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Eddie dies.
They save the world again.
Life goes on. For some of them, at least.
One day, Wayne comes to see Steve and hands him the keys to Eddie's van asks him to keep it for “that Dustin kid or something” but he just can't handle seeing it anymore.
The junker sits on the Harrington driveway for weeks before Steve finally gets in it, head swimming with the rush of the scent of Eddie; leather, weed, cheap cologne. The same scent that had lingered on the vest Eddie had thrown at him, until one day, Steve had brought it to his face, overwhelmed with guilt and missing the other man only to discover the aroma had faded into nothing.
Just like the public’s memory of Eddie.
Steve wants to back out the van, to shut it up, leave it a tomb, but he didn’t get where he is today - semi-permanently concussed and semi-reluctant brother/father figure to the most obnoxiously amazing group of kids he knows - by running away.
Even when he probably should.
He knows he could leave it for another day, hell another year; he's got some time before Dustin can learn to drive, and longer still before Steve lets him drive a fucking deathtrap of a van but he figures he should clean it out, make sure there's nothing illicit in it when he hands the keys over.
God knows those kids will find a way to get in the van earlier.
Besides, its not like it’s gonna get any easier. It’s been six months since Eddie died. Since the trio had returned to the trailer to find Dustin hunched over the body that had once been Eddie Munson and the wound it had torn into Steve's chest was as raw and weeping as ever.
It had taken everything in all three of them to get Dustin to let him go, to step away, to leave Eddie behind, but with the ‘rope’ to the gate at the trailer cut, they had no way of getting Eddie’s body through. It was going to be hard enough to get themselves back, given the state of Dustin’s ankle.
A couple joints so old they probably no longer qualify as such find their way into Steve’s pocket anyway, and a blanket that reeks of mildew is tossed in the garbage before Steve finds a cassette tape under the driver's seat. Out of curiosity, and the need to drown out the thoughts of Eddie that he can’t push out of his mind, Steve pops it in the deck and turns the ignition.
He’s nearly blasted into the back of the van at the volume and he has to clamber up to try and turn it down. When he looks up out the windshield, his grip on the pleather seat slips and he falls into the back again. Slowly, he peeks over the seat in utter disbelief and not a little fear that all the blows to his head had finally done permanent damage.
Because instead of his driveway and the red brick of his house, Steve finds himself staring at the smoking ruins of Starcourt Mall.
Which means its July 5th 1985.
Movement to the left catches Steve's eye and when he turns his head, the sight makes his blood freeze. Standing just outside the truck, staring at the ruins is one Eddie Munson, alive, unscarred. No blood is pouring from his neck and side. Instead of a second-rate spear made by Erica, a cigarette hangs from his fingers. A breeze has caught his hair, fanning it into a frizzy halo around his head and regardless of the Summer temperatures, he’s clad in both leather jacket and vest.
Throwing his hand out to bang against the window, to get Eddie’s attention, to do something, Steve somehow knocks the eject button on the tape, the music stops, and in a blink he's right back where he started, staring at the unwelcoming emptiness of his own home, the silence defeaning. With a trembling hand, and more hope than expectation, Steve pushes the tape back in, the music starts, and there's Eddie, ten feet away, healthy, whole, and weeks away from having to start 12th grade for the third time.
Unsure what he’d say, what he’d even do, Steve just stares at him in shocked silence, the music blaring out but the moment the final ear-splitting note whines to silence, once more he’s cast back to 1986 and a world without Eddie.
Unwilling to question it, uncaring of the how, all Steve can think of is that the music can take him to a time Eddie is alive.
Which means there's time.
Time to fix everything that went wrong, time to keep Eddie out of the ground, time to keep Dustin from becoming a ghost, time...time for Steve to not run away this time, not from what - who - he really wants.
Steve can fix things.
One metal song at a time.
He just might make a few mistakes along the way