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The air in the radio station break room was always stale, smelling of burnt microwave meals and regret (along with something else he hoped wasn't black mold), but tonight, it was more than usual. It felt alive, suffocating.
Most likely because Eddie Munson was in it.
Steve gripped the edge of the laminated countertop that made up the shitty, leaky kitchenette, his knuckles white as the world warped and shifted around him. He could hear Eddie humming from behind, a discordant tune from some metal album Steve would never listen to, the sound scraping against his nerves like a physical thing.
It had been three weeks. Three weeks since Dustin, weeping and covered in ash, his new aesthetic clashing grossly with the dirt, had led them to the trailer park. Three weeks since they’d found him in the woods,not as a mangled corpse like he should have been or worse, a pile of bones and ripped limbs, but standing in the shadows, pale and confused and… breathing. Or, not breathing, honestly. No, he was something else now.
Vampire. The word was ridiculous, a campfire story that previous Steve - Steve 1.0 that cared about nothing but hot girls and what college he was supposed to ship off to - would have just laughed at, but after inter-dimensional demons and psychic girls and Russians under the mall, it was just another Tuesday.
Eddie was back. Undead. Stronger. Faster. His eyes held a new, faint crimson sheen in the right light, and his smile showed just a hint of too-sharp canines that Steve both wanted to pull out his head and feel against his neck.
It was official. Steve was…Steve was losing his mind.
“You’re gonna cause that sewage filled heap to expose if you keep staring at that counter all night, Harrington.” Eddie’s voice was the same, a little raspy, a little theatrical. It made something in Steve’s chest twist violently. “Are you seriously going to spend another 5 hours ignoring me or are you finally going to tell me what’s got your panties in such a twist?”
That was it. The final thread snapped.
Steve whirled around. “Don’t.”
Eddie leaned against the termite filled doorframe, arms crossed, looking infuriatingly calm for someone who was meant to be rotting flesh and bones “Don’t what? Don’t exist? A little late for that, man.”
“You know what!” Steve’s voice cracked. He jabbed a finger at him. “You with your… your fucking hero act! Do you have any idea? Any idea what he went through?”
Eddie’s playful expression faded. “Dustin.”
“Yes, Dustin!” Steve exploded, taking a step forward. The small room seemed to shrink. “He carried you! He held you while you bled out in that shit-hole otherworld! He had to leave your body there, Eddie! He had nightmares for months. He still wakes up screaming sometimes, did you know that?!”
“Steve-“ Eddie started, his voice low.
“No! You don’t get to ‘Steve’ me!” The man snarled.” You don’t get to come waltzing back with your new fangs and your new strength and act like it’s all a big joke! He mourned you! We all did!”
“I didn’t exactly choose this, you know,” Eddie shot back, a flicker of anger in his crimson-tinged eyes.
“I don’t care!” Steve yelled, the words tearing from his throat raw and painful. “I don’t care how it happened! All I see is what it did to my kid! He’s one of my best friends; he thought the world of you and still does! You don’t just get to be here, alive, and not see that he’s still hurting!”
He was chest-to-chest with Eddie now, vibrating with a rage so potent he was shaking with it. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to physically destroy everything around him, just like…like…
Eddie just looked at him, his expression unreadable as it had been for a while now, before with a movement too fast for Steve to track, he reached behind him, a twist and a sharp click following.
Steve glanced over. Eddie had just deadbolted the break room door from the inside.
“What are you doing?” Steve snarled.
“What I should have done weeks ago,” Eddie said, his voice dangerously calm for someone who could possibly kill Steve in several ways both cryptid and not, pocketing Robin’s keys that Steve had taken that afternoon. “We’re not leaving this room until you get it all out.”
“Get what out? I’ve got nothing to say to you!”
“Bullshit,” Eddie said softly, meeting Steve’s chest wall where it was still pressed firmly against his own. “You’re a pressure cooker Harrington and I’m tired of waiting for you to blow. So do it. Do it now. Hit me. Yell. Trash the place. I can take it. Literally.”
It was permission as much as it was a challenge and Steve, so full of fury and grief and a terrifying, shameful relief he refused to acknowledge, broke.
He didn’t hit Eddie first, despite readying himself to do so for a full minute and calculating just where it would be easier to hit a vampire where it hurts somehow.
Instead, he turned and swiped his arm across the counter, sending a coffee maker, a stack of files, and a half-eaten bag of chips crashing to the floor. He grabbed a chair and slammed it against the wall, the plastic shell cracking with a satisfying crunch. He kicked the fridge, leaving a dent in the door, his shouts raw and incoherent.
“You selfish son of a bitch! You left him! You left me to pick up the pieces! I had to hold him while he sobbed! I had to tell him it was going to be okay when it wasn’t! It wasn’t okay! You were gone!”
He finally turned on Eddie, all that chaotic energy funneling into a single target. He threw a wild punch. Eddie didn’t dodge. Steve’s fist connected with his jaw with a sickening thud. It was like punching a brick wall. Pain shot up Steve’s arm, but he didn’t care. He hit him again in the chest, again, again, his blows becoming weaker, more desperate.
“You were supposed to be careful! You were supposed to run away! That was the whole stupid plan! Why didn’t you just run?!”
His fists unclenched. He wasn’t punching anymore, he was grasping at Eddie’s jacket, clinging to the worn denim and leather, his forehead resting against Eddie’s chest. The anger evaporated as suddenly as it had ignited, leaving a void so vast and dark that Steve felt himself falling into it and becoming consumed like the Upside Down had done to so many of them.
The sobs that wracked his body were silent at first, awful, shuddering things. Then the sound came, a broken, gut-wrenching cry of pure grief he’d been choking on for a year, maybe more. He sank to his knees, dragging Eddie down with him, his body finally surrendering to the weight of it all.
He cried for Dustin’s broken heart. He cried for the nightmares. He cried for the Eddie he’d thought was gone forever, the loud, annoying, secretly brave freak who’d grown on him despite himself. He cried for the relief he felt every time he saw him, a feeling so guilty and overwhelming it had curdled into rage.
“I’m sorry.” He choked out, his face buried in Eddie’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so sorry.”
Strong arms encircled him, holding him together as he fell apart. Eddie held him tightly, his grip firm and unyielding, an anchor in the storm.
“Shhh, big boy. It’s okay.” Eddie murmured into his hair, his voice a low, soothing rumble. “I’m sorry too. I’m so sorry I put you through that. I’m sorry I put him through that. I never wanted…I never meant for any of this.”
Steve clutched at him, his tears soaking into Eddie’s shirt. They stayed like that on the floor of the trashed break room, surrounded by the wreckage of Steve’s grief before slowly, the violent sobs subsided into shaky breaths and then, deep ones that felt like a man no longer drowning, but just keeping their head above water.
Only when Steve’s grip loosened a fraction did Eddie pull back just enough to look at him. As he half expected, the brunette’s face was blotchy and tear-streaked, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. He looked utterly wrecked, he looked fucking beautiful.
“There he is.” Eddie whispered, a soft smile touching his lips. He brushed a thumb under Steve’s eye, wiping away a tear. “There’s the Steve Harrington who cares so damn much that it breaks him.”
Steve let out a wet, shaky breath. His eyes flickered down to Eddie’s lips, then back up. The space between them, once charged with hostility, now hummed with something else entirely. Something terrifying and electric and long-suppressed.
Eddie leaned in slowly, giving him every chance to pull away.
Steve didn’t.
The first kiss was tentative, a soft press of lips, a question, tasting of salty tears, cigarette smoke and forgiveness. Then Steve’s hands came up, tangling in Eddie’s wild hair, pulling him closer and the kiss deepened, becoming desperate and hungry, pouring a year of unsaid things, of grief and rage and Relief with a capital R into each other’s bodies and filling them up with lightness that they hadn’t felt in several years.
It was messy, but for them, it was perfect.
Eddie’s fangs were careful against Steve’s lips, a strange new sensation that should have been frightening but was just…Eddie. Eddie Munson, here, alive, somehow. Steve just poured all his apology, all his aching gladness, into it.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, foreheads resting together, the broken room felt entirely new.
“Took you long enough to make a goddamn move, Harrington.” Eddie breathed, a genuine, bright grin spreading across his face. “Thought you were going to turn yourself into a spinster.”
Steve huffed a weak, watery laugh. “Shut up, Munson.”
Then, he kissed him again.