Body Swap
There were things that went bump in the night and then there were things that crawled straight out of a horror film and loomed over your shoulder like a right hook waiting to happen. Steve had been handling it with all the grace of someone who has chronic night terrors but won’t seek help, so, to sum it up, pretty good. For the most part, he's taken it in stride, dragging his baggage behind him like a child throwing a tantrum but he never lets it get to him. He knows just as well as the monster following him that the second, he gives it the time of day, his whole life will come to a standstill. However, the events unfolding before his eyes right now will make his skin crawl for years.
Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Eddie had just made it out of the Upside-Down moments before, braving demobats and a territorial Demogorgon to get Eddie back with both boys sporting what will be matching bat bite scars in the future. Eddie was undeniably worse for wear; chunks of flesh had been hanging off him when Nancy had demanded Steve give up his shirt to fashion makeshift bandages. The ever-gracious Eddie had offered Steve his own vest, ‘for your modesty dude’ he had joked as Steve shrugged it on with a quiet thanks. Steve thinks the metal head is taking it way better than he did when he was first exposed to the monstrosity that is the Upside Down. Eddie is hardly a week into the supernatural tendencies that haunt Hawkins on a regular basis, and already he had watched Chrissy get crucified, been hunted for murder, and then promptly dragged off to the Upside Down by a Demogorgon through a random gate in the woods. To say his introduction to the party was rushed was the understatement of the year.
So, Steve was really hoping it wouldn’t come down to this. This being, of course, standing in the middle of the darkening evening woods, bitten and bleeding to high hell with a crew of terrified fourteen-year-olds, trying to shake Max back into consciousness. Though he had known it was impossible to reverse Vecna’s curse, there was a small, tired part of his brain hoping he would never have to see this. But as Eddie Munson had eloquently put it, ‘God doesn’t care for his creations, because if he did, he would have already put an end to all this bullshit’ and Steve is really starting to understand why Eddie always acts like it's him against the world.
Because it is.
Tightening his grip, he shakes Max’s shoulders again, willing her eyes to lose the cloudy far-off look and tell him off for even daring to breathe in her general direction.
“Come on.” He shakes harder. “Come on!”
Lukas is screaming in the background, begging a God that doesn’t care to let her go and he can hear Mike and Dustin trying to comfort him in strained voices. Doing their best to calm him down, doing their best to stay calm. Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill is blasting through Max’s headphones so loud that Steve can hear the lyrics over the cries of his friends behind him.
“God damnit Max, please!” He’s shouting now, it won't change a thing and he knows it. They're losing her. She starts to rise and all he can think is how her mother will never know how she died. And it's all his fault. He’s losing one of the kids. He claws at her pants as she ascends to the darkening sky and out of reach like some sort of tragic angel. The leafless tree limbs frame her in all her glory. El is crying as she stretches out her hand and tries to fight for her friend, a steady stream of blood dripping from her nose, Robin looking wildly out of her depth, is wiping at El’s nose trying and failing to stop the blood flow. El is already exhausted from closing a literal tear in the universe only minutes ago after the four older kids had returned. Eddie looks blankly at Max from behind them and Nancy is propping Eddie up as best she can face bunched up, lips pursed, crying. She makes eye contact with Steve and gives a small shake of her head which confirms what he already knows. There's nothing they can do.
Steve hangs his head feeling utterly defeated, and bores holes with his eyes into the dead leaves that litter the ground feeling the first of thousands of tears that he will inevitably shed for Max sting in his eyes. There's nothing to be done. No more tricks, no more big plans, it's over. Absolutely over. He’s just waiting to hear the first snap of Max’s bones and even though he’d like nothing more than to run he won't leave Max alone as she dies.
“What if I take her place?”
His head snaps up. Eddie has moved forwards to stand between him and Max, staring up at her.
He stares at his back as Dustin starts to protest in the background. “Eddie you can’t possibly change what's happening right now, it’s not possible! Vecna’s probably just going to take the opportunity to kill both of you! Right now, we have to find a way to get Max out of the sky.”
“I don’t really have anything to live for.” And Steve can hear the tremor in his voice despite his brave words. “I’m a wanted criminal with nowhere to go. I can’t go back home, and if I do, I’m going straight to prison. I don’t really want to die, but it's better than rotting in a prison for crimes I didn’t commit. Not to mention, I don’t know how many more nights I have in me watching reruns of Chrissy crumpling like a human coke can on my ceiling.”
Steve feels numb.
“El, you can do it can’t you? Switch us?”
She stares at Eddie, and what Steve has come to recognize as uncertainty flits across her face. “I cannot do that Eddie. I cannot put two people in danger.”
“But can you switch us?”
Hesitantly she nods. “I can try to redirect his attention.”
“Then try.” Eddie lays a hand on her shoulder and half a smile graces his lips. “Get your friend back.”
“Wait, wait. Wait!” Robin frantically grabs Eddie’s arm. “This is madness, you don’t even know if this will work, what if we lose both of you? Dustin’s right for once we just need to focus on bringing Max home right now.”
She turns to Steve, “Right? Steve? Back me up here, this is crazy right?”
Steve feels out of his body as he responds with the same voice he uses when he scolds the kids. “Yeah, there's no way this is happening. It’s way too risky and I am not in the mood to lose two people tonight.” Crossing his arms with finality, he stares Eddie down. “Absolutely not.”
Eddie just grins a little wider. “Not your call big boy.”
Steve gapes at him. “I- wha- big?!”
He turns to El and nods, “Do your stuff kid.”
El closes her eyes and her little body goes tense with exertion once more.
“Oh, and Steve?”
He swallows hard and his throat grates like sandpaper. “Yeah?”
Eddie jerks his head at him grinning like the sun. “That vest looks good on you, do me a favor and take care of it.”
Steve lifts a hand and absentmindedly runs a hand over Eddie’s denim Dio vest and croaks out a tight, “Thanks.” He’s suddenly struck with the realization he doesn’t even know Eddie. Just that he’s a ‘freak’ wanted for the crimes of Vecna. That he listens to horrible music, dresses like a sewer rat, and curses like a sailor no matter the occasion, but he’s putting his life on the line for Max and he hardly knows her. Steve finds that he really doesn’t want Eddie to be on his long list of nobodies who have died because of their accidental entanglement with the Upside Down. He should be the one offering his life up, not Eddie Munson.
But it's too late.
Eddie is already floating.
If that wasn’t horrifying enough, Vecna’s voice pours out of Max’s limp body, and it's enough to send everyone but El scrambling back in horror.
“Trading places, are we?”
His voice is smoother than lovers’ lake on a windless day, deep and rumbly. It's almost inviting in cadence and tone as if trying to sweet talk its way into your mind before gutting it from the inside out. It’s horribly calm as if there aren't two people just floating in the air, as if there aren’t precious lives on the line. Vecna laughs like the creepy bastard that he is, and Steve swears he can feel vines slithering across his vocal cords. It sends a violent shudder through his body, and he has to shut his eyes for a moment to rid himself of the feeling of phantom vines wrapping around his throat and squeezing the life out of him.
When he opens his eye again Max is facing El, just staring each other down, seemingly lost in conversation that no one else can hear. The seconds tick by like hours as the group collectively holds their breath, watching, waiting for something, anything.
Then Max gasps and falls to the ground and by some grace of God Nancy manages to make it under her, taking the brunt of the fall with a pained shout. And then they're all moving, hauling a hyperventilating Max up and out of the way. Lukas is crying and holding her to his chest, shushing her between the gaps of his own hysterics. El is kneeling on the ground, slumped headfirst on Mike’s shoulder, but Max is alive.
For a moment, just one brief joyful moment Steve allows himself one sob of relief. But the moment is over as soon as it began.
Robin grabs him roughly by the shoulder. “We gotta go.”
“Wha?”
She yanks him forwards, her eyes locked on the sky behind him. “We gotta go! Now!”
He looks back to see Eddie, and he’s just blood, there's blood everywhere, more blood than Steve thinks he’s ever seen in his life, his skinny body twisting at horrible, inhuman angles and Vecna’s voice is dripping out of Eddie’s broken jaw like venom.
“You’ll do very nicely Edward Munson.”
*
He doesn’t think as he gathers up the kids, trying to make sure they don’t see Eddie’s disfigured corpse hanging in the air. He has to forcefully drag Dustin out of the forest, as he begs for Steve to do something and Steve can do nothing but chant apology after apology as he hauls the kid away by the collar and throws him in the back of his car with Max, Lukas, El, and Mike. He thanks his lucky stars that Nancy and Robin are small enough to fit in the front set together and slams on the gas. Dustin’s screams to go back eventually dwindle into hysterical sobs and Steve feels like throwing up at the sound. Max doesn’t move a muscle, just lays there with her eyes closed, almost lifeless against Lukas’s shoulder.
They make it back to his house in record time, Steve white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole time, even after he pulls into the driveway and pulls the key from the ignition no one makes a move to get out. All of them sit in stunned silence apart from Dustin’s sniffles and broken sobs. It should have been him who sacrificed himself, not Eddie. It’s his job to keep everyone safe and he failed. Max had almost died and Eddie, Jesus Christ Eddie just stepped up to the plate and stared death in the eyes for the millionth time that day and accepted it without missing a beat. For all his talking of cowardice, as they had trekked back to the gate in the Upside Down, Eddie really was a hero. Not just for saving Max’s life, but for taking in the kids at school and giving them a place to belong, something Steve would have never been able to do, despite how often he ends up taking care of them. It should have been him.
“Come on.” Nancy’s voice breaks through the thickness of his thoughts. “Let's get Max and El inside.”
Wordlessly the kids leave the car, helping the girls walk up to the house, Robin puts a protective hand on Max’s shoulder, talking low and soft as she encourages her, Steve doesn’t move, and neither does Dustin. He can’t bring himself to look at him.
After a while, Nancy comes back and gently tugs Dustin from the back seat. She shoots Steve a questioning glance and he shakes his head, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
His voice sounds so rough he hardly recognizes it himself. Nancy looks like she's going to say something but decides against it and instead looks at him with undisguised pity that makes him want to melt down into the street.
He watches her bring a silent Dustin into the house and the door swings behind them, leaving only a crack of space so that Steve can get in once he leaves the car.
The second Nancy’s curls disappear into the house, he flings open the car door with urgency, a hand coming up to cover his mouth as his stomach roils. He gets one foot outside the car before he's bent over, gripping the steering wheel with one hand as his stomach empties itself on the concrete of the driveway. He coughs, spitting out chunks of his ham sandwich from earlier. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he leans back in his chair and catches his breath. He looks forward to the inevitable dream of Eddie dying with Dustin’s blood-curdling screams in the background. He brings his forehead to the top of the steering wheel and a single tear breaks rank to drip off the tip of his nose.
*
When he finally gets it together, he heads inside to find everyone in the living room. Nancy is directing Robin on where to get more blankets from the kitchen where she’s boiling water for tea. Steve didn’t even know he had tea in the house. Max is laying on the couch, eyes closed, sleeping, Steve notes with a rush of relief. Lukas sits on the floor beside her, lightly holding her hand and definitely dropping off into sleep but jerking himself awake every time his head starts to bow. Robin comes back into the living room with a huff, arms full of blankets. “I just grabbed everything.”
Steve silently takes one off the top and drapes it gently over Lukas. He jumps like he’s been burned, coming up on one knee, eyes wild as if he expects something to drag him off.
“Sorry.” Steve mumbles putting his hands up non-threateningly.
Lukas looks at him apologetically and Steve can see the knot of tension in the young boy's shoulders. He looks small and spent and Steve aches with the knowledge that they all suffer the same.
“Go to sleep.” He encourages keeping his voice low. “I’ll stay up and make sure nothing happens.”
He nods slowly, like the movement just cost him a year of life, and moves back into his position on the floor, letting his head rest on the edge of the couch cushion, right by Max’s.
“Steve.”
Nancy holds out two steaming mugs. He reaches out and hesitantly takes both. “Robin and I can take it from here.” She glances at Robin who hands a blanket to Mike and takes another one over to the recliner where El sits, her white flowery shirt stained with blood. “Dustin's out back.”
Steve looks at the two mugs, then back at Nancy. “Go talk to him.” Her voice is tired but firm.
When he pushes open the back door, Dustin doesn’t even react. He sits in a pool chair, hands clasped in his lap like he's praying, looking up at the cloudless night. It’s freezing out, both his and Dustin’s breath comes out in puffs. April is around the corner, but it can’t come soon enough.
Steve settles in next to him on the chair, placing the mugs in between their feet and they sit. Steve has never been a very patient man, but during his time dating Nancy, she beat it into his thick skull that a little bit of patience goes a long way. Steve had found that even Eddie for all his knee-jerk reactions had an unnerving amount of patience. So, he tilts his head back to stare at the stars and waits for Dustin to start talking.
“He was the one that made high school bearable.”
Dustin’s voice cuts through the silence.
“The first week or two were miserable, middle school sucked but this was so much worse. Everyone just thinks they’re so much better than everyone else.”
Steve is mildly shocked at Dustin’s maturity; he’s always known Dustin was level-headed and smart just maybe not this smart. God knows he was not this mature as a freshman, too preoccupied with keeping his status as King and trying to crawl up the skirt of any chick who would let him.
“There were a handful of basketball jocks who had taken a liking to harass Mike and me for no reason, and Lukas did what he could to stop them, but you know it's not easy for him either, he’s only a freshman like us.”
Steve nods. He's been learning just how hard Sinclair has had it lately and it can’t be easy to feel constantly torn between two social groups. Especially when one of those groups is a bunch of hormone-driven basketball heads bent on making their presence as intimidating as possible. Steve feels a flicker of shame for his younger, oblivious self, and makes a silent pledge to do more for both Lukas and Erica when he gets the chance. Maybe offer Erica that free ice cream for life pass a bit more often and take Lukas to shoot some hoops. He’s only asked once or twice but he’s never been the kid to hound Steve for something.
“But Eddie,” A small smile creeps up Dustin’s face. “He took us in. It didn’t stop the bullying completely, but no one really wanted to mess with him because he’s like nineteen and because everyone thought he was a cultist who was gonna steal their cat and trade it to the devil or some shit.”
Dustin huffs a laugh and Steve grins a bit. What a weirdo.
He goes silent again and Steve looks over to see Dustin staring blankly out into the yard, tears dripping down his boyish face. “What am I going to do without him Steve?”
He doesn’t really think about it, just brings Dustin into his chest, and lets him cry onto his shoulder, dampening Eddie’s blood-stained vest, and murmurs apologies into the top of his head, once again scolding himself for not being the first to put his life on the line. He runs a gentle hand over his back and soothes him until his tears start to run dry. Then slowly props him back up and in a moment of absolute weakness that under any other circumstances he would deny doing, he wipes the remaining tears off Dustin’s face with his thumb.
He leans back, grabs the tea mugs, surprised to find them still warm, and deposits one into Dustin’s hands. “Drink.”
They both go silent, Steve halfheartedly sipping his while Dustin practically chugs it. The warmth is a welcome change to the frigid air of March. The steam curls and whisps up, dissipating into the cloudy night sky.
There are more tears and another few hugs before Steve offers a hand up to Dustin who takes it with a sigh, and they enter the house as quietly as they can.
“Hey,” Steve whispers, placing a hand on Dustin’s shoulder as they set up a makeshift bed on the ground. “We’ll give him a proper burial tomorrow.”
Dustin nods his voice scratchy. “Thanks, Steve.”
He can only nod in return. As soon as Dustin’s breath evens, he's out the door to retrieve his nail bat from the car. Quietly he re-enters the house and drags a kitchen chair to the living room keeping watch over all of them like a sentry, keeping to his end of the promise he made to Sinclair. It’s not like he would have slept well anyways.
*
He’s jolted awake from his uncomfortable slouched position in the wooden kitchen chair at around 5:30 am to the sound of the front door closing and immediately his eyes dart to the kids, his heart hammering in his chest. When he's satisfied that they're ok he cautiously checks the window, peeking through the blinds with unease, but it’s just Nancy and Robin. He heaves a sigh of relief before wrenching open the door and squinting at them in the early morning light.
“Where the hell are you two going?” He whisper-yells in annoyance. They scared the shit out of him and it’s too damn early to feel this awake seconds after getting up.
Robin startles and they both turn to Steve. “Home.” Nancy says.
Steve keeps looking at them, so Nancy rolls her eyes. “We're going home.” She repeats.
“Oh. How are you getting home?”
“Jesus Steve, you do realize my car is in your driveway, right?” Nancy plants a hand on her hip.
“Oh.”
*
After the girls leave, Steve dozes for another hour, filtering through distorted nightmares and hazy consciousness. He wakes with a start, the image of Eddie’s corpse reaching out for him dissolving into a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead. Not even twenty-four hours and already Eddie is haunting his dreams. The next few hours are a daze. He rouses the kids, consoling them when needed, and driving them back to their respective houses with orders to feign illness despite it being a school day. He thinks Eddie would have agreed with him and for once none of the kids argue. He drops off Max last. She's groggy and winces at every bump in the road. Even though she waves him off with some of her old spunk he still helps her walk up to the trailer. Every step she takes is punctuated with gritted teeth and a limp. He carries her the rest of the way, helps her to bed, gets water, and painkillers, and bundles her in blankets. Fusses over her a bit.
She pretends to hate every second of it, but Steve knows. She knows he knows. They both need this. He had silently taken over the role of her older brother after Billy had died and Max had silently accepted it. Letting Steve give her advice she would never ask for but always needed. He brought food when her fridge was empty and offered his house when her mother was incoherently drunk. Maybe it’s because he sees a little bit of his own tragic, parentless childhood in her. Maybe it's because he always wanted a sibling. Either way, he takes up the role without hesitation and he knows she has accepted him without question.
Once she’s settled, she directs him to the bathroom for the first aid kit and he sits on the edge of her tiny bed to clean his wounds. To be honest he's completely forgotten about them. Eddie’s jacket had shielded most of the bites from his friends and the never-ending rush of adrenalin has staved off the pain, but the moment she mentions it the pain swoops back in at full force. Peeling off Nancy's makeshift cloth bandages is the worst part. The dried blood pulls at his skin, opening the wounds again and the pain is fiery, it licks up his sides and pulses like something alive. When he finally gets the fabric off, Max puts an uncharacteristically gentle hand on his back and hands him a painkiller. He takes it gratefully and moves to the bathroom to wash the multiple puncture points in his abdomen so he doesn’t get blood on her sheets. After an agonizing fifteen minutes of gingerly dabbing at them with a rag and some soapy water, he counts around seventeen or so bite wounds. His abdomen looks like a brick of swiss cheese, and he knows without a doubt that Eddie’s wounds were worse. There are a few that look like they need stitches but that’s something to worry about later. He goes back into Max’s room with his hands covering as much of his sides as he can, trying to spare her the gruesome sight.
“Steve…” Max’s hand flies up to cover her mouth, brows knitted in horror.
He grabs the biggest band-aids he can find. “Not a word of this to anyone Maxine.”
His first aid work is a patchwork affair of large band-aids and gauze held down with duct tape, but it works. Eddie’s vest is completely ruined and by the looks of the blood-stained waist of his pants, those will have to go, but at least he's not bleeding all over the place anymore. Small victories, he thinks bitterly.
Max doesn’t mention the way he limps a little when he walks over to her bed and doesn’t complain when he ruffles her hair a little. A silent apology for making her worry for him when it’s supposed to be the other way around. He knows she's not a little kid anymore. None of them are after all they’ve been through. But it still wounds his pride when they know he’s hurting. He once swore to Nancy he would keep these kids safe, but his protective nature now goes much further than keeping his word. This tiny group of misfits is his and he would put his life on the line for these kids in a second if it kept them safe. He should have put his life on the line for Max. But he can’t shake the feeling that when it had mattered the most, a complete stranger had taken it upon himself to take her place.
She tells him to take one of Billy’s shirts and after a stare-down with the offending garment he puts it on. It smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in months and he's not going to lie, walking around in a deadman's shirt does not appeal to him. He stays with Max despite her protests, slowly moving through the house, doing menial tasks that her mother either forgot about or has completely ignored. He cleans the kitchen of old beer cans, takes out the trash, cooks spaghetti so Max has something to eat later, cleans a mountain of dirty dishes, and sweeps, checking on her periodically until she’s fallen asleep.
He leans against the doorway to her room and watches the blankets rise and fall, confirmation of the life that’s still burning brightly in her small body. He never knew how much he needed Max in his life, and well, he’s got as many soft spots for her as a bruised apple.
It’s not easy but he tears his gaze away and leaves a post-it on the fridge about the spaghetti. I’ll be back, he writes and feels like an idiot putting a little smiley face in the corner. He doesn’t look at Eddie’s trailer as he leaves.
*
He’s not sure how but he finds himself at the edge of the woods where his car was parked yesterday after they…escaped.
He tilts his head back and stares up at the car’s ceiling. Images of Eddie’s final grin filter through his brain and with a sigh he pushes the thoughts out of his head. He turns his head to look out the window and debates the pros and cons of getting out of the car. He doesn’t really want to do this. But he’ll be damned if he puts Dustin through the trauma of witnessing Eddie’s lifeless body twisted up on the forest floor. After sitting for an eternity, he shoves the door open with conviction. He’s going to find Eddie and at least make sure no wild animals have gotten to him. So, with the spiked bat firmly in hand, he sets off. Traipsing through the woods, it’s not hard to follow the trail they left as they scrambled out of the forest. He follows broken branches, shoe prints in the mud, and smears of blood on the leaves cautiously keeping an eye out for any strange creatures that could be lurking in the brush. He knows that realistically a monster would have made its move yesterday when there were many warm human bodies to feed from, but experience is a ruthless teacher and Steve knows better than anyone not to let his guard down.
It's disturbingly easy to locate where his friend’s bodies had hung side by side in the sky. One doesn’t forget that kind of haunting imagery any time soon, but something isn’t right as he looks around and it's not just the sickening amount of blood. Baffled he spins around slowly, eyes combing the blood-stained ground.
Eddie’s body is gone.