Dont look at me ! @probablyin-bed - Tumblr Blog

Jul 19

when its cold, id like to die

pairing: eddie munson x you

w/c: 7450

summary: eddie munson lived through the upside down but he wasnt supposed to. you and dustin just refused to leave him behind. the hard part wasn't getting him to safety or dealing with a town split in 4-- the aftermath of living and being in a coma-- thats the hardest part.

warnings/tags: angst, grief, stranger things level violence, injury, blood, eddie lives, happy ending

masterlist

The Upside Down didn’t want to let you go.

It pulled at your boots with every step, vines twitching like they were tasting the air for fresh blood. Red lightning split the sky in jagged veins, and the floating particles stuck to the sweat on your face, your neck, your shaking hands. You and Dustin had been running since the moment you heard the first distant screech—too long, too far, too late already.

“Faster!” Dustin’s voice cracked as he sprinted beside you, curls plastered to his forehead. His spear was clutched so tight the wood creaked. “He said he’d buy us time, not—he’s not supposed to be the one who—”

“He’s not dying,” you cut in, the words raw and furious. Your lungs burned. Every breath tasted like copper and rot. “We get there, we drag his stubborn ass back through the gate, and we get him to a hospital. That’s the plan now. Say it, Dustin.”

Dustin’s eyes were glassy, wild. “We get him back. We get him to the hospital. He doesn’t get to be a hero if it kills him. Not this time.”

The sound hit you before you saw him.

A wet, tearing chorus of wings and teeth. High, chittering screams that made your bones vibrate. And underneath it—Eddie’s voice, hoarse and defiant, breaking into a ragged shout that turned into a cry of pain so sharp it felt like it split your own chest open.

You crested the hill and the world narrowed to a single, horrific point.

Eddie was on his knees in the middle of the street that was more vine than road, surrounded by a living storm of demobats. Dozens. Their leathery wings beat so fast they blurred. One had latched onto his shoulder, another tore at the side of his neck. Blood sprayed with every vicious pull. His denim vest was shredded. The Hellfire shirt beneath was soaked through, dark and clinging. His spear was snapped in two, the jagged end still clutched in one fist like he refused to let go even as they dragged him down.

“EDDIE!”

You didn’t remember deciding to move. One second you were frozen, the next you were charging, spear raised, a scream ripping out of your throat that didn’t sound human. Dustin was right beside you, face twisted with something between terror and pure rage.

“Get off him!” Dustin roared, stabbing upward into the swarm. A bat shrieked and fell, wings twitching. “You don’t get to take him!”

The next minutes were nothing but chaos and blood.

You swung until your arms went numb, until your spear was slick and the bats started turning on the new threats. One clipped your arm hard enough to tear skin— you barely felt it. Dustin took a hit to the side of his head that knocked his vision out for a brief moment but he didn’t stop. You fought like the world would end if you didn’t—because it would. If Eddie died here, something in both of you would break and never come back.

Slowly, horribly, the swarm thinned. Some bats dropped. Others wheeled away into the crimson sky like they’d gotten what they came for. Or maybe the music still faintly thumping from the trailer had finally lost its pull. You didn’t care. You were already dropping to your knees beside the crumpled figure on the ground.

“Eddie—Eddie, look at me—”

He was worse up close. So much worse.

Deep, ragged tears across his chest and arms. A vicious bite on the side of his neck that wouldn’t stop pulsing blood no matter how hard you pressed your hands to it. His face was pale under the grime and red, lips already taking on a bluish tint. But his eyes—those dark, doe eyes—fluttered open when he heard your voice. They found you first. Then Dustin.

A weak, bloody smile ghosted across his mouth.

“Hey, Henderson… told you… to get the hell out…” His voice was wet, bubbling. “And you… brought backup? Knew you were… smart…”

“Shut up,” Dustin choked, already yanking off his hoodie, pressing it hard against the worst wound on Eddie’s side. His hands were shaking so badly the fabric slipped. “Don’t you dare joke right now. We’re fixing this. You hear me? We’re fixing it.”

You tore the bottom of your own shirt into strips with your teeth, tying one tight around Eddie’s upper arm where a bite had hit something important—blood was spurting too fast. Your fingers slipped in the warmth of it. Too much. God, there was too much.

“Pressure,” you said, voice cracking but steady enough. “Keep pressure. We have to move him. The gates not far—if we cut through the edge of the woods—”

“Woods?” Dustin’s laugh was half a sob. “There aren’t woods anymore, there’s just—Jesus, he’s losing too much blood. What if we move him and it gets worse? What if we can’t stop it and he—”

“Then he dies here,” you snapped, sharper than you meant to. The fear made your voice shake. “He dies in this shithole because we were too scared to try. That’s not happening. Help me get him up. Now.”

Eddie groaned when you and Dustin hauled him between you, one arm over each of your shoulders. His weight nearly buckled your knees. His boots dragged, leaving dark smears on the ash-gray ground. Every step jarred a fresh sound out of him—half gasp, half whimper—and it carved something hollow into your chest.

“Easy,” you murmured, close to his ear, trying to keep your voice from breaking. “We’ve got you. Just stay awake. Yell at us if you have to. Call us idiots. Anything.”

“‘M… not… an idiot,” Eddie slurred, head lolling against your shoulder. His blood was soaking through your clothes now, warm and sticky and terrifying. “Just… really… bad at running away. Told you… I didn’t run this time…”

"Yeah, well, you’re gonna run with us now,” Dustin said fiercely, tears cutting clean tracks down his dirty face. “All the way back to the real world. Then you’re gonna let doctors poke you and you’re gonna complain about the food and you’re gonna live, Munson. You got that?”

Eddie tried to laugh. It came out as a wet cough that flecked more blood across his lips. “Bossy… little shit…”

“Damn right I am.” Dustin’s voice cracked again. He adjusted his grip, nearly stumbling over a twitching vine that reached for the blood trail they were leaving. “You think I’m letting you check out after everything? After you made Hellfire feel like home? After you let me be your friend even when I was just some kid? No. Not happening.”

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat threatening to choke you. The gate was visible now—a jagged, pulsing wound in the ground ahead, the membrane between worlds thin and wrong and the only way out. Every step toward it felt like the Upside Down was trying to drag you back, to keep its prize.

“He’s fading,” you said quietly, just loud enough for Dustin to hear. Your arm under Eddie’s was screaming from the strain. “His pulse is… Dustin, we have to go faster.”

“I know.” Dustin’s face was set, terrified, determined. “Eddie—hey—remember that campaign you said you were gonna do after Vecna? The last hurrah before graduation? We can't do that without our dungeon master. So you better pull through this shit and maks it happen.”

Eddie’s fingers twitched against your shoulder, weak but there. “You… do it… Henderson. You’re… gonna be… better than me…”

“Bullshit,” you whispered fiercely. “You’re not allowed to say goodbye like that. We’re not doing goodbye. We’re doing ‘see you in the hospital, asshole.’ Got it?”

The gate loomed closer. Ten yards. Five. The air around it hummed like a live wire, smelling of ozone and something metallic and wrong.

“On three,” you said. “We go through together. Don’t you let go of him, Dustin.”

“Never,” Dustin answered, voice thick.

Eddie was barely conscious now, mumbling something about Wayne and Corroded Coffin and how he was sorry he was such a freak. You and Dustin answered at the same time, overlapping, desperate.

“You’re our freak.”

“You’re the best one we’ve got.”

“On three. One… two… three—”

You pushed through the gate as one.

The sensation was like being dragged through freezing, burning jelly that clung and tore and finally—finally—let go. Normal air hit your lungs like a slap. The sky above was dark velvet scattered with real stars. Distant sirens wailed somewhere in Hawkins. The ground under your feet was solid, ordinary asphalt instead of ash and rot.

You and Dustin lowered Eddie carefully to the ground just on the other side of the gate, both of you breathing like you’d run miles. His eyes were closed now, but his chest still rose—shallow, stuttering, but there.

“We did it,” Dustin whispered, staring at the blood on his hands like he couldn’t believe it was real. “We got him out. We actually—”

“He’s not safe yet.” You were already pressing fresh pressure to the neck wound, your own hands trembling now that the adrenaline had somewhere to go. “Hospital. We need a car, a phone, anything. Flag someone down or—”

Headlights cut through the dark at the end of the street. Maybe one of the others had circled back, or maybe it was pure luck. You didn’t care. You just started yelling, voice raw and cracking.

“Help! We need help! He’s hurt—he’s dying—please!”

Dustin stayed crouched beside Eddie, one hand gripping his friend’s bloody fingers like an anchor.

“You hear that, Munson?” he said, tears dripping onto Eddie’s torn vest. “Help’s coming. You made it. You didn’t run… and we didn’t let you go. So you better fight now. You hear me? You fight.”

Eddie’s eyes didn’t open, but his fingers twitched once against Dustin’s—weak, but there.

The hospital became your whole world.

The fluorescent lights in the ICU hummed like a living thing, too bright, too steady, nothing like the flickering red lightning you’d left behind in the Upside Down. Eddie had made it through surgery—barely. The doctors used words like “massive blood loss,” “hypovolemic shock,” “he coded twice on the table.” You heard them through a fog, still wearing Dustin’s blood-stiff hoodie over your own torn shirt, your hands and forearms crusted dark red-brown no matter how many times you scrubbed them in the hospital sink.

You didn’t leave. You couldn't.

They tried, at first. A nurse with kind eyes told you visiting hours were over, that family only could stay overnight. Dustin had backed you up with a voice that cracked but didn’t waver—“She’s the reason he’s still breathing. She’s not going anywhere.” After that they stopped asking. A cot was wheeled in. You ignored it. The chair beside Eddie’s bed became yours. You sat with your knees pulled up, one hand wrapped around his where it lay pale and IV-taped against the white sheet, the other resting lightly over the thick bandages on his chest so you could feel the rise and fall, however shallow.

The first night bled into the second. Then the third. The beeping monitors became your heartbeat. Every time his oxygen dipped or the pressure alarm went off, your whole body went rigid until the numbers climbed again. You talked to him when the nurses weren’t in the room. Stupid things, at first—Dustin’s latest Hellfire campaign notes, the way the Party had started leaving little gifts on the windowsill, how the town was rebuilding. Then quieter things. The way his voice had sounded when he told Dustin to run. The way his blood had felt hot and slick between your fingers. The way you’d screamed his name like it could anchor him to the world.

“You don’t get to be the hero who dies,” you whispered one night, forehead pressed to the back of his hand. “Not after everything. Not after you fought. You can't die for this stupid fucking town.”

Lucas found you on the fourth day.

You’d stepped out for the first time in hours—just long enough to pace the hallway and try to remember what air tasted like when it wasn’t filtered through antiseptic and fear. Max’s room was two doors down. Lucas was in the chair beside her bed the same way you were with Eddie— shoulders hunched, one hand holding hers, eyes red-rimmed but dry. He looked up when you passed. Something in your face must have cracked something in his, because he stood, walked out into the hall, and pulled you into a hug that smelled like hospital soap and the faint metallic ghost of the blood you both felt was permanently etched in your skin.

After that, the meetings overlapped.

You and Lucas took turns fetching coffee that tasted too burnt and was always too hot. You sat together in the unnervingly bright family lounge at 3 a.m., trading stories in low voices so you wouldn’t wake the ghosts. He confided in you about the attic, about the way Max had floated and then fallen, the sound her body made hitting the ground. You told him about the demobats, about Eddie on his knees in the street surrounding him like a tornado of destruction, about the way Dustin’s spear had trembled in his hands and how you’d both decided, without speaking, that dying there together was better than coming back without him.

“You're here,” Lucas said one night, staring at the vending machine like it held answers. “With Eddie. Even when it's bad. Even when they said he might not…”

You didn’t answer with words. Just reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He squeezed back. That was the bond. Two people holding the line while the people they loved fought their way back from places that didn’t want to give them up.

The rest of the Party rotated through like clockwork.

Dustin was there every day after school, reading Eddie the new campaign he was working on. Mike brought comics and tried to make jokes that fell flat but made you smile anyway. Will sat quietly and sketched Eddie’s sleeping face, capturing the sharp line of his jaw and the way his hair fanned across the pillow like he was still on stage. Eleven stood at the foot of the bed for long stretches, eyes closed, like she was listening for something only she could hear. Steve and Robin brought food you mostly didn’t eat and sat on either side of you like bookends, Robin rambling about nothing until the silence stopped feeling like it was going to swallow you whole. Nancy came when she could— she didn’t say much, but her hand on your arm was steady.

Hopper showed up on the sixth day.

He filled the doorway like he always had—broad, gruff, eyes that had seen too much and still kept looking. Joyce was with him, carrying a thermos of actual decent coffee. He waited until Lucas had stepped out to check on Max, until the nurses had done their checks and left you alone with the steady beep of Eddie’s heart monitor.

“Kid,” he said, voice low. “I need you to hear this.”

You turned, still holding Eddie’s hand.

Hopper rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s done. The feds, the local PD, the whole goddamn mess. I called in every contact I had left from… before. Evidence got lost. Witnesses changed their stories. The official line is that Eddie Munson was a victim of the same shit that took Chrissy and the others—some kind of freak storm or gas leak or whatever the hell they’re spinning this week. His name’s clear. When he wakes up, he walks out of here a free man. No cuffs, no questions.”

Joyce stepped forward and pressed the thermos into your free hand. Her eyes were wet. “He’s going to wake up,” she said softly. “They both are. We don’t lose our people. Not this time.”

You nodded because your throat had closed. Hopper squeezed your shoulder once—rough, grounding—then left you with the coffee and the news and the man in the bed who still hadn’t opened his eyes.

The crash came on the afternoon of the eighth day.

It had been quiet. Too quiet. Lucas had taken Max’s mom to the cafeteria. The Party was at school or work or pretending to have normal lives for a few hours. The nurses had just left after changing Eddie’s dressings— you’d seen the raw, stitched edges of the worst bite on his neck, the way the skin around it was still angry and purple. You’d helped, holding the basin, murmuring nonsense to him the whole time like he could hear you.

Now the room was empty except for the two of you and the machines.

You sat in the chair, his hand in both of yours, and the weight of everything you’d been holding back for eight days—eight days of blood and screaming and not sleeping and pretending you were fine because Dustin and Lucas and all the kids needed you to be fine—landed on your chest like a demobat latching on.

Your shoulders started shaking first. Then the tears came hot and silent, then not silent at all. You pressed your forehead to the back of his hand, to the calluses still there from years of guitar strings, and the sobs tore out of you like something had finally ripped open.

“Eddie,” you choked, voice wrecked. “Eddie, please. I can’t—I keep seeing it. The way they were tearing at you. The blood on my hands, on Dustin’s face, the way you smiled at us like you were already trying to say goodbye. You weren’t supposed to fucking stay. You were supposed to run and you didn’t and I’m so fucking proud of you and so fucking angry and I can’t lose you now. Not after we dragged you through that gate. Not after Hopper fixed everything. You’re free, you asshole. You get to be free. So wake up. Yell at me. Call me pathetic. Anything. Just—please. Please come back.”

Your tears soaked into the bandages on his wrist. The monitors kept their steady rhythm. The light through the blinds striped the floor in gold and shadow. You cried until your ribs hurt, until your voice gave out, until there was nothing left but the raw, animal sound of someone who had run out of ways to be strong.

And then—

A twitch.

Fingers, weak but deliberate, curling around yours.

You froze.

Another twitch. A shift in the bed. The heart monitor picked up, just a little. You lifted your head, vision blurred, and watched his eyelids flutter like they were fighting through concrete.

“Eddie?”

A low, raspy sound—half groan, half breath. His head turned a fraction on the pillow. Those dark eyes, the ones that had always found you first, cracked open. They were glassy, unfocused, but they found your face. A tiny, exhausted smile ghosted across his cracked lips.

“Hey…” The word was barely air, but it was his voice. Rough. Alive. “Told you… I wasn't going…anywhere.”

Your breath hitched so hard it hurt. Fresh tears—different ones—spilled over as you leaned in, one hand coming up to cradle the side of his face so gently it was like touching something holy.

“You’re here,” you whispered, voice cracking on every syllable. “You’re—you came back.”

His thumb brushed weakly over your knuckles. “Heard you… crying. Couldn’t… let you do that alone.” His eyes drifted shut for a second, then fought back open. “Dustin…?”

“Safe. Everyone’s safe. Hopper—he cleared your name. You’re free, Eddie. You made it.”

The smile got a little stronger, even through the pain and the drugs and the exhaustion carved into every line of his face. “Knew you’d… drag my stubborn ass back.”

You laughed through the tears, the sound wet and broken and the most beautiful thing you’d heard in eight days. “Damn right I did.”

His fingers tightened—just a fraction, just enough—and you felt it all the way down to the marrow. The machines kept beeping. The light kept falling in stripes across the bed. Somewhere down the hall, Lucas was probably sitting with Max, and the Party was probably arguing about who got to bring the next round of terrible hospital food, and the Upside Down was still out there, still hungry.

But here, in this room, Eddie Munson was awake.

And you were still holding his hand.

The healing was slow, brutal, and beautiful in the way only survival could be.

The first week after Eddie woke was the hardest. He was weak, voice wrecked from unuse, body a map of stitched-together ruin. The demobat bites had torn deep—jagged across his chest, one vicious tear along his ribs that had nicked something important, another high on his neck that still pulsed dangerously close to the artery. The doctors kept saying “miracle.” You kept saying his name like a prayer every time the pain meds wore off and his hand found yours in the dark.

You stayed.

Every night. Every sponge bath the nurses let you help with. Every time they changed the dressings and you saw the raw edges, the way his blood still sometimes welled fresh if he moved wrong. You didn’t flinch. You traced the skin around the wounds with careful fingers while he watched you through half-lidded eyes, something dark and wondering in his gaze.

“You’re still here,” he rasped one night, after a bad dream had him gasping and reaching for a spear that wasn’t there. You’d climbed into the narrow hospital bed without asking, curling carefully against his good side so he could feel your heartbeat. “Even after… everything.”

“I told you,” you whispered against his collarbone, right above a healing bite. “We don’t do goodbye. We do see-you-in-the-hospital-asshole. And now we do see-you-at-home.”

He didn’t answer with words. Just turned his face into your hair and breathed you in like you were the only clean thing left in the world.

The Party became a rotating army of support.

Dustin showed up after school with homework he pretended was his but was really updates on Hellfire and the latest campaign. He and Eddie would argue softly about the story until Eddie’s voice gave out, then Dustin would just sit there, hand on Eddie’s arm like he was still anchoring him through the gate. Mike brought more comics and bad jokes. Ones that Eddie could hear and roast him for even saying. Will would come in with Eleven while she sat quietly and sometimes just… looked at Eddie like she was checking the shape of his soul was still intact. Steve and Robin brought food and conversation and the kind of normal that made the hospital feel less like a tomb. Nancy came with practical things—clothes that weren’t hospital gowns, a new leather jacket the whole party pitched in to buy because the old one was “evidence” now.

Lucas was there too, between shifts with Max. Your bond had deepened into something wordless and necessary. Late nights in the lounge, you’d trade stories—his about when he first met Max, how he owes her a movie date. Yours about Eddie before he joined the party. Sometimes you cried together. Sometimes you just sat in silence until one of you could breathe again. When Max had a good day, Lucas would smile like the sun coming out. When she didn’t, you brought him coffee and didn’t ask him to talk.

Wayne visited twice in those first weeks. The second time, Eddie watched his uncle’s hands shake while pouring water and made a decision he didn’t voice yet. After Wayne left, Eddie stared at the ceiling for a long time before saying, quiet, “He’s already carried enough for me. I can’t put this on him too.”

You didn’t push. You just squeezed his hand and let him come to it in his own time.

The government men came on week three.

Two suits, polite, with nondisclosure papers and a settlement offer that made your eyes widen. Hush money. For the “earthquake.” For the “tragic accident” that had nearly killed all of you. For everything you’d seen and done and bled through. You signed because what else was there to do? The money was obscene. Enough for a fresh start. Enough for the brand-new house on the edge of town you’d bought two weeks later—empty, echoing, with big windows that let in real sunlight and a bedroom big enough for two people who’d almost died in the dark.

You told Eddie about it on a good day, when he was sitting up and the physical therapist had just left him sweating and grinning because he’d walked the length of the hallway without the cane for the first time.

“Government paid out,” you said, casual like you were talking about the weather. “Big settlement. I bought a house. It’s… empty. Brand new. Haven't really had time to decorate.”

He’d looked at you for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes. Then he’d reached out, thumb brushing the scar on your forearm from where a demobat had clipped you during the rescue.

“You understand,” he said. Not a question.

You nodded. “Yeah. I understand.”

He didn’t say anything else that day. But after that, his touches lingered longer. His eyes never seem to have left you.

Two months in, the scars were pink and raised, permanent. The worst of the pain had faded to a dull ache he only noticed when it rained. He could play guitar again, softly, and the first time he managed a full verse of “Master of Puppets” without his hands shaking, the entire Party had cheered so loud a nurse threatened to kick them all out.

The doctor cleared him on a Monday afternoon.

“Rest. Physical therapy three times a week. No lifting anything heavier than a guitar for another month. And if anything feels off—anything—you come back immediately.”

Eddie sat on the edge of the hospital bed in the clothes you’d brought him—soft black jeans, your faded Hellfire shirt, his new leather jacket draped over his shoulders. He looked at you, really looked, and the whole room seemed to narrow to just the two of you.

“I’m not going to Wayne’s,” he said quietly.

You blinked. “Eddie—”

“He’s good. He’s the best. But he’s old, and he’s already buried too many people. If I show up like this he’ll worry himself into an early grave. I won’t do that to him.” He reached for your hand, lacing your fingers together. “But you... You saw the worst of it. You get it. The blood. The dark. The way it still feels like it’s under my skin sometimes. You're my best friend.”

He swallowed, eyes bright and fierce and so full of everything he’d been holding back.

“And that house you bought? It’s empty. Waiting. I want to fill it. With us. With music and bad cooking and the Party crashing in and you yelling at me when I push too hard in PT. I want to wake up every morning and know the person next to me understands what it felt like to almost die in that hellhole and still chose to stay. I want… I want to go home with you. If you’ll have me.”

Your throat closed. The tears came fast and hot, but they were good ones this time. You stepped between his knees, hands gentle on his face, careful of the healing bite on his neck. The space between you feeling too intimate for "just friends" but you don't care.

“Yes,” you whispered. “God, yes. Come home with me.”

The Party helped pack his few belongings from the hospital room. Dustin cried a little and tried to hide it. Lucas hugged you both and said Max would want to hear all about the new house when she woke up. Steve drove you—Eddie in the passenger seat, you in the back with your hand on his shoulder the whole way because neither of you could stand the distance yet.

The house was exactly as you’d left it— too big, echoing, sunlight pouring through windows that had never seen monsters. Empty rooms waiting for life. A big kitchen. A living room with space for a couch and amps. A bedroom with a king bed you’d bought on impulse because it felt like enough room for two codependant people who’d survived the end of the world.

Eddie stood in the middle of the living room, leather jacket still on, looking around like he couldn’t quite believe it was real. Then he turned to you. The sunlight caught the pink edges of the scars on his neck and chest where his shirt dipped low. He looked tired. He looked alive. He looked beautiful.

He crossed the space in three steps and pulled you into him. His face buried in your neck, arms wrapping around your waist like he was anchoring himself to the only solid thing left.

“Home,” he murmured, voice rough with everything he wasn’t saying out loud. “Our home.”

You held him back just as tight, one hand sliding up under his jacket to rest over the worst of the scars on his back. The ones you’d pressed your hands to in the Upside Down. The ones that had almost taken him from you.

“Welcome home, Eddie,” you whispered.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, dark eyes shining with something that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the future stretching out in this empty house—scarred, alive, and finally, finally theirs.

And for the first time since the demobats, the world felt like it might actually let you both keep breathing.

The new house didn’t feel like home right away. It felt like a stage someone had built for people who were supposed to be normal. The walls were too clean. You couldn't hear any of your neighbors fighting. Sunlight poured through the big windows like it was trying too hard, and every room echoed until you started filling them—blankets on the couch, amps in the corner, Eddie’s guitar case propped against the bedroom wall like it had always lived there.

Life was an adjustment.

Eddie still moved like his body was a borrowed thing. Some days the scars pulled tight when he reached for a glass or bent to tie his boots. You helped without making it a thing—steady hands on his ribs when he changed the dressings, thumbs brushing the raised pink lines of the worst bites while he watched you with that dark, unreadable look. Physical therapy at home was brutal some mornings. You counted reps with him, called him a stubborn asshole when he pushed too hard, and wiped the sweat off his temple when he finally let himself rest against you on the living room floor.

The government called it “quarantine protocol.” The military moved into your once quiet town. Walls went up, the fissures in the ground covered up by crude sheet metal to keep the world from learning the truth. The people who stayed in Hawkins officially trapped by a truth no one would believe in.

The kids were a constant.

They showed up in Steve’s car or on bikes, sometimes with Nancy riding shotgun. Dustin was there almost every other day, bringing updates from the rebuilding of the town and working on campaigns here and there. Lucas came when he could, eyes tired from Max’s room but lighter every time he saw Eddie upright and breathing. Mike, Will and Eleven always came together as a trio, the three of them experienced something we'll never understand out in California. Robin and Steve brought weed and any new vinyls they could sneak out of their new jobs at WSQK.

They all tried to keep it light. But one afternoon, a week into the new house, Dustin asked the question everyone had been dancing around.

“So… the coma. Was it like… dreams? Or just black? Did you see anything?”

Eddie went still on the couch, guitar balanced across his lap. His fingers paused on the strings. For a second the only sound was the low hum of the amp. Then he gave that crooked, deflecting smile—the one that used to get him out of detention and never quite reached his eyes anymore.

“Mostly just dark, Henderson. Like someone turned the lights off and forgot to pay the bill. Nothing worth writing songs about.” He ruffled Dustin’s curls and changed the subject to a new campaign idea so fast the kid didn’t have time to push.

You caught the way Eddie’s hand shook later when he reached for his water glass. You didn’t say anything. Just slid onto the couch beside him after everyone left and let him pull you into his side without asking.

That night the nightmare hit like the demobats had never left.

It started with him jerking awake around 2 a.m., a raw, broken sound tearing out of his throat. You were already moving—sleeping at his hospital bed had trained your body to wake the second his breathing changed. He was sitting up, sheets tangled around his legs, hands clawing at his own chest like he was trying to rip the bites off. Tears were already streaking down his face, silent at first, then not silent at all.

“Eddie—hey, hey, I’m here—” You climbed into his lap without hesitation, straddling his thighs so you could frame his face with both hands. His skin was clammy. His eyes were wide and unseeing, still trapped in whatever hell the dream had dragged him back to. “You’re home. You’re with me. The bats are gone. We got you out.”

He folded forward into you with a choked sob, face pressed to your chest, arms locking around your waist like you were the only thing keeping him from falling back through the rift. You held him through the worst of it—rocked him, whispered the same grounding words over and over until his breathing started to hitch less violently. Your fingers carded through his tangled curls, your other hand rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades, careful of the scars but not avoiding them.

When the shaking eased enough for him to speak, you reached for the nightstand without letting go of him. The familiar ritual of rolling a joint calmed something in both of you. The crisp sound of the paper, the flick of the lighter, the first slow inhale he took like it was oxygen. You stayed tangled—legs wrapped around each other, his back against the headboard, your body curled into his chest so he could feel your heartbeat against the worst of the scars. The joint passed between you in the dark.

He was quiet for a long time, just smoking and letting you hold him. Then, voice hoarse and small in a way you’d never heard from him before, he started talking.

“The nightmare was the Upside Down again,” he said, staring at the glowing tip of the joint like it held answers. “Bats. Blood. You and Dustin too far away. Same shit as always.” He swallowed hard. “But the coma… it wasn’t just that. I saw my mom a lot.”

Your hand stilled in his hair, but you didn’t interrupt. You just held him tighter.

“She was happy,” he whispered, and his voice cracked on the word. Fresh tears welled up and spilled over before he could stop them. “Really happy. Sometimes she looked older—like if she’d gotten to live longer, you know? Gray in her hair but still smiling that same smile she has in the old pictures. And sometimes… sometimes I’d see us. You and me. Happy. In love. Like we’d been together for years. You’d be laughing at something stupid I said and I’d have my arms around you and it felt so fucking real I could smell your shampoo.”

He let out a shaky breath, the joint forgotten between his fingers. You took it gently and set it aside, then cupped his face again, thumbs brushing away the tears as they kept coming.

“And then there were the family ones,” he said, voice breaking completely now. “You, me, my mom, and Wayne. All together at some family function—picnic or something in a backyard that looked like it could’ve been ours. And there were these little kids running around. Curly hair. Loud as hell. Laughing. Calling her Grandma and Wayne Grandpa and you… Mom.” A sob tore out of him so hard it shook his whole frame. “They had my hair. Your eyes. I don’t know. But they were ours. And everyone was happy. No running. No monsters. Just… a real family. The kind I never got to have with her when I was little. The kind I never thought I’d get at all.”

He was crying in earnest now—shoulders shaking, face buried in your neck, hot tears soaking into your skin. You wrapped yourself around him completely, one hand in his hair, the other stroking slow lines down his back over the scars that had almost taken him from this future.

“I thought it was just the dark at first,” he choked out. “But it kept showing me that. Over and over. Like the Upside Down was trying to drag me under and something else was showing me what I’d lose if I let it. And now I’m here and you’re real and the house is real and I want it so fucking bad it hurts. I want that with you. The happy. The loud kids. The love that doesn’t have to hide from the world. But I’m scared as hell I’m gonna wake up and it’ll be gone again.”

You didn’t rush to fix it with words. You just held him—tight and steady—while he cried out the grief and the hope and the terrifying, beautiful weight of wanting a future he’d only ever seen in the dark. When the tears finally slowed, you pressed your forehead to his, noses brushing, and whispered against his mouth.

“It’s not gone. It’s right here. We’re building it. One day at a time. You and me. Your mom would’ve loved it. Wayne already does. And I’m not going anywhere.”

He pulled you closer until there was no space left between you, legs tangled, arms locked around each other like the world might still try to take this away. The joint burned low in the ashtray. The new house was quiet around you. But he was still crying—not the sharp, panicked sobs from the nightmare, but the quieter, deeper kind that came from somewhere older and more fragile. His face stayed buried in your neck, arms locked around your waist so tight it almost hurt. His whole body trembled against yours like he was terrified that if he loosened his grip even a fraction, you’d disappear back into the Upside Down with the rest of the dream.

“I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up,” he whispered, voice wrecked and small against your skin. His fingers fisted in the back of your shirt, knuckles white. “Back in that hospital bed. Or worse—still in the street with the bats and the blood and you and Dustin screaming. But then I feel you. Right here. Breathing. And it scares the shit out of me how much I want this to be real.”

You held him just as fiercely, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other stroking slow, steady lines down his spine over the raised scars. “It is real, Eddie. Every single part of it. You made it out of that hellscape. You fought to stay with us. You didn't run away and you're a god damn hero for that. You are so loved Eddie Munson. You have no idea how loved you are. This is real. It's real and its safe and I'm here and I'm not going anywhere.”

A fresh wave of tears hit him. He made a broken sound and pulled you even closer—if that was possible— legs tangled so completely you couldn’t tell where yours ended and his began. His face stayed hidden against your throat like he couldn’t bear to look at you while the words kept spilling out.

“I saw her so clearly,” he choked. “My mom. Happy. Older. Like the universe was giving me back the years we never got. And then it showed me you. Us. You’d look at me like you always do when I was being a dramatic asshole and you’d just… laugh and pull me in anyway. And the kids—those little curly-haired tornadoes calling you Mom and running to Wayne and latching onto his legs like how I used to do. My mom there with all of us like she never had to leave too soon. And I wanted it so fucking bad it hurt worse than the bats ever did.”

Every breath he took shuddered through both of you.

“I almost died without ever telling you,” he rasped. “Without ever saying that I’ve been in love with you since before all of this. Since the day we met. Since I was lucky enough that you decided that I was your person. And now we’re here in this house that feels like it’s waiting for exactly that future and I’m so scared I’m gonna fuck it up or wake up or lose you. I can't lose you.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you. His eyes were red-rimmed, lashes wet, face open and raw in a way you’d never seen from him before. Vulnerable. Terrified. Hopeful. All at once.

His hands came up to cradle your face, thumbs brushing your cheeks like he was memorizing the shape of you in case it vanished.

“So I need to know,” he whispered, voice breaking on every word. “I need to hear you say it again. That this is real. That I’m not still dreaming in that fucking hospital bed. That you’re not gonna disappear when the sun comes up.”

A shaky breath. His forehead dropped to yours, noses brushing, tears mixing between you.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” The words came out small and desperate, like they’d been trapped in his chest. “Please. Officially. I want to call you mine. I want to wake up every morning in this house knowing you chose this—chose me—after everything. After the highschool bullshit. All the times I've made a fool of myself to make you laugh. I can't just go back to being your best friend. I want to live life with you. The family. The fighting. The growing old together. All of it. But I need you to say yes first. I need to know it’s real.”

You didn’t make him wait. Your hands slid into his hair, gentle but sure, and you kissed him once—soft, salt-tasting, full of every promise you’d kept since the moment you dragged him through the gate.

“It’s real,” you said against his mouth, voice steady even as your own eyes burned. “Every scar on your body. Every damn breath in your lungs. This house. It’s all real, Eddie. And I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the day I met you. Yes. God, yes. I’ll be your girlfriend. I’ll be your future. I’ll be anything you want. It’s real. We’re real. And I’m not going anywhere. I love you Eddie. I'll always love you.”

A sound tore out of him—half sob, half relief—and he crushed you to him again, face buried in your neck, arms locked so tight you could feel his heartbeat hammering against your own. He didn’t let go for a long time. Just held you like the world might still try to take this away, breathing you in, whispering broken little thank-yous and I love yous into your skin between the tears that kept falling.

You stayed tangled like that for the rest of the night—his body wrapped around yours, your hands never stopping their slow, grounding strokes through his hair. The dark settled soft around the new house. And somewhere in the quiet, between the whispered promises and the way he kept checking that you were still there, Eddie Munson finally let himself believe that the future he’d seen in the dark wasn’t a trick.

It was waiting for him right here.

In your arms.

Real.