steve says, waving a dismissive hand like he isn't also worried about bringing this version of Eddie around other people. He marches over to where he's under the desk, grabbing his hands to pull him up. His skin is cold, far colder than he's felt on another person, even after the effects of the Upside Down, but he doesn't say that, just leans back to yank him to his feet. "Come on, big guy, out of your coffin." 

"Ha ha." Eddie says humorlessly, letting himself be pulled up but doing nothing to help. Steve gives a final yank back and Eddie ends up tumbling into him, caught in Steve's arms where he's trying to hold him up, face mashed into his neck. His breathing is suddenly fast and shallow, and Steve can feel it puffing against his neck, making his own pulse rise in panic. Eddie isn't letting go, hands curled into fists in his shirt, and he makes a pained sound low in his throat, mouth smearing against his neck. 

"Um, Eddie? You're slobbering on me, dude." 

"I can't…" He says, still not letting go. He sounds dazed. 

Steve gets both of his hands on his shoulders and pushes him back, watching Eddie stumble backwards. When Eddie looks at him, his eyes are shining red and his lips are pulled back, his fangs (let's face it, they're fangs) bared. 

Steve jumps back, hands held up. "Dude!"

Eddie covers his mouth, shutting his eyes and shaking his head around like a dog trying to shake off water. When he opens them he's almost normal, again. "Oh my god, man, I was totally about to—"

"You were going to bite me, weren't you?" 

"A little bit, yeah." Eddie says, his earlier joking gone as he stares down at his hands like he doesn't recognize them. 

"Okay, yeah, so, we're going to have to call this what it is." Steve says, trying to push past the waver in his voice. "This isn't a hangover, Eddie. You're a vampire." 

"...Yeah." Eddie croaks, taking a frightened step backwards. "It's starting to look that way." 

⚰

Once they're on the same page about the vampire thing, it's actually easier to deal with. Steve can't be afraid of Eddie, not really, but Eddie still doesn't want to be anywhere near him or other people, so they try to work out a compromise. Steve suggests that Eddie stays at Steve's house in one of the guest rooms ("One of? How many do you need, Harrington?") but Eddie refuses, alluding to a fear of being in a rich suburban neighborhood that doesn't seem entirely related to his fear of attacking anyone. 

Eddie suggests staying put despite the way that he keeps glancing up above him like he's terrified by the way that he can sense the Upside Down hanging above them, which Steve immediately vetoes. They decide to meet somewhere in the middle: Eddie can stay in one of the abandoned trailers at the edge of the park, the furthest away from the rift cracking through the highway and from the treeline. That way he's not too close to roads and other people but also not to the Upside Down or the woods. 

"This was old Betsy's trailer." Eddie says over his shoulder, forcing the door open. "She was always nice to me."

"That crazy bible lady? She was nice to you?" 

Eddie shrugs. "I helped her weed her garden and let her talk about her grandkids. She only tried to get me to pray the gay away, like, twice."

Steve freezes where he's standing, eyebrows raised, as he tries to decide what to do with his face. 

Eddie blows his hair out of his face. "What, you can handle that I'm an undead creature of the night but that's too unchristian for you?" He says it casually, like it's a joke, but he seems slightly nervous, again, watching Steve like he's afraid he's going to insult him or worse. 

"N-no, man, it's completely fine with me! Both things! Well, maybe not both things, obviously the vampire thing is something we need to try to fix, but the other thing. The gay thing." 

"Wow, you can say the word." Eddie says. "Robin's a good influence." 

Steve blinks at him. "Robin? How do you…" 

"Call it a sixth sense." Eddie says, finally getting the door open and tumbling into the trailer. He drops his bag of clothes on the floor and turns in a slow circle, taking in all of the crosses stuck to the walls. "I guess I probably shouldn't be near shitloads of crucifixes, huh? D'you think that one's true?" 

Steve is still having trouble forming full sentences. "There's no way that one's true."

Eddie picks up a crucifix thoughtfully, but it doesn't burn his skin or seem to bother him much beyond making him wrinkle his nose in distaste, which Steve thinks probably has more to do with a dislike of organized religion than any actual crucifix-inflicted discomfort. He tosses it over his shoulder, ignoring it crashing against the wall and leaving a dent. "Well, this'll do nicely! Say what you will about old Betsy, but she keeps a clean home." 

"...Right." Steve says. "So you're just going to hide out here?"

"And sleep some more." Eddie confirms, yawning again. "I'm ready to fall over." 

"...Okay, then." Steve's suddenly not entirely sure what to do. "And you're okay here for the rest of the night?" 

Eddie gives him a look. "Yeah. I should probably find a bed to hide under in case the sunlight burns me to a itty bitty pile of ash."

"You're not going to sleep on the bed?" 

"...Nah. Not confined enough."

Steve lingers by the door. "Okay, well, I can come see you tomorrow and we can figure something out, okay?" 

"Sure thing, Harrington." Eddie's wavering where he stands, looking exhausted. "Sorry about the, uh, trying to bite you thing." 

"Just don't do it again." Steve says, trying not to notice the way that Eddie's gaze falls onto his neck and stays there. 

"No promises." Eddie says, flashing his fangs again and making Steve jump, which makes him cackle. "Too easy." 

⚰

Steve doesn't get much sleep that night. He feels like he needs to tell the others, knows that keeping secrets never ends well for any of them, especially secrets like "Hey, you know the friend you've been mourning for the past few weeks? Well, he's alive but also not."

He could also use their help navigating this, because he's not entirely sure if he should be around Eddie at all considering the biting attempt and he also has no idea where to go from here if Eddie actually can't eat human food, if he's actually allergic to sunlight now, if he's going to turn into a bat and rampage what's left of the entire town, etcetera. It's a lot of question marks and not a whole lot of answers, especially when it comes to what to do next. 

He knows he isn't going to tell them, though. Not yet. Not until they can figure out more, do some Nancy-esque scientific testing to get some concrete information. The last thing everybody else needs on their plates right now is…whatever the hell this is. 

The next day he waits until sunset to sneak away from the Hawkins relief efforts. He brings Eddie some water and some food in a plastic bag even though he said he can't eat, hoping that maybe that's just a temporary symptom. He creeps past the trailers that are still inhabited, sprinting back to old Betsy's. It's dark inside, all of the curtains drawn just in case, and he finds Eddie in the living room curled up in a fold-out couch that he's left folded up around him like a taco. It looks unbelievably claustrophobic, but he's sleeping soundly like it's actually comfortable, his head poking out. He looks intact in the weak sunlight coming in through the thin curtains, which is good, but he also looks like he's been sleeping since Steve left, which might not be good. Steve slowly approaches him, and, deciding that abruptly waking someone up who tried to bite him isn't a good idea, decides to throw things at him from across the room instead. 

It eventually works when Steve tosses a particularly heavy crucifix and, as if he magic, Eddie's hand launches out and catches it before it can hit him. His eyes aren't even open yet. "What the—" He says, blinking them open and taking in the scene. "You threw this at my face?" 

"I was trying to wake you up!"

"You are so lucky I'm more focused on the badass reflexes that I just displayed, Harrington, because I'd throw this back at you if I didn't suddenly have a dexterity score of twenty."

"I have literally no idea what that means." 

"Of course you don't." Eddie does some complicated maneuvering to get out of his couch-prison, sitting up. His hair is messy, his eyes softer than they were the night before. "Thanks for coming back."

"Of course I came back." Steve scoffs. He throws the bag of food at him. "Here, I brought you some food to try just in case."

Eddie looks nauseous just at the mention of trying to eat again, but pours the bag onto his lap anyway. He pulls out the package. "Raw meat?"

"Well, yeah! That's how you'll know if you crave blood!"

Eddie states forlornly at the packaged steak for a long moment. "I'm a vegetarian."

"Really?" 

"Yeah, really! Geezer Butler doesn't eat meat, man, it's metal!" 

"Who?"

Eddie shakes his head at him, disappointed. "Black Sabbath." 

Steve keeps his distance but moves to sit down. "Well, you have to at least try it, Eddie, otherwise we're not going to be able to know what to do next. Didn't seem very vegetarian when you tried to gnaw off my neck yesterday, anyway."

Eddie glares at him, but slowly rips open the package regardless, sniffing at the package like he's afraid it's poisoned. He lifts the raw steak to his mouth, pulling the tiniest piece off with his teeth before chewing it slowly. "That's—not terrible."

"Not terrible?" Steve is thrilled. 

"Not terrible." He confirms. "Not great, either, though. Especially when you know what happened to the poor cow who gave its life just for us to—"

Steve doesn't let him finish. "But you not immediately spewing chunks is a good sign, right?"

Eddie sighs. "Yeah, it's a good sign." 

Over the course of the evening he gets through the rest of the meat and water and keeps it down, though it only seems to give him a little bit of energy, and he's still blinking slowly at Steve and stifling yawns every few minutes as they try to think of a gameplan. They're in agreement that they can't tell anyone else, at least not yet, and Eddie seems reluctantly on board with trying to do small tests so that they can better figure out his newfound…condition. First up is a pain test, which Eddie insists upon. "Alright, watch this." He says, holding up a large, heavy book. "I'm going to drop this on my hand."

"If you say so." Steve says, arms crossed. 

Eddie looks confident, holding the book up high with one arm and dropping it onto the other without any hesitation. He instantly yanks his hand away, shaking it out. "FUCK!"

"Still hurts, huh?" 

"Maybe." He mutters. He holds his hand up. "No bruise, see? That's gotta count for something. We need something sharp."

Steve doesn't like where this is going, but rummages around until he finds a pair of scissors, tossing them over. "Please don't cut your finger off." 

This time Eddie seems slightly hesitant, but opens the scissors and uses one side to slice into his palm anyway, hissing through his teeth at the pain before holding up his hand, which is bleeding. Before Steve's eyes he watches the thin stream of blood dry up, the cut slowly knitting itself back together over the course of the next few minutes. "Okay, that's nuts." He breathes. 

"I'm fucking invincible." Eddie yells up at the cieling, punching the air. "Built in invulnerability spell, you goddamn tentacle bats! Try and get me now!"

Steve hides a smile behind his hand. "Wow, you're warming up to the vampire thing quickly, huh?"

"It's called finding a silver lining." Eddie digs around in his pocket until he pulls out a lighter. "One more injury test."

"Oh, I don't know about fire, man, every other creature from the upside down really hates fi—"

But it's too late, Eddie is holding the lighter under his tongue, grinning at him like a madman as he flicks it on. 

He can't speak for the next thirty minutes, tongue stuck to the side of a bag of frozen peas to soothe the burn, which clearly isn't super-healing the way that the other injuries did. Even though he can't speak, his eyes say Shut up, Harrington without him having to, the lighter somewhere on the floor after he'd thrown it away from him with a loud shriek. Once he's feeling well enough, they go outside, sneaking out to the woods despite the awful feeling that Steve gets when he's there, one that Eddie seems to feel tenfold, looking behind them every few seconds and jumping at every tiny sound, everything for him amplified and overwhelming. The goal is to test out his agility and his reflexes, so Steve has him shut his eyes and try to catch things that he throws at him from odd angles, which he does excellently at. He's less good at anything that requires coordination, like climbing trees or doing pull ups or doing any of the old exercise drills that Steve tries to take him through, which mostly just succeeds in making him annoyed, his hair all over the place as he sits on a branch. "I feel like an idiot." He says.

"You climbed pretty fast, though." Steve says. "That's a good sign." 

"I guess." He mutters. "Should I…" He hooks his knees around the branch and tips backwards. "Hang like a bat?" His hair is hanging below him, his sharp grin shining bright in the darkness. 

"Maybe you'll finally get some good sleep." Steve says. 

"I could use it." Eddie drops back down to the ground, landing gracefully. "I still feel like I only got a few hours."

"I mean…it's gotta be your diet, man." Steve says. "Are you still…" He trails off, shifting uncomfortably as he tries to find the right wording. "Hungry?" 

"I was afraid you'd ask that." Eddie says. "I mean…yeah. I am." His eyes are on Steve's neck again. 

"Okay!" Steve says, forcing brightness into his voice. "But not enough to attack me, or anything, right?"

"I don't know…" Eddie says, taking a few slow, measured steps towards him. "What do you think?"

"Knock it off, man." Steve says, refusing to back away. 

"Knock what off?" Eddie says, letting his eyes flash red. "You're the one alone in the woods with a monster." 

Steve's breath hitches and he steps back against his own will, bumping against a tree. 

When Eddie bursts out laughing, Steve curses, kicking a rock at him. "You need to knock that shit off, dude, how am I supposed to tell when you actually are having…lapses?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," He says, still laughing. "That was the last time, I swear. I'll be good." 

"You are still hungry, though?"

"I really don't want to have to eat a little bunny or something, man, that'll make me feel like shit." Eddie says. "I'd rather just starve."

"You'll die again if you starve." Steve points out. 

"I haven't yet." Eddie counters. "I'll stick with the steak for now and I'll do whatever tests you want, but no living little guys, okay?" 

"Okay." 

They fall into a rhythm for the rest of the week, Steve bringing Eddie a rare steak every evening for him to slowly pick at while he gives him updates on the others, on how they're doing, which is a bit all over the place. Some days they're fine, joking around as they help El and Hopper set up the old cabin, and other times they're distant, the air surrounding the cabin quiet and tense, fearful as they watch the dark clouds accumulate overhead, summoning decay everywhere they pass over. It's still particularly bad for Dustin, who's started setting himself up in the corner with Eddie's old Tolkien books (that Eddie told him to give him once Steve explained why he'd been at his trailer that night to begin with) and spending all afternoon reading them, mumbling to himself and barely responding when spoken to. Eddie seems particularly sad to hear this, frowning and fiddling with his rings and asking Steve, eyes down, if he'd done the wrong thing. 

"Nah, I think he feels closer to you, reading them. He's just…grieving, you know? Everybody does it differently. We've all been through it before, with some of the people we've lost in the past. We're experts at this point." Steve gives a small laugh despite nothing being funny. 

Eddie regards him for a long moment, something passing over his face. "You're a lot wiser than I thought you'd be, Harrington." 

Steve brushes it off, feeling strangely shy, but something about it sticks with him. It feels good for someone like Eddie to approve of him, to think he's… more than just his name, his reputation. It reminds him that Eddie hadn't gotten the same chance, will probably never have it again, his name still mentioned every time the news want to bring up the "ritualistic murders" that started all of this. They'll never know how funny he is, prone to spontaneous bursts of genius and long, dramatic speeches about nothing and everything, how he's never judgemental or angry despite having every right to be, how alive he is, anxious and exhausted and pent up and slightly animal, spending longer and longer stretches of their nights together staring at him with a strange kind of hunger. It's getting kind of confusing, actually, the way it makes him feel; unsteady, nervous, almost giggly, at times, like his body doesn't know how else to react. 

On the way to Hawkins High Friday morning, another long day of making sandwiches and making supplies runs ahead of them, Robin sneaks him a look, asks him where he's going off to every night. Steve holds his breath. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?"

"I don't go anywhere!"

"You're never around! You always drop me off then immediately speed off!" 

"I'm just going on dates, you know." Steve waves a hand over the steering wheel. 

Robin huffs a disbelieving laugh. "What girls want to go on dates right now? I think everyone's a little bit busy for that, Steve, no matter how dreamy you might think you are—"

"Oh, shut up," Steve says. "You're the one canoodling with Vickie over at the PB&J station, of all places, I mean, have some decency!"

Robin bites her lower lip, trying not to smile. "We're just talking! How is that canoodling?"

"I know canoodling when I see it, Robin." Steve says, shaking his head. "That is definitely what is going on over there."

"You're just trying to distract me so that I yammer about Vickie for the rest of the ride and you can dodge my questions." 

"Is it working?" 

"...Yes. Did you know she plays piano?"

⚰

The next day Steve heads over earlier than usual, stopping at the local pet store (which is inexplicably still open) rather than the supermarket. He wakes Eddie up like he usually does, who winces at the sunlight. "You're early." 

"The sun doesn't actually affect you that much, does it?" 

"I think it saps my energy." Eddie says, unfolding his long limbs to stand. "I have more energy at night, too, you know that."

"Hm." Steve says, slowly reaching into his bag. "Well, I might have something that can help with your energy…"

Eddie holds his hand out, resigned to his diet of steak, but when Steve places a small cardboard box in his hand he freezes. "Steve?"

Steve doesn't point out that he'd used his first name. "Yeah?"

"What. am. I. holding?"

"So I stopped by the pet store…"

"Absolutely not." Eddie sets the box down gently and holds his hands up, backing away. "I don't even want to know what's in there."

Steve tries his best to seem encouraging but firm, putting on the parent voice he sometimes uses with the kids. "Come on, Eddie. We have to at least try it."

"Do we though?"

"We've gone through every trope from every vampire movie and book we can think of, Eddie. We don't have anything left that we can test on our own other than this, so if we want to know where to go from here, yes. If you want to ever see any of the others again, yes. If you want to stop sleeping for nineteen hours a day, yes. Do I need to go on?" 

Eddie hisses out a breath, bouncing up and down on long legs. "Fucking— fine. But you don't get to watch. Or look at me differently. Okay?"

"Okay, yeah, that's fine. I'll even go outside, if you want."

"Yeah. Do that." 

Steve pauses at the door. "It's a mouse, by the way. Not even a big deal, super teeny, very clean. They have 'em specifically to feed to snakes, so he would've been a goner anyway."

"Why would—why would you think anything that you just said would make me feel better?"

"Fine, I won't try and make you feel better. Enjoy your snack!" 

Steve gives him fifteen minutes, assuming he'll need time to work up the nerve. The trailer park is quiet the way it usually is, the sky slowly getting darker. The sunsets are inky and red these days, constant storms blocking most of the sunlight, the ashfall making people's asthma act up and the local animals fleeing like they can feel what's coming, which leaves the skies completely devoid of birdcall. 

When he comes back in, knocking first to be polite, the box is gone and Eddy is sitting on the couch, his hands folded in his lap. He looks slightly less pale, a little bit less tired, maybe, but considerably more upset. 

"Well?" Stede asks. 

"Elvis has left the building." He says quietly. 

"...Is Elvis the mouse?"

"Elvis was the mouse." Eddie says. "Don't ask me why I named him, that only made it worse, but I wanted to give him a name that would make it easier to hate him and everything he stands for. So I picked Elvis."

"You hate Elvis that much?" 

"It was either Elvis or Reagan." Eddie shrugs. 

"Yikes. What's the verdict on the blood drinking?"

Eddie's eyes go a little bit flat, fixed on the carpet instead of Steve. "...It helped, I think. A little bit."

"Yeah?"

"I mean, it wasn't enough to really tell, but. Yeah. I feel more…in control. Less exhausted."

"Less hungry?"

Eddie's eyes lift, vulnerable. He looks at Steve like he's checking, eyes flicking up and down his body.  "Yeah."

Steve moves to sit next to him. "That's good, man! It means that we know for sure, now, and we know how to help you!"

"It means that I have to kill to survive." Eddie says, monotone. "It means I can't enjoy a nourishing pizza and beer ever again. How is that good?" His shoulders are hunched up, his knee bouncing. 

"Okay, okay." Steve says, putting a hand on his knee to get it to stop bouncing. "Just take a minute, okay? Breathe."

"I am." Eddie says, voice small. Despite looking better he seems worse, his usual affability gone. "I'm sorry, Steve, you shouldn't have to… babysit me, especially since I'm a fucking monster." He spits the word with vitriol, different from the jokey way he'd said it the other night. The reality seems to be setting in for him now that they have concrete proof of his...condition. 

"Do you know why you're sitting here?" Steve interrupts. "You're sitting here because you sacrificed yourself to save us, plain and simple. You're the furthest thing from a monster."

Eddie suddenly inhales sharply, turning and wrapping his arms around Steve's shoulders. Steve is still, for a moment, unsure what to do and vaguely afraid that Eddie is trying to bite him, again, but he's not, he's just hugging him, his breathing fast as he tries to calm down. "Yeah, man, it's alright. Listen to my breathing." Steve tries to keep his voice even, lifting a hand and settling it between Eddie's shoulder blades. His long hair tickles his knuckles. "One day at a time, okay?"

"I don't want to hurt anyone." He says, voice muffled by Steve's shoulder. 

"You're not hurting me right now, are you?"

"...No."

"Exactly." Steve says. The feeling of Eddie's chest pressed against his is new but not bad, kind of nice, actually, and he's kind of glad that Eddie doesn't let go for a long time, his breathing very slowly evening out. 

"You're warm." He says after a long stretch of silence, still not letting go.

"You're cold." Steve whispers back. 

"I missed this." Eddie says, slowly pulling back. "People. Closeness."

Steve doesn't know he's going to ask it until he does. "Do you want to see the others?"

Eddie scoots back slightly, eyes wide. "Really?"

Steve considers it. Eddie's lonely, trapped here and exhausted, and it's clearly weighing on him, especially the fear that's made itself apparent, the fear that he won't be able to be close to anyone ever again, that he's some kind of predator. This is the closest he's been to Steve all week, usually carefully keeping his distance and pulling himself back every time he gets caught up in a moment and starts to throw an arm over his shoulder or lean into him to laugh. "It's up to you, dude. I won't bring them here or you there if you don't want them to know, but…if you do, then yeah, let's do it. To be honest I don't know what else to do."

"Then…yeah." Eddie says, back to fiddling with his rings. "Let's do it." 

⚰

The next day Robin is oddly silent during the journey over to the cabin, but every time Steve asks her what she's up to she doesn't give him a straight answer, just forces a smile and says he's imagining things. He's nervous enough already, trying to figure out how exactly to go about telling the others about Eddie, if it's better to warn them or to let Eddie do it the way he wants to—he'd spent the rest of the night with renewed vigor at the thought of seeing the others again, and he'd even made Steve trek back to his trailer with him to grab his records and some blank tapes so that he could make a new mixtape for what he was calling his "big reveal". 

Steve wants to tread carefully, to give the others enough of a warning so that when he goes to grab Eddie they don't all have a heart attack the way he did when he saw him for the first time. They'd decided to wait until Joyce and Hopper inevitably sneak off the way they've been doing every weekend and bring Eddie to the cabin for an hour or two to start, then go from there. 

When he gets there, though, everyone are sitting in the den like they've been expecting him, even Lucas, who's almost always at the hospital. 

"Uh…hey, guys." Steve gives a small wave. "What's going on?"

"We could ask you the very same thing." Dustin says, shutting his book with a dramatic flare. "Couldn't we?"

"...What?"

"It's an intervention, dude." Argyle says, giving him a dopey smile. "They think you're losing it." 

"Sorry for the unofficial intervention." Nancy says from where she's sitting next to Jonathan on the couch, legs crossed at the ankles. "But we just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Steve waits a beat, then: "Don't answer that."

"We know you're sneaking off every night." Mike says. "And we kind of just assumed it was a girl or something that's, like, none of our business, but El and Will said…"

"We can feel it." El says, next to Mike and Will at the table. "The Upside Down. It sticks to you, somehow." 

"What do you mean?"

"It's really subtle." Will says, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "But there's something slightly different about you, sometimes."

"We wanted to ask if you're going back there." Dustin says. "To the Upside Down. Through Eddie's. Because I followed you to the trailer park the other night."

"What the fuck, Henderson? You went out alone?"

"You go out alone every night!"

"That's different!"

"So you admit it." Robin says, nudging him. "You have been going out." 

"Does it have to do with the Upside Down?" Lucas asks, hesitantly hopeful. "With Max?"

Steve gives up, letting his shoulders drop and sitting down. "...I don't know about Max. It does have to do with the Upside Down, though. I was literally going to tell you guys about it today, okay? So you can call off the incursion." 

"Oh, God, you're not going there alone, are you?" Nancy has that intense look on her face, her lips pursed and her eyebrows furrowed. It's nice to know that she's been worried. 

"I'm not!"

"So why else are you going out to the trailer park?" Jonathan asks. 

Steve rubs his hands together, still unsure what the best approach for this is. Finally, he says. "Can I just…show you?" 

"Show us?" Dustin asks, leaning forwards. "Oh, man, are you trying to raise a pet demodog? Because that does not end well, you know that!"

"No." Steve says. He tilts his head, thinking about how he has to visit Eddie once a day with raw meat. "But it isn't…completely different from that, actually." 

"Steve. What?" Nancy asks, now looking even more intense. He avoids her big eyes, certain if he looks at her for too long he'll tell them everything and Eddie won't get to do whatever it is he's got planned. He wonders if it's a dance routine. 

"It's not a pet! It's…it's a person. That's all I'm going to say until I can get him."

The words travel through the room with a tangible ripple effect, everybody reacting in their own way: Nancy immediately looks like she knows exactly to whom he's referring, as do Will and El, meanwhile Lucas, Jonathan, Argyle, and Mike look completely puzzled. Robin looks excited, grabbing at his arm and shaking it like she can't bear to wait any longer, and Dustin's eyes are huge, his mouth hanging open.

 "...Him like…Vecna?" Mike asks. 

"Yes, Mike, I'm bringing Vecna here to hang out with you guys. Maybe play some Monopoly." Steve says, standing up again. "You cracked the case!"

"Well, how am I supposed to know?" 

"I'll be back!" Steve calls over his shoulder, already on the way out again. "Stay, Robin."

Robin pouts by the door. "You shouldn't go out there alone! Who knows what could happen?"

"It's a ten minute drive." Steve says. "It's fine." 

"No, somebody has to go with you." Nancy says, arms crossed. "It's safer. You're acting erratically, Steve, you should have someone there with you to make sure you're not under some kind of…trance."

"Fine. Come on, Robin. We'll be back." 

In the car, Robin weasels it out of him in three minutes flat. "What? But he's—"

"Dead, yeah. That hasn't changed, exactly."

"...You're not going to take me to his corpse or something, right?"

"Why does everybody think I'm some kind of lunatic all of a sudden?" Steve asks, pulling up into the usual empty spot by old Betsy's trailer. "I mean, 'acting erratically'? What the hell does that mean?" 

"It means we're all trying to do a better job at supporting each other." Robin says, giving his shoulder a pat. "Which means keeping our eyes peeled for anybody dealing with…you know. Seeing things. Disappearing." 

Steve's heart twists at the thought of Max. "...Yeah. I get it."

He eases the door open to the trailer, calling out a cursory warning that he's there with Robin. 

"Ooh, my favorite of your rag-tag-gang of heroes." A voice calls back, chipper and light in a way that means Eddie's in a good mood. 

"What. The. Fuck?" Robin says when she sees him, frozen in the doorway. "Steve, is he a ghost?"

"Live and in the flesh." Eddie says, holding his arms out with a flourish. 

She runs at him and pulls him into a hug, earning a surprised oof as she hits him and a happy laugh, Eddie wrapping his arms around her and doing a little spin. Steve holds his breath, terrified that Eddie's going to falter, to do something weird like sniff her neck or do something weirder like get his fangs out, but he doesn't, just laughs joyfully, face stretched in a wide smile that makes Steve smile despite himself, relieved to see it. It melts some of the stress away, some of the exhaustion. 

When Robin pulls back she notices the fangs instantaneously. "You have fangs."

"I do indeed." Eddie says, not sounding as glum about it as he usually does. "Took Steve over there ages to notice."

"Wh—no it didn't! It took, like, a few minutes, maybe."

"He doesn't notice anything." Robin says, arm still slung around Eddie's shoulder. "Took him ages to notice that I'm a—" She stops herself, slightly concerned, but Eddie just grins.

"I get it." Eddie says. "Same for me." 

She looks puzzled for a moment then her face breaks open into an even wider smile. "Holy shit." is all she can muster, beyond excited. "Well, come on!" She starts to pull him. "Dustin's going to be so happy."

Eddie smooths his hands over his denim vest, checks to make sure that his mixtape is in his pocket, and takes a deep breath. "I'm counting on it." 

⚰

When they get back to the cabin, Eddie makes them leave him on the porch, holding the mix-tape up. "Put this in. First song." Steve thinks it's all kind of ridiculous, especially considering how little pairing a walking corpse with a musical entrance makes sense, but Robin is, of course, immediately on board, taking the tape and dashing inside to put it in the player. 

Steve waits by the door while everybody stares, expectant, Dustin the most expectant of all, like he has an idea of what's to come that he isn't letting himself believe. The first song starts playing, a predictably heavy metal guitar intro with a singer yelling about darkness and hell and blood, which is a bit on the nose. 

Argyle starts headbanging. Everybody else sits stock-still. There's only one person they know who'd want to play this song. Dustin's eyes look borderline teary. "Come on, already!" He yells.

"He said he's going to wait for the guitar solo at two minutes in." Robin says, hiding her grin behind her fingers. "Sorry." 

After an extraordinarily long two minutes, the door bursts open, Eddie running in with as much theatrics as humanly possible, jumping up on the table (with no mind to the bowl of cheez-its he's just knocked over) and sinking to his knees to do an air guitar solo. Everybody is screaming, half terrified, and he ends up flat on his back, hair hanging over the edge of the table. "And that, my friends…" He sits up, giving a little bow. "...is how you come back from the dead."

Everybody screams again, though this time it's in excitement, not confusion, and Dustin is the loudest of all, jumping up and barreling into him for a hug that nearly knocks him over. Eddie's grinning, so much more in control of himself than he'd been even a few days ago, so much happier than he'd been yesterday, and Steve can't help it, leaning forwards to hug them both. Everybody joins in a group hug that feels unbelievably cheesy but also unbelievably right, and when they finally break apart Eddie's cheeks look slightly wet. "Wow, you sure all know how to make a guy feel welcome. Especially you, dude." He says to Argyle, who's still hugging him and petting his hair despite clearly having no idea who on Earth he is. 

"El, Jonathan, Will, Argyle." Steve says, wiggling his fingers over Eddie's head. "This is the Eddie Munson you've heard about." 

"How the hell are you here?" Dustin asks, voice breaking. 

"That's a long story." Eddie says, taking a step back. "The song was supposed to be a hint."

"Well, what's the song?" Nancy asks. 

"At Dawn They Sleep by Slayer!" 

"...Oh my god." Nancy says. 

"You know Slayer?" Eddie asks, fully ready to believe that Wheeler fucking shreds, but she just squints at him. 

"No, your teeth! Can you open your mouth for me?"

Eddie does, grinning wide. 

"...Were his teeth always like that?" Lucas asks. 

"Nope." Eddie says. "That's what Steve asked."

"You're really dragging this out." Steve says, but he can't keep the affection from bleeding out of his voice. 

"Hey, you only get to come back from the dead once! I'm like Jesus Christ!" He turns, giving Steve a devastating look. "Happy fucking Easter." 

"Easter was last week." Robin says. 

Eddie sags. "Damnit, was it?"

"Still badass." Dustin says, looking up at Eddie with a kind of hero-worship that would make Steve jealous if he didn't feel the exact same way. 

"Thank you! Finally, some appreciation for my Christlike virtues." Eddie says, reaching out to give Dustin a playful noogie. 

"Are fangs Christlike?" El asks. 

"No." Mike whispers back. 

"Wait, duuude, are you a vampire?" Argyle asks. Everybody laughs nervously like he's kidding, looking at Eddie like they expect him to, as well, but he doesn't, just raises his eyebrows meaningfully. 

"I'm not… unlike a vampire." Eddie says after a pause. "A little less kill! kill! kill! than the Slayer song, though. A lot more nap! nap! nap!"

"It's just like The Lost Boys!"  Argyle says, gleeful. "Even your whole…vibe! The clothes! And the hair!"

"Is this a vampire-themed mixtape?" Jonathan asks, popping the tape out and looking down at it. 

"It is indeed." Eddie says, looking at them like it's obvious. "How could I not, in this situation?"

"That's exactly what I would've done." Jonathan looks like he already loves Eddie just as much as everybody else does. 

"What's on it?" Will asks. 

"Goth stuff." Steve answers, vividly remembering the hour Eddie had spent making him burn the tape and lightly admonishing Steve for not knowing any of the songs. 

"I did take a trip into the goth-er part of my collection for this baby." Eddie turns to Jonathan, bouncing up and down in enthusiasm. "Read 'em out for the people."

Jonathan does. "Other than the one we just heard, there's Bela Lugosi's Dead, Night of the Vampire, We Bite, Deathwish, Transylvania, Walk in the Shadows, Dark Fade, Release the Bats, Lucretia my Reflection, Killed By Death, and Shake Dog Shake. This is a great mix, actually." 

"Max would like it." Lucas says. "She loves making tapes." 

Everybody sobers slightly at the mention of Max. Lucas is looking at Eddie with newfound hope, like his existence proves that Max has a chance. Steve hopes it does, but their circumstances are so different that he doesn't know. What he does know is that everybody has a million questions, so many that Nancy is already scribbling them all down in a little notepad, and Will and El in specific are looking at him like they're afraid of him but are trying not to be, which isn't a great sign. 

"Alright," Steve steers Eddie over to the couch and pulling the curtains closed. "Sunlight makes him tired." 

That factoid alone is enough to send everybody scrambling to ask questions, half of which are movie and game related, almost all of them from D&D or The Lost Boys, which is fair; Eddie and Steve had spent an entire day testing out every single trope from that movie they could remember, including eyes that can turn red (accurate), the power of hypnosis (bullshit), needing to be invited inside (bullshit), not being able to go into the sun (mostly bullshit), vulnerability to fire (accurate), control over electricity (unfortunately bullshit), and superhuman strength and healing (accurate). 

Dustin and Mike are practically vibrating, especially every time Eddie answers a question in the affirmative. "Wait, can you fly?" Mike asks. 

"Can you control animals? Can you turn into them?" Dustin asks, consulting their Dungeons and Dragons rulesheet in his hand. "Can you dominate other living things with your gaze alone? Do you worship Kanchelsis?"

"Nah." Eddie says, shaking his head sadly. "I'm afraid most of the D&D vamp tropes are incorrect. It's a lot less metal than I thought it'd be." 

"It's almost like a virus." Nancy says, looking at him curiously. "Like…an Upside Down germ, or something, one you only get if they bite you enough to kill you."

"That's what it feels like." El says quietly. "That's what we could sense on Steve. A life from there, living here."

"Is it calling you back?" Will asks, even quieter. "Can you feel it?" 

"All the time." Eddie says, discomfort flashing over his face. "But fuck that place, I don't want to go back." 

"Do you have to…" Nancy asks. "You know. Drink blood?"

Eddie exchanges a look with Steve, even more uncomfortable. "Pretty much." 

Robin seems oblivious to his discomfort. "Yeugh, what have you been eating?" 

Steve jumps to his rescue. "We're still working that part out. That's part of why we wanted to tell you guys, actually, because we've been having trouble with…what we do next. Now that the obvious stuff we can figure out is out of the way." 

"Well, yes, we have a lot to test." Nancy says, still scribbling on her little pad of paper. "If you can pass it on to other living creatures, what happens if you drink human blood instead of animal blood, how impervious you are to harm, what happens if you go back to the Upside Down…"

"This is going to be an interesting week!" Robin says brightly. 

They start the next evening at old Betsy's, taking shifts for which pair are going to stay behind with Joyce and Hopper so that they don't get suspicious each day. 

Day one is dedicated to most of the stuff that Steve and Eddie have already tested, mostly just Eddie gritting his teeth and hurting himself over and over while they take note of how long it takes him to heal. He doesn't burn his tongue this time, throwing a hand over Steve's mouth when he tries to tell that story and then squirming away when Steve licks his palm. Over the course of the next few days he's so much like he was before, much less jumpy than he was even a few days ago, but he still gets this haunted look sometimes, or stares at Steve's neck for just a beat too long, and Steve knows that he isn't as okay as he's acting. Eddie's particularly hesitant about Nancy's insistence on using more animals to test his abilities. She's on the same wavelength as Steve about loading up on white mice from the pet store. 

"I'll fuck up any tentacle bats that I need to, but these mice didn't do anything to deserve it, you know?" He says, staring remorsefully at the little cardboard box in Nancy's lap. 

"You're doing this for science." Nancy says seriously, patting his hand. "It's for good." 

"Just pretend you're Ozzy Osbourne." Steve says. "Only instead of biting a bat onstage, it's a mouse." 

This advice does seem to help a little bit, but he always cringes before biting into each mouse, which makes his eyes flash red and slide shut. It's…strange, the way that Steve feels afterwards, when he watches Eddie lick blood from his lower lip. He doesn't know how to categorize it, just as strange. 

The increase in blood in his diet does seem to be helping him, and he looks less sickly, has more energy, and feels a little bit less cold when Steve touches him. They're mainly interested in seeing if he can turn any animals, since just drinking them doesn't seem to be enough. It doesn't work for the first few days until Lucas suggests having him give the mice a little bit of his own blood before they die, but that doesn't seem like it's working, either. 

"You were unconscious for a while, though." Will points out. "We might have to wait." 

So, they wait. And they do every non Upside Down related test they can think of. Eddie still can't hypnotize any of them into thinking that spaghetti noodles are worms or levitate or control animals despite their extensive efforts to try, but Dustin and Mike and Will and even Lucas are throwing themselves into it headfirst, digging out every obscure vampire fact from folklore they can to test, including but not limited to: if he needs to count every piece of rice if someone spills it in front of him (nope), if he can have garlic (yep, but like most food it makes him nauseous), if putting a coin in his mouth will kill him (nope), if he can cross the street (yep), and so on and so on. 

When, on day five, a mouse with two tiny bite marks wakes up and promptly attacks one of the new living mice, they have their answer. He can turn living things. 

"This is huge." Nancy says. "You can turn people, but only if they drink your blood! That means you can drink one of ours to test it!"

"...Does it?" Eddie asks. 

"You can drink mine." Steve says. "I can just, like…put it in a little vial for you, or something, so that it's only a little bit." 

"What if it, like…" Eddie shuffles his feet. "It flips a switch that we can't unflip?"

"This isn't a movie, Eddie." Nancy says patiently. "You can control yourself. We all trust you to." 

"Can I think about it?" 

They agree to give him a day to think about it. Steve stays behind a little later that night, picking up on the anxious way that Eddie keeps fiddling with his rings and gnawing on his nails, the way he pretends to be more tired than he is so that everybody else leaves early. 

"Hey." He says, moving to sit next to him. "What're you thinking?" 

"Well," Eddie says, holding up the vampire-mouse and giving it a little scratch underneath its chin. "I'm thinking that this is all insane." 

"It is." Steve agrees. "What's this one's name?"

"Gandalf." Eddie answers immediately. 

"That's from one of your books, right?"

He nods. "Yeah. They all think he dies, but he comes back as Gandalf the White, and he's…different. But not bad."

"Sounds like someone I know."

Eddie gives a small smile, setting Gandalf down and wrapping a curly strand of hair around one of his fingers. "Yeah, I…I dunno about that." 

"Eddie…" Steve starts.

"Did you know that in D&D, if you turn into a vampire, your alignment automatically turns to an evil one?" 

Steve doesn't know exactly what that means, but he nods, anyway. 

"It means your character can only morally be evil, basically. Like being a vampire itself…changes you. Changes the way you think, feel, look at other people. And I know what you're going to say, you're going to say that it's just a made-up game and I can't apply it to real life, but…but games are the only way I know how to look at real life, it doesn't make sense any other way, especially now, and I just…I don't want to…tip over the edge. Go from chaotic good to chaotic evil." 

"You're the furthest thing from evil." Steve says after an extended moment. "And I'm going to prove it to you."

"What?"

"Drink my blood." 

"Steve…"

"Do it. It's fine." He says, not letting himself think about it too hard. If he does let himself think about it too hard, he might pussy out. "The bats bit me and I didn't turn, right? I'll be fine. We don't even need to use a vial. I trust you."

Eddie gives him a complicated look, face twisting like he's in pain. "Are you sure?"

"Never been surer." Steve says, lying through his teeth. He moves closer to him on the couch, tilts his head to the side. "But you might want to get to it before I lose my nerve."

Eddie moves towards him slowly, teeth digging into his lower lip and hand on his shoulder. The nervous way his eyes glance down and up, the hand holding him still, it reminds Steve strangely of the feeling he gets when he's about to kiss someone, a similar kind of unspoken tension. 

"Your heart is going crazy." Eddie whispers. "I can hear it." 

"Just do it—"

Eddie does, sinking teeth into his neck in a sharp jab of pain that quickly melts away. It honestly isn't so bad, after that, not nearly as awful as the feeling of being bit into by the demobats had been, and Eddie borderline growls, fingers digging into his shoulder as he pulls him closer. Steve feels dizzy and feverish and wonders if he's losing too much blood, but he almost doesn't want Eddie to stop. He pushes weakly at him. "Alright, closing time, that's enough." 

Eddie pulls back the second he says it, his lips streaked red and his eyes half-lidded and hazy, looking at Steve like he's the best meal he's ever tasted. Steve swallows. 

"Holy shit." Eddie whispers, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That was—um."

"Yeah." Steve says, head dropping against the back of the couch. "It was." 

After a few minutes of recovery, Eddie turns to him with a mischievious look. "You know what this means, right? You're now in thrall to a creature of the night, a creature from the depths of hell itself." He leans into Steve, his earlier reservations seemingly temporarily forgotten in the face of how good he must feel right now. 

Steve huffs a weak laugh. "Whatever you say, Eddie." 

⚰

Nancy is not happy when she finds out. 

"You shouldn't have done that with nobody here to protect you!" She says. 

"That was pretty stupid, dude." Dustin agrees. "Not that I don't think Eddie has complete self control, but…"

"Eh, he's harmless." Robin says, pinching Eddie's cheek. "See?"

Eddie laughs, letting Robin distract him. Drinking Steve's blood has had the biggest effect on him than anything else has, his cheeks almost red again, his eyes bright, his energy levels so high that he can go out in the full sunlight (or as much sunlight as they get with the heavy clouds overhead these days) and he seems perfectly fine. He also just seems happier, proud of himself for being able to control himself when he was drinking from Steve and less prone to zoning out and digging his nails into his palm when he thinks nobody's looking, like he's trying to punish himself for what he is. 

Eddie is still adamant about not going back into the Upside Down despite Nancy's attempts at getting them to go, their progress on figuring out how to deal with what's making it leak out all around them stagnating. Lucas still spends as much time as he can with Max, who hasn't shown any signs one way or the other despite El's efforts to connect with her. Her and Will seem slightly more trusting of Eddie now that they've gotten to know him, though, less wary of what his tie to the Upside Down has done to him, which Steve tells him over and over again is nothing. Eddie and Will start to bond over D&D, talking about it for hours, and both of them seem all the better for it, happy to have a new friend. 

Despite his outward insistence that they've all got everything under control and everything is Fine, actually, Steve only feels more confused, feeling strangely vampiric himself when he looks at Eddy, like he's hungry for something he can't name. He'll catch himself staring, sometimes, quick to glance away whenever he realizes. He starts to stay after the others do most nights, staying up late into the night with Eddie and talking about anything and everything. He tells Eddie everything he knows about the Upside Down, starting with the beginning with Will going missing and Eleven showing up in the woods and ending with Starmall. In return, Eddie tells him more about Lord of the Rings, which is actually pretty interesting despite his original insistence that it's too nerdy for him to get into. Steve even borrows the first book from Dustin and skims through it during their down-time, and when Eddie sees him reading it his eyes go wide, his mouth stretching into the widest smile Steve's ever seen on his face. "Like it so far?" He asks, sounding strangely breathless. 

Steve says yes slightly begrudgingly, almost dazed by how bright Eddie's smile is as he jostles him in excitement, saying something about how he knew he could convert the Great King Harrington and making Steve borderline giggle, pushing at him. "Come on, man, it's just a book."

"It's not just a book." Eddie says, deadly serious. "It's the book."

"Yeah, well, if you can get me into this I can get you into Billy Joel."

"You can certainly try." Eddie says. A few hours later, when Steve catches him humming Vienna, he caves. "Okay. It was catchy. Shut up."

Steve does not shut up. 

It's also easier to open up after everyone else leaves, for Eddie to tell him more about his family, his issues at school, how he ended up where he did. Steve tells him about his parents, too, how distant they are, how little he feels like they care about him the way that he sees Joyce with Will and Jonathan and El, or Hopper with El or even himself with the kids, especially Dustin. 

"We've got that in common, then, Harrington." Eddie says, rolling his last name on his tongue the way he still does sometimes. He holds up a mock toast. "To raising yourself."

"What about your uncle? Are you ever going to… you know…"

"Tell him that his nephew is alive and also a vampire?" 

"Yeah. That."

Eddie shifts on the couch, pulling his legs up. His knees are poking through the rips in his jeans. "Maybe the first part. I know…I know that I should. I just don't want to in case…I dunno, in case shit still hits the fan, or this is only temporary, or I turn into some kind of awful Brundlefly creature, or something."

"Brundlefly?" 

"You haven't seen The Fly?"

"Absolutely not." 

Eddie pins him with a look. "Go to Family Video and get it right now."

"Right now? It's late!" 

Steve ends up getting it. They stay up late watching it next to each other on the couch, Eddie comfortable enough around him that their arms are touching. Steve has seen enough gore in person that the movie doesn't really phase him, but he does cheer along with Eddie at the worst parts, pretending to gag and asking him how he likes movies like this even though he's enjoying it too.

By the end of it Eddie's head has lolled back on the couch and he's clearly exhausted, but he turns to Stede anyway. "So, yeah. That's what I'm afraid of happening to me."

"Oh, yeah, you're already, like, what, fifteen percent gross fly creature?" Steve says. "You can see it in your eyes."

"Fuck off." Eddie says, shoving his shoulder lightly. "It could happen!"

"I promise you that it could not happen." Steve says. "And if you do turn into some kind of bat hybrid, you'll probably pull it off."

Eddie leans closer, giving him a grin. "Oh, yeah? The King himself thinks that little old me would look cool as a bat hybrid? That's gotta be what every gal dreams of hearing." 

Steve covers his face with his hands. "You're the worst." 

"You say that, but I think you mean the opposite." Eddie says, eyes bright. 

Steve is powerless to do anything but agree. 

⚰

They carry on like this for a while, which is all well and dandy except for all of the ways that it isn't. 

As many nights as they get to spend listening to Eddie's Vampire Mixtape and watching him do cool shit in the woods and talking about books and movies and the Upside Down, as many nights as there are where Dustin seems happier than he's been in weeks sitting next to Eddie on the couch and playing games with him to keep him from feeling too stir-crazy, as many nights as they spend where Lucas actually even shows up, there's just as many nights that are the opposite. Nights where Eddie still seems afraid, glancing above him like he can feel the Upside Down pulling at him, making him distant and quiet until he inevitably starts talking about being a monster again. 

There's also all of the… other shit. Shit Steve's having trouble paying attention to with the new percentage of his brain dedicated entirely to Eddie and Eddie-related business, but shit that he picks up on nonetheless. Communication issues with Nancy and Jonathan that he might have been happy to see as recently as a month ago, but now just feels awkward about. The longing way that Will looks at Mike and Eleven, like he's staring through a window at two people who aren't staring back. The distance of Lucas, who barely ever laughs or smiles, getting quieter as every day without any change from Max passes. At least Argyle is always in a good mood. Robin is, too, now that her and Vickie are spending so much time together. They both help raise spirits, which is sorely needed, and Steve is glad to have Robin around until he's driving her from Vickie's one day and she clears her throat continuously for twenty seconds straight, regarding him with the air of someone preparing for a very important announcement. 

He sighs. "Yes?"

She puts her feet up on the dash even though she knows he hates when she does that. "I'm going to ask you something, but I want you to promise not to act all…Defensive Masculine Manly Dude about it."

"Sounds like me." Steve says lightly. 

"I'm serious!"

"I promise."

"Okay. Eddie told you he's not of the strictly heterosexual persuasion, right?"

Steve swallows. "Right."

"It's just, you two spend a lot of time together. And I get this sort of…vibe."

Steve grips the steering wheel tighter, the grooves biting into his skin. "Vibe?"

"I mean, yeah, I do. A feelingsy vibe. Not just from him, from you, too. And maybe I'm completely wrong! It's fine if I am! But I just thought I'd…put it out there, you know? Just in case! Because we weren't sure about Vickie, right, but then that really worked out even though she'd never been with a girl, before, and I know that you've been lonely for a while, and I know I said you should give Nancy another try but honestly that was before I met Jonathan and he's actually really nice and has great music taste and I feel kind of bad for trying to sabotage their relationship and I see the way you and Eddie look at each other and it feels like something and please don't hate me for saying it." She finally stops to take a breath. 

Steve is silent for a long moment. "Are you done?"

"Depends on if you want me to be or not. Because if you want advice on the whole 'questioning your sexuality thing', I'm kind of the resident expert." 

Steve abruptly pulls over, swerving to the side of the road. "I'm sorry! We can drop it!" Robin says, immediately misinterpreting the move as angry. 

"No, I…I want to talk. Maybe." Steve says, staring forwards. Why does he feel like he's going to vomit?

"O-oh! Okay!" Robin says, arranging herself expectantly. "Let's talk!"

They're there for an hour and a half. It's easier to talk as the sun sets and it gets dark, easier to talk when Steve can stare straight ahead at the dark road instead of at Robin's annoyingly perceptive face, easier to talk after the forty minute lead-up it takes for Steve to stop vacillating and to tell Robin something honest. She asks him to talk about Eddie, to talk about the things they do together, the things they talk about, the things he likes about him in a purely platonic sense. Steve tries to be objective, to name things like his sense of humor and his bravery and his disarming charm, but even Robin's reaction to that is telling, a quirk of her lips, a small smile, a well-placed hmmm. 

She asks him to talk about how it felt when Eddie bit him, which makes Steve blush and wave her off, stammering a miserable excuse of an answer. Him, stammering! It's completely awful. It's also completely wonderful, because Robin's the only person he can talk to like this, the only person who can hold up a mirror and make him be honest with himself, and she makes everything that scares him not scary, like he's normal, like he's real. 

He rambles about Nancy a lot, too, about how he always pictures having kids with her, this perfect little life, which makes Robin hmm again. "Does that really sound like her? Does it even sound like you?" 

Steve shrugs. "Well, yeah, she'd be a great mom."

"She'd be a great mom in this imaginary world that you've clung to so that you can pretend every other girl you date just doesn't measure up to the made-up version of her, you mean." 

Steve opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. "I."

"Vickie wants to be a therapist." Robin says smugly. "She's been teaching me some fancy psychoanalysis tricks."

"That's…" Steve realizes he hasn't blinked in over a minute when his eyes start to burn. "That's true. I mean, you're right."  

"I usually am! And if that's true, could it also be true that you've been too afraid of the idea of wanting anything other than that made-up dream that you haven't been honest with yourself about wanting something that's so different from it?"

"I mean…maybe?" Steve's voice sounds pathetically tiny. 

"I think you should talk to Eddie about it." Robin says, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Or even just hang out with him like normal, but go into it with an open mind, you know? Let yourself feel what you feel."

Steve nods, says a scratchy okay, and pulls the car out of park to start driving again. His brain simultaneously feels buzzing with too many thoughts to think them all, overlapping and contradicting and arguing, but also it feels completely silent, like there's a strange calmness that comes with giving in, with letting himself acknowledge the sense of clarity that's been sneaking up on him for a while. Eddie's really, really fucking cool. Like, really. He kind of wants to hang out with him all the time. 

After he drops Robin off, hugging her for a long moment and whispering thank you into her hair, he turns the road that'll take him to the trailer park, suddenly very glad that he'd left some beers in old Betsy's fridge. He thinks he's going to need them. 

When he gets there Eddie is waiting for him. He looks more nervous than usual, his boots pulled off and his socked feet dug into the carpet, his skull ring glinting in his bitten fingers as he twists it around, again and again. 

"Hey." Steve says, lingering awkwardly in the doorway. 

"Hey." He says back, trying a small smile. 

They hang out like normal, at first, but Eddie's more serious than usual, a little more like he was in the beginning, eyes slightly heavy. 

"Are you tired?" Steve asks after Eddie's third yawn in a few minutes, his fangs sharp and shiny and strangely tempting. 

"A little." He says. "Sorry."

"Do you, um. Do you want to…" He gestures awkwardly towards his neck. "It has been a few weeks since the last time."

"...Are you sure?" 

"Yeah, man, human juice-box reporting for duty." 

Eddie pushes his hair out of his face, staring at him with that same hungry look, the one that makes Steve's spine feel like it's made of gelatin. "If you insist. But we probably shouldn't make a thing out of it." 

He gently tilts Steve's head back, cool hands on his shoulders, the metal of his rings even colder against his neck, and Steve has to try very hard not to shiver. Eddie hisses out in relief when his bites Steve, like he can finally exhale, and the prick isn't as bad this time. Either way the same feeling from last time spreads over him, the hot syrupy goodness that makes it hard for his brain to grasp much of anything at all. Eddie pulls back the second that Steve pushes at him just like last time, his eyes fading from red back to their normal color. "Thank you." He says, sounding almost reverent. A trickle of blood is running down his chin, so Steve reaches a hand out to wipe it away, brain still too foggy to think clearly. Eddie lets him, making no move to pull away, and Steve can barely breathe.

"I want to tell you something." Steve whispers, though he's not entirely sure what it is that he wants to tell, if there are even words for it. 

"Yeah, me too." Eddie whispers back. "You first." 

Steve tries to summon words but comes up empty. "…I had this talk with Robin, earlier. About…lots of of shit. And you were some of that shit."

"Good shit or bad shit?" Eddie asks. 

"I don't know." Steve whispers. "Both." He's about to continue when the door bursts open, a wild-eyed Jonathan and Nancy there in the doorway. 

Steve and Eddie are both immediately on their feet, well acquainted with what entrances like that usually mean: nothing good. 

"It's Max." Nancy says, panicked. "Something's wrong." 

⚰

Eddie has had an interesting month. 

He's developed some new hobbies, made some new friends (the Will kid is a D&D whiz), experimented with new...bodily abilities (the novelty of slicing his hand open and watching it heal has still not worn off) and also gotten more into goth music, which he feels bad for brushing off before (Robert Smith is a genius, actually, and more men should wear eyeliner—the day he borrows some from Nancy and smudges it on in the bathroom Steve barely looks away from him the entire night, which is nice, maybe). He's also spent every day in a tiny trailer full of bibles that makes him feel like he's going insane, eaten the exact opposite of what a vegetarian should every morning for breakfast, and taken up a frightening hobby that involves raising an army of vampire mice because he feels too bad to eat them without giving them their lives back to say thank you (but then he starts wondering if he's actually giving them a curse that turns them into cannibals and has another one of his frequent existential breakdowns, which Steve has probably started getting used to him falling into the second everybody else leaves). 

Speaking of Hawkin's most eligible bachelor…

Eddie's been, you know, sucking his blood on occasion. Just a little. He's glad he can control himself, can pull back when Steve asks him to, but it's hard, especially when Steve tilts his head back for him so nicely, like he's enjoying it, which makes Eddie's brain turn to absolute mush. And then the bastard starts reading Tolkien, which makes the mush turn into even mushier mush. He's never been so completely wrong about someone before—Steve is so much more than he could've ever imagined, and the nights they spend together after the others leave are the only thing keeping him from spiraling, from going off the deep end from how hard it is to pretend that everything is fine, that this little vampire daycare they've put him in is fun for him and not scary at all. 

There's also the matter of the Upside Down. Nancy and Jonathan think he should go up there. Or down there? Lucas does, too, making hints every time he's around about how if Eddie came back Max can, too, and that Eddie should be doing more to make that happen. Eddie can feel it beckoning him, cold fingers that trail down the back of his neck and grab at him, like he doesn't belong in this world, anymore, but that's bullshit, he belongs whenever the fuck he chooses, thanks. He's afraid of what could happen if he goes back. What if he actually does sprout wings and a tentacle-tail? What if Vecna uses him to wake up, to regain some of his power? It's fucking terrifying. 

What's also terrifying is the look on Nancy and Jonathan's faces right now.

"Wrong how?" Steve asks, already grabbing his keys to go. 

"Her vitals are messed up, she's having trouble holding on." Jonathan says. "We need Eddie." 

Eddie has a very bad feeling about this. "You need me?"  

Nancy nods, her delicate jaw clenched. "It might be our only shot." 

They have to sneak Eddie into the hospital, which requires a giant hoodie for him to hide his hair under and keeping his head down, holding onto Steve's arm to keep from bumping into anybody. It's the first time he's been in public since his little foray into undeath, and it's incredibly overwhelming, this many heartbeats and discussions and noises rattling around in his ears loud enough to make his head hurt. He's better at controlling his senses now, less difficult now that he's been drinking Steve's blood and getting more sustained nourishment, but this is still a lot, especially since he can't stop thinking about the implications of it might be our only shot, which he's trying to pretend doesn't mean what he thinks it means. 

When they get to Max's room her doctor is there, the one the government lady had assigned them so that they have someone who actually knows what happened to Max. 

He doesn't look up at them, just keeps fiddling with the machine she's hooked up to, glasses sliding off of his nose. It's beeping very slowly, her pulse too far apart to be normal, and she looks deathly pale. "What's going on?" Steve asks, brushing to stand next to Lucas and the rest of the kids, who are all panicking around her, calling her name and holding her hands and trying to get her to wake up.

"Her heart is failing." The doctor says, oddly calm for someone surrounded by so much chaos. 

"Well, get a defibrillator!" Steve shouts, but Lucas shakes his head frantically. 

"We can't! He says it won't work!"

"Not on something like this." The doctor says. "It isn't just her heart. That place…it has her."

"It has her?" Mike asks. "What the fuck— hell— does that mean?" 

"It's true." El says. "I can't feel her here. She might be… there." 

"Can you go in after her?" Steve asks, but she just frowns, eyebrows knit. 

"I have tried. I can not keep her alive for much longer if she is not here." 

"So what do we do?" Steve asks, turning to Nancy. "Nance? Anything?" 

She shoots a guilty look at Eddie. "Lucas has an idea." 

Lucas moves to stand in front of Eddie, imploring. "You have to bite her."

"I have to— what?" He looks anxiously at the doctor, but he's barely reacting, still fiddling with the machine. "No!"

"You have to!" Lucas says, grabbing his wrists in a vice-grip. "She's going to die if you don't!"

"I'm not going to kill her or even worse!" Eddie says, trying to yank his arms back as panic surges through him. "I can't do that!" 

"It works on the mice, Eddie, it works on the mice, please!" Lucas sounds desperate, broken, and Dustin moves to stand next to him. 

"Eddie. You have to." 

Eddie rubs his hands down his face, only realizing he's been backing up when his back finds the wall. "I can't bite her, I can't do that." 

"Dude!" Dustin says, reaching up to slap him. "Do you remember Vladislav's Horrors?"

Eddie flinches. "What?"

"The campaign we played! Do you remember?"

Eddie tries to pull the details from the depths of his brain. "Y-yeah."

"And do you remember what happened to my level ten druid? When he was dying from a sword to the heart?"

"He…he chose to become a vampire."

"That's right. Because it was the only way to save the character. And right now, this is the only way to save Max, okay? We have to try!"

Eddie scrubs at his face, frustrated. "Um, doc? What do you think?" 

"I don't really know what your whole deal is, but if you think it could save her, it's probably your only option." He says, taking a step back from the machine, which is down to beeping once every eight seconds, Max's heartbeat barely there. 

Eddie curses, pulling the hood away and moving to sit next to Max. He's trying to be calm about this, to understand that it's the only thing he can do to help, but his brain is screaming at him that he's attacking a defenseless teenage girl, that he's going to kill her. His breathing feels shallow and he wavers over her, lightheaded, but he feels a hand land on his shoulder. He looks up to see Steve, looking at him like he has nothing but faith in him. "You can do this." He says, quiet enough for only Eddie to hear. "I've got you." 

Eddie shivers, nods, turns to gently tilt Max's head back. He can do this. Steve has him. 

He sinks his fangs into her neck, drinking for a long, long time. It feels oddly instinctual, like he knows exactly when to stop, when to lift his wrist to his fangs and bite, for how long to press his wrist to Max's mouth, who splutters and chokes at first before she starts to swallow. 

Everybody is deathly silent, probably horrified by what they're seeing. Eddie finally pulls his wrist back and lets it heal closed. Max's heart monitor starts beeping like crazy, loud and urgent, before it gives one long, sustained beep, going silent.

Eddie staggers backwards, eyes wild. He can't focus on anything, can't hear beyond the rush in his ears, the gasps from his friends, the way they all rush to her side, the voice in his head saying youkilledheryoukilledheryoukilledher. "What—I didn't—" 

"Eddie, it's okay, she has to—" Steve starts to say, but Eddie doesn't stick around to listen, turning on his heel and running. He runs until he finds an empty room, the bed looking like it was recently in use and the tv still on, set to the news. He presses his hands to his mouth, trying desperately to breathe but only getting in short, shallow breaths that make his head swim. He thinks he's saying something, something like fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck but he can't tell, everything around him swimming. He's a fucking monster, is what he is, the kids are never going to look at him the same, he took their friend from them, he knew it wouldn't work, that a human isn't the same as a mouse. He startles when he hears his name, turning to make sure none of them have come after him, but he realizes that it came from the TV, where a newswoman is narrating over a picture of him. All he catches are the words "cultist" and "ritualistic murders" before he can't even think anymore, turning and running from the room, through the halls, not stopping to think. All he does is run, in the end. He always runs. 

He doesn't stop running until he's so exhausted he's barely stumbling forwards, the hospital far behind him and the familiar darkness of the trailer park in front of him. He doesn't stop at old Betsy's, though, just keeps walking until he gets to the run-down doorstep of his old trailer. He's going home. 

⚰

When Eddie falls into the Upside Down, again, it feels like relief. Like he can finally breathe again, like the dark, lightning-filled sky has been calling him home. He has more energy, all of a sudden, the bone-deep exhaustion and terror melting away for a little while, the damp, ashy air folding him into its arms, whispering that he's safe here, that he's where he belongs, where monsters belong. 

He doesn't stay in his trailer, just steps right through the door into the darkness and keeps going until he's in the woods and surrounded by giant, dark, craggy trees. The demobats don't attack him, they just perch on the branches and blink at him eerily from the darkness, like he's one of them. Which he is, of course. 

He doesn't know where he's going or why, can scarcely think, just walks until he feels like he's in the heart of the woods and then sinks to the spongey earth, his knees in the dirt, his back against a tree. He doesn't think, doesn't speak, doesn't try to entertain himself, just shuts his eyes and listens to the world around him, his senses buzzing like they're in the right frequency. He can hear the lightning striking, the wind blowing, the chitinous sounds of the earth underneath him, which is itself alive. He can hear the bats squeaking so clearly that he almost thinks he can understand what they're saying, what they mean. This place is weaker than it was, the bats lacking in the kind of numbers or power they had before, the world itself slowly bleeding out, but it's all still here, all still alive, just like him. 

He's exactly where he should be.  

Eddie does eventually have to move. He's not sure how long it's been, hours or days, just that he finally wants to sleep, to curl up somewhere dry and dark and knock out for as long as possible. He doesn't go back to the trailer park, just walks further until he finds a familiar old, run-down cabin. Hopper's place. He hopes it has a fold-out couch. 

It does, so he folds himself up and takes in his hazy surroundings in a daze, the familiar shapes of cardboard microwavable dinner boxes alien to him, unnatural in a way that the trees and the sky and the hungry, crumbling dirt aren't. He feels safe in the couch, though, a monster wrapped up tightly where it can't hurt anybody else, and he lets himself drift away. 

☽

He doesn't know how long it's been when he wakes up, just that it's been a while, long enough for him to feel hungry again, which means it's been at least a week. He also isn't sure what wakes him up, trying desperately to go back to sleep, to forget that he's a being with any kind of consciousness at all, but he can sense something, can feel it through the bats, who he knows are above him, around him, everywhere. There's been an incursion into their territory, and he can feel their agitation, the fluttering of their leathery wings as they barrel towards the rift, the unwanted visitor. 

He groans, getting to his feet and stumbling to the door. There's only one person he knows who'd be stupid enough to come in here after him alone. 

He runs through the trees, the bats above him, and he feels himself moving faster, taking impossibly long leaps over entire stretches of clearing like it's nothing, like instinct is taking over. He gets through miles of woods in no time flat, but he's no match for the bats, who can fly, and he can feel their agitation grow, a kind of rage that makes him dizzy, though it isn't his own. He follows the feeling back to the edge of the treeline right outside the trailer park, where he sees a swarm of them screeching and spiraling in a sentient black cloud over something on the ground. He remembers when he was laying there, his stomach torn open, blood staining the dirt as Dustin held him, and he screams as loudly as he can, charging into the fray and feeling the bats part around him, at his back like they're waiting on his command. 

He sees Steve on the ground, a baseball bat in hand. Dead bats are scattered around him, but the others have overtaken him and are attacking him the way they had that day, when they'd dove into the water to come after him and found him splayed on the ground with his shirt ripped open. Eddie grabs the bat, ready to attack them with it, but he finds that he doesn't need to, everywhere he swings sending the bats fluttering away like the sea itself is parting. He kneels next to Steve, folding his body protectively over his, and the bats all immediately back off, fluttering higher up to surround them instead. "Don't fucking touch him!" He snarls. "You understand?" 

The bats screech at him, moving to create a vortex that surrounds them but leaving an open spot in the middle for them, like they're protecting them both. Eddie doesn't have time to consider the implications of that, pressing a hand to Steve's cheek. Steve blinks up at him, thankfully still awake. His wounds aren't too bad, which they probably have the weakened state of the bats to thank for, and Steve tries to sit up, wincing at the pain. "There you are." He says, reaching a hand out to tug at a long strand of Eddie's hair. "I couldn't find you."

"Why are you here?" Eddie asks. "You can't be here."

"Clearly I can be here, now that I've got the leader of the bat army here to protect me." Steve says, his weak laugh turning into a cough. 

"You're insane." Eddie says. "I'm here for a reason, Steve, I'm a fucking monster, I killed her, you saw it happen—"

Steve just laughs again, shaking his head. "It's almost been two weeks, man." 

"So?"

"So…" Steve reaches out again, gripping his shoulder tightly. "She's been awake since last week." 

"What?" 

"You know that, Eddie." Steve says gently. "You have to die for a few days before you wake up."

"Y-yeah, but that was with mice, not with a person…" Eddie shifts from his knees to fall back onto his hands. "Is she okay?"

"She's…different." Steve says. "But she's okay. Can I…can I take you back?"

Eddie scrunches his face up, leaning away. "I don't know if I should—I mean, I belong here, I'm supposed to be…" 

"You're supposed to be with the people that care about you." Steve says. "Which is in the Right Side Up. We miss you. Max told me to come get you herself, you know why?" 

Eddie feels his heart lurch in his chest. "Why?"

"Because she wants to thank you for saving her life." 

⚰

Eddie insists on having a shower first. Steve sits politely in his bedroom to wait for him while Eddie sits on the floor of the shower and tries to reacclimate to the feeling of being in the Right Side Up, his nerves slowly readjusting to the difference in sights and smells and sounds. He hadn't realized he'd missed it until he's back again, everything (mostly) warm and dry and familiar. There's also Steve, who always makes him feel calmer, like maybe he isn't quite as fucked up as he feels like he is, sometimes. 

He comes out in a towel and rifles through his clothes, sneaking a peak at Steve to see him staring resolutely at the wall. He can hear his heartbeat. Was it always that fast?

He goes back to the bathroom to get dressed, scrubbing at his curls to get them to dry properly and sliding his rings back on. "Alright." He says, shrugging his patchy denim jacket back on. "We can…we can go." 

"You've got nothing to be afraid of." Steve says, bumping his shoulder into his. "You know that, right?"

Eddie feels the tiniest spark of hope relight in his chest. "Whatever you say, Harrington." 

So, they go to the cabin. Eddie doesn't bring his mixtape this time, terrified that the second he steps through those doors everyone will be afraid of him. He stops at the door, taking a breath, and Steve reaches down to squeeze his hand, pulling him through with him. 

"Steve, where have you been?" Nancy says, voice tight with worry. "We've been waiting for you until we can go find Ed—oh my god, Eddie!" Her excitement is immediately replaced by anger. "Steve, you went alone?!"

Eddie can only see Dustin, Mike, El, Nancy, and Jonathan, and he gives an awkward wave from the doorway, one that he can't even finish until Dustin is charging at him to give a punch-hug combo. "Stop doing that!" Dustin says. "Stop leaving!"

"I'm sorry." Eddie says weakly, leaning down to hug Dustin tighter. "I thought that I—"

"You didn't. You saved her." Dustin says, pulling back. "She's with the others doing a supply run because we were all supposed to go get you tonight!"

"Of course he went alone." Jonathan says, looking almost fond. "Of course." 

"Sorry, guys, I had to." Steve says, pushing his hair back. "I didn't want any of the rest of you to get all…" He holds his shirt up, revealing the fresh bat bites. Nancy tsks, coming over to help patch him up. 

"I can't believe you went without me!" Dustin says. "I had an entire plan to save him!"

"Sorry, dude." Steve says, holding his arms up for Nancy to dab at his bites with alcohol wipes. "He didn't need saving, actually, you missed the most badass thing ever, he was, like, commanding the bats and he got them to stop attacking me." He gives Eddie a small smile. "Very Ozzy Osbourne." 

Dustin's jumping up and down like an excited puppy. "Dude, you can control the demobats?"

Eddie forces himself to tear his eyes away from Steve. "Uh, yeah. They recognize me as one of them."

"Can you make them attack?" Mike asks, eyes wide. 

"Yeah, I guess. Or protect."

Mike shakes El excitedly, who laughs. "Vecna won't stand a chance against a superhero and two bat-whisperers!"

She gives a small smile, shaking her head like she thinks Mike's ridiculous. 

"The fangs! The tattoo!" Dustin grabs Eddie's arm, rolling up his sleeve to tap his bat tattoo like he'd forgotten it's there. "It all fits!"

Eddie brushes at his bangs, still slightly incredulous about it all. "I know, dude, it's insane. It's almost like—like—" He trails off, thinks about what he'd told Steve about vampire alignments in D&D, about what chaotic evil might look like, about the bats swirling around them in a sentient black cloud of wings and tentacles and teeth, about them responding to his command. About the way that the Upside Down seemed to welcome him home, about the way he can still feel it everywhere around him, patiently waiting. 

"It is like." Dustin says. "It's straight out of Vecna's Curse!" 

Eddie thinks he should find that cooler than he does, but all he can focus on right now is who brought him back, on why he'd left to begin with. "So, Max is…" Eddie trails off. "Like me?" 

"Yeah." Jonathan says. "...Mostly." 

"Mostly?" 

The door to the cabin pushes open before he can answer, everybody else trailing in. They're all loaded up with supplies, gasoline and flashlights and a whole armload of weapons. "Hopefully this is enough." Robin says. "Vickie thinks we might need even more, but it depends where Steve is—"

She stops dead in her tracks. "Steve! Eddie! Max, you were right!" 

Behind her, Will, Argyle, Lucas, Max, and the girl Eddie is pretty sure is Vickie tumble in all at once. Max is awake, and walking, her eyes a milky grey color that they weren't before. "I knew I could feel you!" She says, face turned towards Eddie but eyes looking past him. 

He's slightly lost for words. "You could feel me?"

"Yeah, around half an hour ago, I could suddenly feel you here." She shrugs. "And I've been able to hear you for the past half-mile, or so." 

"The past half-mile?" 

"Yeah, man, her vampire powers kinda put yours to shame." Dustin says. 

Steve inspects his bandages before pulling his shirt back down, whispering a quick Thank you to Nancy before turning back to Eddie. "Yeah, dude, you're, like, a level twenty vampire, and she's, like, a level thirty."

Eddie blinks at him. "That's not how levels work."

Steve smiles slightly. "Dustin tried to explain it to me but it still doesn't make sense."

"Yeah, we think it's because of my eyes." Max says. "Since I can't use them, I think that the rest of my body has, like, adapted? The vampire stuff has really helped with...everything else."

"It's like bats." Will explains. "They use echolocation to sense things around them."

Eddie has no idea what to say. He wants to apologize, to tell her that he's sorry that he gave her this curse, that he couldn't help her more, that she lost her vision, but she just smiles expectantly, holding a fist up. "I've been waiting to say thank you." 

Eddie's eyes feel wet. "I don't know if I deserve that." 

"You saved me." She says simply. "And that's pretty heroic, if you ask me." She shakes her fist. "Are you going to leave me hanging?"

Lucas holds his up, too. "Thank you, Eddie. It means more than we can tell you." 

Eddie's throat feels tight, but he doesn't leave them hanging, reaching out to give them both fist bumps before they move to the couch to sit with El and Mike. 

"So, did we just get all of these weapons for no reason?" Robin asks, dumping them in a pile on the floor. 

"Pretty much." Nancy says, grimacing. "Sorry, we didn't know he'd go without the rest of us." 

"Dude, you're back!" Argyle says, giving Eddie a wholly unexpected hug that it takes him a second to return. "The vibes were super off without you here!"

"Really?" Eddie asks, squinting through a smile. 

"It was super boring other than getting to watch Max be a badass." Dustin says. "Will and I spent all week trying to teach Steve D&D rules, and you saw how well that went." 

"Hey! I tried!" Steve defends. 

"Steve, you've got two walking D&D encyclopedias right here." Eddie says, reaching out to ruffle Will and Dustin's hair. "If they couldn't teach you, nobody can." 

Will grins, and Eddie is suddenly overcome with affection for everybody around him, getting caught in his throat and making him feel a bit like his chest is going to burst. These fucking people, man. He doesn't know why he ever left. 

Robin drags Vickie over, their hands tightly knit, and she pulls Eddie into another hug. "I missed you." She says. "Vickie had to deal with me talking her ear off about you every day."

"Vickie, I presume?" Eddie asks, reaching out to shake her hand. 

"The one and only!" She says, giving him an enthusiastic handshake. "I like your rings!"

"I like your hair!" Eddie returns. 

"Alright, stop trying to steal my girlfriend." Robin says, swatting playfully at Eddie's hand. 

Nobody else reacts, clearly all used to Vickie's presence and her relationship with Robin. "How much did I miss in two weeks?" Eddie asks, eyebrows raised. 

"Shitloads." Steve says. "Want us to tell you all about it?"

"Yes, please." 

They all talk to him for an hour and a half, explaining what it had been like while waiting for Max to wake up again, the few days of absolute hell until she'd woken up and tried to bite the doctor, who'd told them that they need to take her somewhere calm and dark to recuperate, but that it couldn't be the hospital. They'd taken her to hide in Mike's basement for a week, where she'd slowly learned how to control her hypersensitive senses and move around on her own without bumping into things, which also got a lot easier once they started bringing her 'mouseboxes'.

"We're calling them mouseboxes now?" Eddie interrupts.

"Makes it less gross." Max says. "El suggested it." 

Eddie argues that it makes it more gross, which derails them for at least twenty minutes until they get back on track. 

They still haven't told Joyce and Hopper about how exactly Max woke up, but they both know something is up, especially because Max won't ever eat around them and rarely goes into the sunshine. Everybody knew where Eddie must've gone almost immediately, but they waited until tonight to try and get him because Max insisted on going and they wanted to make sure she felt well enough to come along. Everybody's pretty miffed about Steve going on his own, especially the more that he exaggerates the tale of Eddie "saving him from the demo-bats with sheer Vampiric awesomeness", but they get over it pretty quick. When Jonathan asks Eddie how he spent the past few weeks, Eddie waves a hand. "Oh, you know. Had a nice nap."

"You slept the entire time?" Nancy asks, incredulous. 

Eddie shrugs. "Pretty much." 

"Here I was, worried sick about you, and you were counting sheep!" Steve says. 

Eddie bites down on a smile. "You were worried sick about me, Steve Harrington?" 

He listens for the uptick in Steve's heart, the little hitch in his breath, and sure enough, there it is, Steve's gaze caught on his like he's helpless to look away. Eddie expects him to do what he usually does when he teases him, to tell him to shut up with a dismissive laugh, but Steve just gives him a small smile. "Maybe." 

Max suddenly stands, pulling something out of her pocket. "Okay, I've been waiting all afternoon for this, can I…"

"Is that a tape?" Eddie says. 

Max nods, tapping along the edges of the tape. "Lucas showed me your vampire mix-tape. Listening to it helped me through the first few days." 

"Oh, yeah? What do you think?"

"Pretty good selection." She says. "But I had to make my own version with a better one."

"Oh, really?" Eddie leans forwards to take the tape. "I mean, I don't think you can beat mine, but I'll give it a look." He traces a finger along the scrawled titles, reading them aloud. "Spellbound, Wuthering Heights, This Corrosion, The Killing Moon, No Spill Blood, You're Dead, Sisters of the Moon, Trees and Flowers, Ultraviolence, Nocturnal Me, and Close to Me...yeah, this is a pretty badass mix." 

"Jonathan helped me with it." Max says. "Notice how there's no metal." 

"Oh, I noticed, all right." Eddie says, hands over his heart in mock-despair. "That's a disgrace, Red, that's the one thing it's missing!"

"Steve suggested adding songs by the Thompson Twins." Jonathan says. "So, comparatively, I think it turned out pretty good."

Eddie's mouth drops open. "The Thompson Twins, Steve?"

Steve holds his hands up defensively. "They're catchy! It's not my fault none of you know how to make a catchy mix!" 

"And not a single song from The Lost Boys soundtrack." Robin says. "What gives?"

"Most importantly," Argyle interrupts, "Where's the reggae?"

⚰

They all stay together late into the night,  listening to music and talking about anything and everything for hours. It's obvious that none of them want to part again, staying at the cabin for as long as they possibly can until Joyce calls to let them know that her and Hopper are on their way back. They are going to tell them, Eddie's uncle, too, but everybody's kind of exhausted and don't have it in them to deal with Hopper yelling at them about keeping secrets, especially now that they have a bunch of weapons that they have to hide, so they decide to put it off until tomorrow now that it isn't urgent. 

"Can I spend the night at yours?" Steve asks giving Eddie a significant look. 

"Mine as in Old Betsy's?"

"Mhm. I don't wanna deal with my parents right now. And I figured you might be, um…" His tongue darts out across his lower lip. "Hungry." 

How's Eddie supposed to do anything but agree?

Robin gives them each tight hugs once they leave, whispering something into Steve's ear that makes him flush and shoot a nervous glance at Eddie. 

Into his ear, she whispers "You're welcome."

Eddie tilts his head. "For?"

"For all the psychoanalysis I had to do for him." She wiggles her eyebrows mischievously. "Have a nice night!" 

So, there's that. 

Eddie's not completely inept at picking up on social cues (despite what everybody who knows him might tell you), he knows flirting when he sees it, okay, he's not terrible at it himself, but this is Steve. Steve who has a certain…reputation with the opposite sex. 

But, Eddie supposes, all Steve ever seems to do is prove him wrong. Well, mostly. The Thompson Twins thing is unfortunately exactly what he would've expected, but it's nothing that he can't fix with his record collection and some time. 

He thinks he knows what's coming when Steve rides silently with him back to the trailer park, thinks he can feel it in the air despite everything in his brain telling him that there's no fucking way. 

He can see it in the way Steve sneaks nervous glances at him, in the way he keeps checking his hair in the rearview mirror, in the way he slides his palms over his jeans when they park like he's afraid they're sweaty. 

When they go inside, everything is mostly as he'd left it, his books and music spread out everywhere and the couch folded down. "Um, on the couch?" Steve asks, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. 

"Mhm." Eddie says, letting his voice dip lower. "Maybe you really are under the vampiric thrall of a creature of the night, Steve. You keep offering your tender flesh." He doesn't feel nearly as confident as he sounds doing his stupid fake Transylvanian accent, in fact he feels a little bit like he's going to vomit, but it's easier to make Steve the nervous one, for once, to gorge himself on how easy it is to make his heartbeat speed up, to make his big brown eyes look all melty. 

"Hey, I'm helping you out!" Steve moves to sit down. "You should appreciate it!" 

"I do appreciate it." Eddie says, sobering up and sitting next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Seriously. I'd be…completely lost without you. Probably still sleeping under my old desk." 

"Yeah, well, I'd be bat-bait right now if you hadn't helped me earlier." Steve says. "So I guess we're even." 

"I guess so." Eddie says, gently tilting Steve's head back. Steve lets him, baring his throat, and Eddie feels helpless to do anything but lean in to bite him, eyes shut as the feeling surges through him, the electric rush, the intimacy of Steve giving himself up on purpose, the heady taste of him on his tongue. 

He pulls back the way he always does, when Steve pushes at him, and he needs to take a minute to calm down, dropping his forehead onto Steve's chest and taking a few deep breaths. He feels Steve's hand come up to rest on his back, rubbing up and down, and he can't hold back, anymore, reaching up to wrap his arms around his neck and slowly lifting his head to look at him. Steve isn't looking away, eyes certain as they look at him, and their faces are so close, and this time Eddie feels like the one whose heart is galloping away from him, and he's wondering if it would be totally weird or rude or insane to kiss Steve after he just drank his blood, are there vampire rules for that sort of thing? Or is he technically the first vampire to exist in real life? Oh, shit, that would be badass, wouldn't it?

Steve makes an impatient noise like he can hear Eddie's internal monologue and closes the distance between them, pressing their lips together with the kind of insistence and annoying smoothness that Eddie would expect from someone like him who probably knows all the moves, God damnit, Eddie is completely gone for him, and he wraps his arms even tighter around his neck, pressing himself into Steve instinctually. He twines a hand into the hair at the nape of Steve's neck, and it's exactly as soft as he'd imagined, and Steve seems to like that a lot, cupping his jaw with a hand and stroking a thumb along his cheek, his other hand still rubbing down his back, and Eddie feels like he's on fire, but not in a bad way, not at all. 

Steve, the expert that he is, doesn't pull away for minutes that stretch into longer minutes, and Eddie can scarcely breathe but he can't bring himself to stop, and he makes a truly pathetic noise when Steve pulls at his hair, which makes him do it again and again. The end up laying down next to each other on the rickety old couch as they indulge in each other, and Eddie's never felt hungrier in his life, but not for blood, just for Steve, for the taste of him, the feel of him, the sound of him. All of it. Steve seems fond of kissing along his jaw and neck, which makes Eddie feel like he's going to dissolve entirely. Kissing him with all these new sensory abilities that he's not used to is completely overwhelming, and he has to try very hard to keep any kind of handle on himself. 

When they finally break apart, both of their lips swollen, Steve's lips are slightly red, a little bit of his blood smeared along the edges. "Fuck." Is all Eddie says, his usually sharp senses dull and fuzzy, unable to focus on anything that isn't Steve. 

Steve nods silently, looking a bit like his entire world has shifted on its axis, which does wonders for Eddie's ego. "Fuck."

Later, after they've spent both far too long and nearly not enough doing nothing but kiss and kiss and kiss, Eddie's head is on Steve's chest, his legs pulled up. "Are we a cliché?" He asks, thoughtful. 

"What cliché would that be?" Steve snorts. "Metalhead vampire and…whatever I am?"

"I was thinking creature of the night and blushing maiden." Eddie says, poking Steve in the arm. "Sounds like us, doesn't it?" 

Steve doesn't dignify that with a response, just huffs another laugh, stroking a hand through Eddie's hair (and inevitably getting it caught, which leads to a few minutes of him trying to disentangle it). 

"Is 'creature of the night' a reference to something?" Steve asks once he's finally untangled. "You say that a lot." 

"Oh, man." Eddie says, sitting up. "You haven't seen Rocky Horror, have you?"

Steve shakes his head. "Should I have?" 

"Oh, Steve." Eddie sighs, leaning back against him. "I'm going to show you so much." 

Steve slides a hand under his jaw again, tilting his head up. His eyes gleam. "Promise?"

Eddie grins, showing his fangs. "Promise."