Chapter Text
Eddie goes zero to sixty when he wakes up. He expects to be dead, so the strong smell of disinfectant and boiled hospital food comes as a shock that, at first, he doesn’t quite believe.
But then the irregular bleating of the heart monitor next to him starts to sink in, the beeps sounding way too fucking fast and that stresses Eddie out even more. He tries to escape out of the bed, gets tangled in tubes and wires, agony burning up his side and through his stomach, and he practically falls out of the bed when his own legs won’t hold him.
The floor is rock solid and stone cold, and that just ratchets Eddie’s panic further, because now he’s stuck and he can’t escape, his body isn’t working right, and there are people – people he doesn't know – touching him, all talking all over each other and it’s so much, too much to handle, the overload -
Eddie feels like he’s been plunged into freezing water, he can hardly breath, his chest has gone so tight, all his muscles locked up.
“Holy shit kid,” a voice Eddie would recognize anywhere, mostly because he’s been warned by that voice so many times about getting caught dealing and carrying and, “Jesus, give him some room a second.”
“I thought you were dead,” Eddie rasps out, voice totally fucked.
“Yeah, well, thought the same about you kid,” Hopper answers, stoic and honest as always.
“I can’t stay here,” Eddie finds his hands twisted up in the material of Hoppers jacket, he can’t really feel the material in his hands, just pain in his fingertips, “please, I can’t-” Eddie chokes off a sob, desperately begging Hopper to understand.
Hopper nods, knowingly, “back into bed, give me half an hour.”
Eddie agrees, holds onto that, because the lights are too bright and the noises are all so fucking loud and even the sound of his own breathing is annoying.
“Kid,” Hopper raps on the door frame, and every fucking pair of eyes in the room swivels to him because literally everyone rammed into Max’s room is a kid to Hopper. He narrows it down a bit, looking at Steve, “Munson’s awake.”
Half the people in the room shoot up, Dustin’s fastest despite his fucked up ankle, so Hopper sticks an arm out, wraps him up, stops him even though the kid is screeching and wriggling in his hold, “just Steve, the rest of you stay here.”
There’s a roomful of complaints, but something in Hoppers tone must relay the urgency, because they do obey in the end.
“So he needs somewhere to go.” It’s not a question.
Hopper nods down at Steve, “Owen’s can wrangle it, but it’s got to be somewhere known, somewhere that has the space, somewhere...private.”
Steve gets what Hopper’s laying down, despite his name being technically cleared, Eddie is probably still hated by half the town, so his place is the only place that makes any sense, “yeah, of course.” Not to mention the shady government types are probably going to want to know where they all are, at least, for a little while. They haven’t even gotten around to contacting Eddie’s uncle yet; but it was so touch and go when they got Eddie back through the gate. Steve had stood and watched them wheel Eddie away, hospital staff flocking around him...he’d hoped for the best. Told himself again and again, Eddie’s going to be fine; Eddie has to be fine.
Deep in his gut though, at the back of his mind, he was thinking the opposite. He’d never admit it out loud to anyone, ever, but part of him was preparing itself to never see Eddie again.
And then Lucas, beat to fucking hell, was telling him that Max had woken up and they had to go, like, now.
So, Steve agrees easily with what Hopper is asking him to do, because there’s no question.
Eddie was willing to sacrifice himself to buy them all time. He absolutely saved Dustin’s life as far as Steve is concerned, and possibly the rest of the world, too. Giving him a place to hole up is the very least Steve can do.
Eddie limps across the threshold, most of his weight supported on the arm he has slung over Steve’s shoulders. Steve has Eddie’s chilly hand gripped in his, keeping his arm locked over his shoulders, the other cinched around Eddie’s waist, the hospital carrier bag held awkwardly in that hand. There’s some pain meds and antibiotics in there. Eddie’s rings, his guitar pick necklace, and his belt. Everything else was pretty much unsalvageable; they cut most of Eddie’s clothes off. Steve’s pretty sure the belt will end up in the trash, too. It’s really hard to get the smell of the Upside Down off anything once it’s contaminated.
He’s conscious of squeezing on Eddie’s wounds, but realistically, if he lets go, Eddie will be hitting the deck in no time. They take one look at the mountain of stairs and divert straight to the couch. Steve can see that Eddie’s in pain, that he’s restless, that he can’t settle, “what can I do?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Feel like there’s...fire ants or something, crawling all over, under my skin,” Eddie speaks with a clenched jaw, pain evident on his face.
Steve tuts. Not having a suggestion for that. Eddie’s face contorts again and he’s pale and sweating. The nurse was very fucking clear about the pain meds, and Eddie can’t have any more for another couple of hours at the earliest. Steve doesn’t state that out loud; he’s pretty sure Eddie doesn’t need reminding.
He comes back with a cool sodden towel, feeling helpless, but the second it hits the clammy skin of Eddie’s forehead, Eddie practically screeches, pulling away urgently, and they know that isn’t the answer, so Steve throws it in the laundry.
“I don’t know what to say man, shower? Like, a hot one?”
“Dressings,” Eddie bites back, almost writhing now on the couch.
“Maybe...we should take you back, maybe they can-”
“No. Fuck no,” Eddie’s words bitten out, visibly panicked.
“Okay okay,” Steve surrenders, palms up flat, “what then?”
Eddie’s eyes flick over the back of the couch, he can’t see the stairs from there, there’s a wall in the way, but his expression looks pained just at the thought, “I’ll try anything once.” He tries to make a joke of it, tries to make out that he’s okay, but he’s clearly in fucking agony and Steve has no idea what to do for him so he agrees readily.
Making it up the stairs takes them fully half an hour, Eddie having to wait, panting, on every single step. Steve’s never felt so helpless in his life (excluding that one time Max floated in the cemetery), it’s torture watching Eddie suffer, watching him try and keep in all the pained noises, only to fail miserably.
Eddie manages a half hearted joke about King Steve giving him a sponge bath when they make it to the turn near the top, the wider step on the corner giving Eddie somewhere safe and secure to lean, to try and catch his breath.
Steve doesn’t laugh, “how are you feeling now?”
Eddie swallows, throat clicking dry, “it’s worse. It’s like there’s...like something's under there, moving around,” Eddie draws in a hissed breath, face crumpling, “hurts. So fucking much.”
Steve doesn’t even know what to say to that, so they get moving, and those final four steps are worse than all the others combined. They shuffle through Steve’s bedroom and into the bathroom, and when Steve clicks on the light Eddie makes an agonized noise and Steve clicks it off again immediately.
“S’bright,” Eddie mutters, squinting at the floor, greasy, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. He looks ill. Washed out. No, gray. He looks like he’s gone gray in the dim light coming through the small bathroom window.
“Okay, okay, no problem,” so Steve turns to get the water going, trying to figure out how the fuck they’re going to do this considering Eddie looks exhausted and half dead already. Not to mention Steve knows most of Eddie’s torso is wrapped in bandages right now. Steve is considering overriding Eddie and just calling the hospital, seeing if there’s a doctor or something, when he hears Eddie make a noise, there's a soft thump, and Steve turns back, concerned.
Eddie’s gone.
He’s just...gone.
His clothes are in a heap on the floor, bloody dressings mixed in, and Steve yells, hopping backward and nearly dragging down the shower curtain, when the pile shifts. Wings emerge. Tails.
Steve recognizes it instantly. It’s a fucking demobat.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck,” Steve backs away, edges his way through the door, thinking of the nailbat in the boot of his car. He usually brings it everywhere with him, when he can, but he was too concerned with getting Eddie into the house to think of it.
He doesn’t take his eyes off the thing as it flops around, trapped in Eddie’s clothes, tangling itself up in bandages and bloody gauze. Steve darts the rest of the way, scouring his room for a weapon and giving up fast; the kitchen, a knife; that would be easiest.
Steve runs for it, closing his bedroom door tight so the thing can’t escape. He runs down the stairs feeling like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. It just doesn’t make any sense, this was all done. Over with. Vecna’s dead, the Upside Down sealed off. El’s been to the sites of the gates herself, she’d told them all she was certain it was done. All of this bullshit was supposed to be over with!
Steve grabs the biggest knife in the block and then takes the stairs two at a time on the way back up.
Steve opens his bedroom door cautiously, point of the knife sliding through the gap, just in case the thing is flapping around in his bedroom. It’s not, it appears safe.
But Steve knows the danger, he was nearly killed by just one of those things so he isn’t taking any chances. Steve waits a second with the door open...he realizes he can hear it. It’s not making the horrible high pitched screech that he’s used to, that panics him, reminding him viscerally of being in the Upside Down. This sounds more like...well, it sounds like a whimper. It actually sounds kind of pathetic.
Steve creeps closer, only to find the demobat hopelessly wrapped up in Eddie’s clothes, it’s struggling only making it worse. Steve stands for a moment, staring. Eddie’s gone...and now that little creature is in Eddie’s clothes.
Eddie. Shit, Steve has a terrible feeling about this, “Eddie?”
Steve creeps a little closer, still pointing with the knife, “Eddie, man, if that’s you, you’ve got to give me something here,” Steve begs desperately. There’s still no response, “oh fuck me, I’m loosing my godamn mind.”
Steve kneels, moving a little closer, “Eddie?”
The demobat’s strange, worm like head appears from under Eddie’s shirt and sort of...mewls. It’s pathetic, really. The open, rounded mouth, in filled with rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth. It’s got four eyes, two above the mouth, and two more set behind that, and they all blink in turn, strange slits opening and closing slowly.
It makes another little noise. “Okay. Okay, lets, try...oh man I am so dumb. Dustin’s never going to let me live this down,” Steve slowly offers the back of his hand to the thing, knife still clutched tight in the other, reasoning that if it bites him, the wound won’t be too debilitating than if he looses a finger or something equally terrible. He waits, watching, poised to drag his hand back at the first sign of danger. He doesn’t need to though, because the demobat potentially formerly known as Eddie, snakes out a too long, thin black tongue, and licks a sticky smear on the back of Steve’s hand.
And that’s all. It sits still, staring up at Steve with all four of it’s beady black eyes, waiting expectantly.
“Okay. Okay. I’m going to trust you. But if you bite me I swear to…” Steve mutters to himself as he carefully puts the knife down, still within reach, and then gingerly untangles the bat from the pile of clothing, it’s tails and wings well and truly wrapped up with the material and bandages.
It’s not awful. It feels kind of cold, but the skin isn’t like, moist, or anything, it’s very dry and kind of scaly. The wings are more leathery, and the tails are...well, they kind of feel weirdly hollow.
“Okay, I got you Munson. God that’s so weird,” Eddie’s body snakes up Steve’s arm a little way, wings flapping clumsily as he tries to right himself. Steve has to fight his instinct to throw the thing off, the last time a demobat was this close to him it nearly strangled him to death.
Eddie ends up hooking the ‘elbows’ of his wings into Steve’s shirt and just...huddling there. Not doing anything, tail wrapped firmly around Steve’s arm, one wing against Steve’s chest and the other against his back, hugging Steve’s shoulder.
Eddie’s mouth is a little close to Steve’s neck for comfort, but it becomes pretty apparent that Eddie isn’t moving any further, he’s just holding tight.
Despite his clambering all over Steve, Eddie doesn’t wrap his tail around Steve’s neck; it’s like even in this form, he knows not to.
Steve clears the condensation off the mirror, then stands and stares at himself, and Eddie, “well, fuck.”
Eddie seems to be starring at himself too, strange little head turned to look...and then he makes a quiet noise, a soft whimper, clearly distressed. It enough to get Steve to move, standing here and letting Eddie look at himself isn’t doing either of them any good.
Steve finally gets around to turning the shower back off.
With no idea what the hell he’s supposed to do now, Steve heads to bed. It’s been a bit of a day, and whatever the hell this is can wait until tomorrow. He crawls into bed, carefully lying down. Eddie seems to get it, movements still slow and very clumsy, like a baby dear trying to stand for the first time, he shifts completely onto Steve’s chest, sort of walking on the joints of his wings, curling up, tails tucked up under his body, wings carefully hugging Steve’s torso.
Steve lies there, staring at the ceiling in the dark, “I guess this is...maybe not the weirdest thing to happen?”
Eddie makes a soft trilling noise.
Fuck.
Steve wakes up slowly, very aware of the warm weight on top of him. He blinks, vision filled with a mop of brown curls. Eddie.
Steve is hugging Eddie. Eddie is mostly on top of him. Eddie is very naked under Steve’s hands and his very obvious erection is digging into Steve’s thigh and, “Eddie, you’re people again!”
Eddie lifts his head, squinting, opens his mouth and says, “mrrrrp?”
It’s eerily reminiscent of the noise he’d made last night, as a demobat.
“You’re a dude again, dude.”
Eddie blinks, the shifts, patting at his own shoulder, investigating his own hair with his fingertips,. It seems to take a long time to process before he finally, finally croaks out, “coffee.”
Steve wholeheartedly agrees.
Steve slips out of bed, Eddie either isn’t acknowledging or hasn't noticed his boner situation, so Steve figures there's some sort of bro code here and just ignores it too.
While coffee is brewing, Steve figures his only possible course of action is to call the smartest person he knows. He will never admit that out loud, but luckily Henderson answers on the second ring, like he’s been waiting for Steve to call him.
“Dustin-”
“Can I come see Eddie yet?”
Steve sighs, “I’m great, thanks for asking, so cool of-”
“Steve.”
“Yeah. Yes, come over.”
The little shit doesn’t even say goodbye. He just hangs up.
Steve takes a coffee up to Eddie, who is buck naked and sprawled ass up over Steve’s bed, “okay, Eddie come on, Dustin’s on the way.”
Eddie groans, crawling out of bed, Steve heads over to his wardrobe to dig out something for Eddie to wear so he isn’t obviously staring at all of Eddie’s nakedness. There’s a thump and a, “shit,” that has Steve spinning back around, Eddie sat on his ass on the floor, looking confused.
“You okay?”
“Legs. Apparently you can forget legs really fast.”
It hadn’t occurred to Steve when he woke up, but it does now. All of Eddie is pristine; other than his tattoos’, there’s not a wound, mark, scar, bruise, anything on him anywhere. Steve has to step closer, kneeling in front of Eddie to prod his chest, Eddie swats at him, “you’re all healed up.”
Eddie stops swatting at Steve and prods himself instead, “holy shit. I am.”
“Well...that’s a positive, right? You didn’t even scar, man.” Steve will not admit that he’s kind of envious of Eddie, right at this moment, because the demobats did a fucking number on him and the pale scar around his throat isn’t ever going away.
Steve pokes again, confirming what he thought he’d felt the first time, “are you cold?” Eddie shakes his head, and Steve splays his palm out on Eddie’s chest, “are you sure? You feel really cold.”
Eddie lifts his own hand, laying it over Steve’s, holding it to his chest, “I’m fine just...sleepy, maybe?”
“Well, that’s fair, had a...big day yesterday, I guess. Changing shape like that can’t be easy.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
There’s a long moment, before Steve clears his throat, breaking whatever this is and gently pulling his hand away.
Eddie lets him go, giving Steve’s hand a final squeeze as he pulls away, watching Steve intently.
Steve goes back to digging him out a sweater and some sleep pants and boxers. That’ll do for today. Eddie’s a little wobbly when he stands, so Steve hovers in grabbing distance, trying not to stare at Eddie’s dick. He’s kind of relieved when Eddie covers it up, it’s hard not to stare when someone has their naked bits out. Not in a like, gay way, or anything, it’s just, if it’s there, people look, kind of way. Like if there were boobs, Steve would definitely look; it’s like that.
Eddie manages to get dressed without incident, and seems to be more in control by the time he’s done, and Steve gives Eddie a minute to sit on the edge of the bed while he tidies up the bathroom. He shakes out the cheap white tee and joggers the hospital scrounged up for Eddie to be released in, throws the soiled bandages in the trash. There’s a tinkling noise, and Steve picks some small silver rings off the floor, plus what is obviously a little dangly earring.
Steve shows them to Eddie, who curses creatively, hand going to his ear lobe, “they’re all healed up.”
Steve drops them on his desk, then offers Eddie the coffee from the night stand, now cool enough to drink. Eddie takes an enthusiastic mouthful and Steve watches as Eddie’s face goes through a series of...something, his mouth obviously full of coffee. His face is definitely doing...a thing. And then Eddie just opens his mouth, “bleaugh,” letting the coffee just...run off his tongue and back into the mug.
And then he hands it back. To Steve. Who takes it reflexively, only mildly disgusted, “I’ll just...I’ll go and get rid of this.”
“Where is he?”
“Okay, okay, firstly, I need you to not freak out.”
“Steve,” Dustin stares at him, “saying that is guaranteed to make anyone freak out.”
“Yep,” Steve agrees, “I mean it though, Eddie is absolutely fine, I swear it.”
“But. There’s a but isn’t there, Steve why is there always a but with-”
“He turned into a demobat last night. Like just, was a bat. And I didn’t know what to do, so we went to sleep, and then this morning he was Eddie again.”
Dustin’s face is a process, before he finally settles on, “Steve...are you sure?”
Steve rolls his eyes, “yes, yes, I’m sure. He was Eddie, then bat, then Eddie again. It wasn't complicated, just fucking weird.”
“Right...so where is he?”
Steve opens his bedroom door to find...absolute carnage. His bed has moved, the mattress is off the frame, there’s blankets and pillows strewn everywhere, feathers swirling in the air.
“Eddie?”
Eddie pops up on the other side of the bed, shirtless and frantic looking, “I didn’t, I didn’t do anything,” he says guiltily, “it just, it just...it just exploded,” and then he mimes an explosion, waving his hands in the air.
Steve stares, the feathers settling. Eddie’s actually naked again and appears to be building some sort of fort on the floor of Steve’s bedroom, Steve blinks, “the pillow doesn’t matter Eddie.”
Eddie nods decisively, “good.” Then, after a moments thought, “do you have more?” And then he’s back on his hands and knees rearranging his fort, naked ass in the air, like a feral racoon or something.
“Dustin’s here, do you want to maybe come and talk to him?”
Getting Eddie dressed again takes a little bit of encouragement, and Steve has to remind Eddie several times that Dustin is a good friend and he’s come all this way, with a hurt ankle, just to see Eddie. He also has to promise Eddie that he can take his clothes off again later, after Dustin has gone home. Eddie does go with it eventually, but he’s mournful about leaving what he calls his ‘nest’.
Steve has to promise lots of times that Eddie can come back to it later, and Steve sweetens the deal by promising more pillows, if he comes downstairs now to see Dustin.
“It’s the scientific method Steve!”
“We are not throwing anyone off a roof, anywhere, any time, ever.”
They both turn back to Eddie, watching as he eats another spoon of raspberry jelly straight out of the jar.
“You got any ketchup?” Dustin asks, going back to food again.
“That won’t prove either theory, ketchup is red and sweet.”
Dustin turns to him, “Steve, that is possibly the most intelligent thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Steve’s ready to slap the little shit at this point, but Dustin’s face is earnest. Apparently Dustin actually means what he just said. Like, sincerely.
So Steve lets it go, and Dustin suggests, “we need something sweet but not red, and something red but not sweet.” That way they will be able to figure out if Eddie just has a majorly sweet tooth now...or if he’s developed an alarming fascination with red food. Steve hadn’t stopped Eddie when he’d gone to rummage in the fridge; the first jar of strawberry hadn’t been too concerning, fucking weird, sure, but not too concerning.
Now, it’s concerning.
Especially considering Eddie has zero interest in anything resembling real food. Steve had made him some toast to actually put the jelly on; Eddie had looked at it like it had said something highly inappropriate about his mother, and just carried on eating.
“We should go to the store,” Steve adds, then stares at Eddie for a minute longer; he’s basically fucking the neck of the jar with his tongue, “I’ll call Nancy to go to the store for us,” Steve adjusts.
Dustin nods, turning the page of his notebook.
Nancy drops grocery bags on the counter while Robin hops up next to her, “so, I thought we could make red jello and add a bunch of salt or something, I got some tomato soup for him to try, some more jelly just in case, and some more ketchup since you said he really likes that. Two tubs of salsa…”
Steve rummages in the bag next to her, when Eddie pops up next to him, Steve hadn’t even heard him come into the kitchen. Eddie wedges himself right in there, pushing Steve back with a hand and then...hisses. Hisses at Nancy. Like, makes a hissing noise and bares his teeth. Steve just moves, lets Eddie push him back, while Nancy watches, wide eyed and surprised.
She takes a few Steps back herself, closer to Robin, and tries a tentative, “Eddie?”
He just hisses again, before snapping, “mine!” at her.
And then he disappears, there’s a light thump on the kitchen floor. Everyone watches as bat Eddie extricates himself from his clothes, movements much better this time around. He half climbs and half flaps his way up Steve’s body, making agitated chittering and clicking noises, until he gets to around waist height and Steve grabs at the thickest part of Eddie’s body to help him out. Eddie climbs the rest of the way, draping himself around the back of Steve’s neck, tail wrapped under one armpit, Eddie standing on his wing joints on the opposite shoulder. He hisses at Nancy again.
“Holy shit,” Nancy says.
Dustin is frantically scribbling in his notebook.
“You didn’t believe me, did you?”
“I-I mean,” Nancy starts, “I definitely didn’t think you were...lying.”
“Jesus Nance,” Steve rolls his eyes, “how the fuck would I have made up something like this?”
“No no, I just...it’s one of those things that, until you actually see it for yourself it’s…”
There’s a long moment of everyone staring at Steve and Eddie. Eddie doesn’t seem to care that he’s the star of the show; but then he doesn’t care much about catching attention when he’s got two legs, either.
“Okay,” Steve concedes, “that’s fair.”
Robin, once she’d got over the shock of Eddie’s transformation, laughed and laughed and laughed. Even Nancy was smirking at them. Steve has Eddie half curled up, half draped across his lap on the couch, Steve didn’t notice before, what with the shock and in the dark before bed, but Eddie’s tattoos have carried over. They haven’t traveled well; they look like small, random black streaks and smudges in this form, but they’re definitely there, and in roughly the right places along the trunk of his body. Well, in the right places from what Steve remembers of getting an eyeful of nude Eddie this morning. And if he thinks of Eddie’s wings as arms, and his tails as legs.
The way Steve is absently stroking over Eddie’s long body, keeping him mollified as he studies Eddie's tattoos, seems to be a constant source of amusement for...everybody else.
Combine that with the fact that Nancy can’t come within ten feet of them without Eddie getting all riled up again, well, everyone seems endlessly entertained.
“So, you and Eddie huh.”
Steve just rolls his eyes.
“He’s feeling plenty threatened by Nance,” Dustin adds, really, really, unhelpfully.
“Probably because they were a thing,” Robin speculates.
“So you and Eddie are like, dating?” Dustin asks, and whatever Steve’s face does makes Robin laugh and laugh and laugh again.
In Steve’s lap, Eddie chirrups happily.
Steve stops in the doorway of his bedroom, and Eddie actually manages a graceful glide off Steve’s shoulder, across the room and onto the nest/fort/tent/thing Eddie had constructed earlier. Steve was going to try and tidy it before bed...but from the way Eddie is wing walking across it, pathetically dragging the edge of a pillow in his tiny mouth, Steve guesses that he’s not.
It’s also been a bit of a day, and he can’t really be bothered.
He climbs into bed, Eddie flapping out of the way and then climbing and chirruping his way carefully up onto Steve’s chest. It’s like he’s talking at Steve, which wouldn’t really be a surprise; human Eddie is hard enough to shut up, why would demobat Eddie be any different.
This is my life now, Steve thinks, as he stares at the ceiling, running a hand down the length of Eddie. Eddie makes a happy trilling noise when Steve carefully rubs at the joint where his wing meets his body, “you like that, huh?”
And then gets winded, when the very light demobat lying on his chest is suddenly a full sized man again. Eddie nearly headbutts Steve on the chin and Steve rolls over to dump him off, groaning in pain and with the breath knocked clean out of him. Eddie makes a pathetic and somehow accusatory trilling noise, like this turn of events is all Steve’s fault, before he rolls back over and flops half over Steve again.
Apparently, cuddling is a thing they do.
Eddie makes a noise like a purr when Steve rubs his hand up and down the chilly, naked skin of Eddie’s back.
So, yeah, this is Steve’s life now.
Everyone watches in horror as Eddie spoons another wriggling lump of Jello into his mouth. Eddie pulls a face, scrunches everything together like he’s just tasted something vile, and then goes back for another spoonful anyway.
Dustin makes a note in his book.
“How much salt is in there?” Steve asks, quietly horrified.
“A lot,” Nancy replies.
“Do you think,” Robin starts tentatively, “we should take it off him?”
“He clearly doesn’t like it,” Steve adds, “and that cannot be good for him.”
Dustin gets up and reaches to take the bowl from Eddie, who hisses in response, clutching the bowl and spoon to his chest desperately. Dustin backs off, hands held out flat to placate.
Steve gets up, heading into the kitchen, and coming back with a bowl full of ketchup, “here, Eds.”
Eddie gleefully trades his salty jello for the bowl of ketchup.
“So, it’s definitely color, then. Nothing to do with sweet or salty or...taste…” Dustin scribbles more in the notebook.
Steve sits with his head in his hands, “how can someone live on only red things? What the fuck am I supposed to do, feed him ketchup and jelly forever? He’ll get rickets or something. Fucking...anemia, or some shit.”
Nancy shrugs from her perch on the other side of the room. Through a bit of trial and error they had narrowed it down, and as long as she isn’t in touching distance of Steve, Eddie doesn’t seem to care. “Fruit smoothies? Load them up with spinach? You could put food coloring in milk, oatmeal, stuff like that.”
Steve shrugs, then sighs, “I mean, that might work.”
Dustin keeps scribbling, “there has to be something about the color. There has to be a reason.”
Steve rubs at his face, tired, the why of it doesn’t seem that important right now; making sure Eddie doesn’t die of some awful form of malnourishment does. He’s also supposed to go to the hospital in a couple of days to have his dressings changed and be checked out by a nurse or something. Get his prescriptions for his pain meds refilled; Steve’s going to have to get Hopper over, hopefully Hopper or Owens can smooth something over there. Maybe just tell them Eddie’s moved to Indie, or Europe, or the moon, or something.
And then there’s Wayne. The poor guy probably thinks Eddie is dead; with everything that had happened, they just hadn’t got around to calling him. It had been touch and go even getting Eddie out of the Upside Down, and then finding out that Max had woken up, presumably with the death of Henry/One/Vecna... Steve feels guilty about not calling him yet, and he really should...it just feels like a bit much. Eddie needs to get the turning into a bat randomly thing under control before they even think about taking him outside.
“Eddie,” Dustin calls. Eddie does look up from where he’s perched on the arm of the couch, bare toes digging into the couch cushion, fucking ketchup smeared around his mouth, “what color is this?”
Dustin is holding up a red marker pen; the plastic a very lurid red, “red,” he answers, then starts licking the bowl.
“And what about this one?”
Eddie frowns at the green pen, ketchup on the tip of his nose, “gray?” He hazards, it sounds uncertain though.
“And this?”
It’s a blue pen, Eddie frowns again, “kind of...brown?”
“Huh,” says Dustin, before scribbling in his book. Steve shares a loaded look with Nancy over the top of Dustin’s head. Eddie stares mournfully into the bottom of the now empty bowl.
“Eddie? Are you color-blind now?” Dustin asks.
“No?” Eddie frowns, “I don’t think so?”
“Okayyyy,” Nancy starts, Eddie doesn’t turn to look at her, just watches her impassively from the corner of his eye, Steve can’t help it, it makes him snigger, even though he really shouldn’t be encouraging this...possessiveness, or whatever it is, “so, you can still see the same as before?”
“No,” Eddie says.
There’s a long beat of silence, Nancy rolls her eyes when it becomes clear Eddie isn’t going to elaborate, being deliberately difficult, “so what can you see then?”
“You guys are kind of...glowy.”
“Glowy?”
“Yeah...like, white in the middle, kind of...loud?”
Every one just sort of stares at each other for a second before Dustin stands up, “holy shit.” He strides across the lounge, “holy shit,” and turns on the television, “Eddie, what can you see on the screen?”
Eddie twists so he can look, “nothing, it’s white.”
Steve watches as the show very clearly plays on the TV, “Dustin?”
Dustin makes a loud shushing noise, “thinking Steve!” He stomps past and into the kitchen, “scientific method!” He shouts.
‘What does that even mean?’ Steve mouths silently at Nancy, she shrugs.
There are noises from the kitchen, and a couple of minutes later Dusting is back, and he’s holding two cups, both with small breakfast plates balanced on top, hiding the contents, “Eddie, which one is hot?”
“That one,” Eddie points, “on the right.”
“Hoooooooly shit!”
“What?” Steve’s lost now, “Eddie can see...heat?”
“Yes!! Eddie can see in infra red! This is so fucking cool!” Dustin puts the cups down and grabs up his notebook, “I really need to go to the library, there has to be something on animals that can do this.”
Steve looks at Nancy, Nancy shrugs, and Steve tries to figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to feed Eddie for dinner.