Random OneShots

I like you in my clothes anyways

By: Silasthekitty on Ao3

Steddie

~~~~~

It was late. They'd just barely managed to get everyone out of the Upside Down safely. Steve's trying really really hard to not think about it too much because they almost didn't. There was a moment where he truly thought Nancy wouldn't make it back to them. When he was there, alone, in the Upside Down with her. Everyone else had made it through, and it was just them.

And Steve had frozen. He didn't know if it'd come from the fact that they were so close to making it out, or if it was because it was Nancy, or if it was because the blood loss was catching up to him, or if, in that exact moment, the past four years just became too much and his mind couldn't take anymore- but something caused a shock strong enough to paralyze him. He was made hyper aware of the ice that flooded his veins as Nancy went unresponsive and her eyes rolled back in her head and he couldn't move to her and people were shouting and she began to levitate and he couldn't move an-

Steve's hands tugged his hair hard enough to make his scalp sting, and he shook his head hard enough to stop the spiraling thoughts. Nancy was okay. Everyone had stood in Eddie's trailer panicking until Robin darted away, and then suddenly Steve wasn't alone in the Upside Down. Robin had come back with a cassette player and Nancy's favorite song- which apparently she'd remembered from when she'd been digging around the girl's room. Robin had saved Nancy. She was okay.

When Nancy fell to the ground, something snapped in Steve and he gasped in a breath so large he choked on it. He was frozen and then he wasn't and then he was hunched on the ground next to her gagging on air and the burn in his side. Nancy was the one who almost died, and yet she was the one who knelt next to him and instructed his breathing until he managed to get it under control. She had been the one comforting Steve when it should've been the other way around.

The next couple hours or so is a vague blur in Steve's mind. A shock-induced haze that he didn't manage to come out of until they were all together in the Wheeler's basement. He knows that Nancy calmed him down, and that someone had to help him out of the Upside Down. His arms wouldn't pull and his hands felt too weak to hold the rope. He knows that Dustin's face was marred with worry for Steve in a way it never should be, like Steve was invincible in his mind and it had just all come crashing down. He knows that it was Eddie who pulled him up off the mattress when he didn't move, and he remembers the concern on Eddie's face that lingered even after everyone had moved on to fretting over Nancy.

Steve remembers because the shock was still so strong, slipping through despite his best efforts to hide it from the kids, and the one thing to ground him was the weight of Eddie's hand around his shoulder. The burning warmth of it against bare skin when it slipped under the boy's own jean jacket and onto the junction between his shoulder and neck. It gave Steve a focus point until his mind was able to catch up and realize that they'd survived, for now at least. He'd been afraid of how much he relied on the touch, how his hand darted out on its own accord when Eddie first shifted. But he wasn't really pulling away.

For the rest of the time they were out Eddie kept some point of contact with Steve. No matter how small. The hand on his neck, a tug on his sleeve, a brush of arms as they walked. Steve wouldn't admit it- to Munson of all people, but he was thankful. Especially for the way that Eddie never said anything, just kept offering the simple touches until Steve found the strength to pull away.

In the meantime they'd managed to help Eddie pack a dulfflebag's worth of things, start up Nancy's cassette, and get everyone safely to the Wheeler's- even if that meant sneaking Eddie in the back door. Steve thought he had a better grip on himself by then, but the crease between Mrs. Wheeler's brows when she noticed him behind Nancy said otherwise. Along with the way she pulled him aside as everyone filed through.