Beyond the Battle: Action & Consequence (Steddie, Stranger Things)

Chapter 10: A Couple of Things

Steve rolled over to find Eddie sitting up.

"Eddie?" he asked as he realised that a, it was early morning, and b, Eddie had the most amazing bedhead.

However, any amusement flew out of his mind when Eddie looked at him. That wide-eyed worried stare he had seen too many times while they were in the Upside Down was engraved on Eddie's features.

"What's wrong," he asked, sitting up.

He was pretty sure Eddie was not panicking over simply waking up in his bed, no matter how mostly asleep both of them had been when he'd climbed in.

"I'm really thirsty," Eddie said quietly, "like really, really thirsty."

That being said, Eddie opened his mouth. Steve squinted because the curtains were half closed and the light wasn't very good, but then he saw what Eddie was trying to show him. Two neat little fangs were jutting from Eddie's upper jaw.

"Oh," Steve said. "Guess that part didn't completely go away then."

"That's all you have to say?" Eddie asked, sounding just a bit hysterical. "Didn't go away? Steve, I have fangs."

"Hey," Steve said, sitting up properly and reaching out to place a hand on Eddie's arm. "It's not like you're some bloodthirsty monster. We can deal with this."

"How do you know, Steve?" Eddie challenged. "How do you know?"

"Because I woke up to you freaking out, not chowing down on my helpless neck," he said, giving Eddie a look. "Now how about we deal with this before anyone else wakes up. I think it will be much easier to explain once we can prove the solution, don't you?"

He held out his wrist towards Eddie.

"Oh my god, you really are a self-sacrificial idiot, aren't you?" Eddie said as if he could not believe what Steve was saying.

"No, in this case I'm a practical one," he replied, "and your friend. It's not like we haven't done this before."

"That wasn't the same," Eddie protested. "That was like some other reality."

"What happens there still has real world consequences," he countered waving between both of them to illustrate his point.

"It doesn't feel like then," Eddie said, expression twisted with worry.

"That's because I think some of that was meta... metapsy... no that's not right ... meta something," he tried to explain.

"Metaphysical?" Eddie suggested.

"Yes, that," Steve agreed. "El and Will were talking about it while we were still staying at the labs and the way El explains it, it's not exactly a real place. It's not like going between here and the Upside Down, it's well..."

"More like astral projection?" Eddie asked.

"If that's where you leave your body, then yes," Steve agreed. "Things there can seem physical and have real world physical consequences, but it's not necessarily the same thing. You remember biting me, I remember you biting me, but I think it was to do with creating a connection between us so I could help you heal, not actual blood. But it doesn't make much different because it felt real to us anyway and you proved you can control your instincts."

"I could hurt you," Eddie insisted.

"I could heal it," he pointed out.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Eddie all but whispered.

Steve shuffled a bit closer.

"Eds," he said, wondering after he'd said it where the nickname came from, "we've all come out of this a little different. Some of us like you, me, and Will a lot different, everyone else changed by everything we've all been through. We stick together, we deal with it. Please, let me help you. If it turns out not to be good for either of us, we'll stop, and we'll call our child geniuses and supergirl to figure out something else."