Chapter Text
Spring 1986
With a gasp, Eddie collides onto the thin mattress below him, blearily blinking up at the jagged portal pulsing above. The heavy vest around his torso absorbs most of the impact, but the sudden movement knocks the breath out of him as the torn gashes in his thighs and neck pull painfully.
His skin is clammy and for one muddled moment, Eddie thinks his body is wet and that the red of the portal is the crimson lightning flashing through the Upside Down skies.
However, he sees a shift of movement above as Steve tugs on the rope made out of linen and Eddie’s disorientation steadies into a wash of relief: he’s made it out, alive and in the right side up.
“Help me grab him, we need to move so Steve can come through,” Nancy instructs, and Eddie shifts to see her and Robin bending to grasp him under the arms, even as Dustin hovers nervously nearby, wobbling on his injured leg.
That’s right: the bats, and they’ve just kicked Vecna’s ass too, taking him down and saving the goddamn world. Eddie grins loopily up at Robin, “We’re superheroes.”
She grins back, settling him against the couch with a grunt, “Damn straight.”
Their high five is a bit wobbly, but it’ll do; almost in unison, they look up to see Steve dithering with the rope on the other side, still tugging on it with a distracted look.
“Hey dingus,” she yells, “get a move on.”
Yes, move it, Eddie thinks more soberly, a sense of urgency rising at every moment that Steve delays.
Vecna may be dead and banished to the realms of whatever hell he deserves, but Eddie’s not going to feel at peace until he has Steve safe and unharmed by his side. He needs to put his hands on him, just once to assure himself that this version of Steve is finally out of harm’s way.
Steve looks up sharply at Robin’s voice, shock rippling over his features as he stares back at them before suddenly breaking into a broad, relieved smile. Eagerly, he jumps high up onto the rope in an athletic display of his prowess.
“Oh, he’s definitely going to expect us to applaud that,” Robin snickers, the weariness about her body briefly easing as she enjoys her friend’s antics. Eddie’s lips twitch: Steve can be a bit of a show-off when it comes to flaunting his jock strength.
As if he can hear Eddie’s thoughts, Steve tilts his head up to look through the portal once more, hovering before touching the gate. His teeth flash in one final grin as he stretches to fall through the unnatural breach between worlds.
Yet the portal never claims him. The space above the mattress next to Eddie remains vacant and, as the three of them continue to stare up into the empty Upside Down trailer, all they can see is the dirty linen rope swaying absently above.
In an all too familiar blink of an eye, Steve has disappeared.
Robin visibly falters next to Eddie. “Where’d he go?” she asks in a small, bewildered voice.
Dustin’s eyes widen fearfully and his head snaps to Eddie, looking for confirmation. Eddie is unable to meet his gaze, jaw clenching as he focuses on that damned rope, its fading rhythm counting down every second that Steve has left like a cursed metronome.
“Steve?” Nancy calls, cupping her hands to her mouth as if he had simply fallen back to the floor and rolled away.
But Robin shakes her head and continues shaking it as Steve remains missing, “No, no, no. What happened? He was right there! Nancy,” she turns to the other girl desperately, “is there some sort of transporter? Like beam me up, Scotty in the Upside Down?”
Nancy reaches her hands out to stop Robin’s wild gestures, pulling her shaking hands down. “It’s okay, we’ll find him,” she hastily attempts to reassure Robin. “It may be some weird interdimensional thing, maybe he came out through one of the other gates. He can’t have gone far,” Nancy reasons, “we’ll search for him.”
“Don’t bother,” Eddie rasps tiredly, the weariness in his bones weighed down by one long week of hell preceded by two unexplained years of time fuckery.
Dustin’s eyes haven’t left Eddie’s face since Steve disappeared, but now Robin and Nancy’s gazes fly to him too.
“What do you know, Eddie?” Nancy asks cautiously, frowning. spring break has taught him that Nancy Wheeler doesn’t do well with not having all information on hand. Robin looks increasingly anxious too, shifting on the balls of her feet even as she sporadically glances back up at the gate like Steve will reappear at any moment.
“Steve’s gone,” Eddie scrubs a hand down the filth covering his face, the ash of the Upside Down and blood from his injuries smearing into a nauseating mix. “He’s gone back in time,” he clarifies.
Robin makes a small, broken sound but Eddie can only look up at the gate, watching the pulsing crimson of the wide maw that started all this. “He’s gone back to me.”