Curate, connect, and discover
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
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The town is a wreck, but there's still space for them at the hospital.
Nancy recognizes a few of the doctors - ones who know about the Upside Down - and they're all whisked away into two private rooms. One for Eddie, and one for Max.
Steve is stuck with Eddie. He hates thinking of it like that, because he wants to be with Eddie, but he wants to be with Max, too. He wants to prowl back and forth between them, like his presence will make any difference.
But Eddie's heart is still in his chest, and while the doctor had praised his quick thinking in helping his friend, it's too risky to have Eddie's heart far away from his body while he's healing.
So Steve's in the chair next to his bed, hooked up to the heart monitor and listening to the faint but steady sound of Eddie's heart as he feels it beat in his own chest.
Dustin and Robin go back and forth, one of them always with him and the other giving updates when they come to switch out.
It's Dustin in the chair next to his now, and he feels the echo of his own heart next to Dustin's, knows the kid must be feeling what he is - and probably a little bit of Eddie's, too.
Three hearts, all entwined. Robin could make something poetic from that, he thinks.
All he can do is let Dustin pillow his head on his shoulder, press his hand to his own chest and think come back to us.
Eddie's hand twitches.
Steve jolts up, reaching for it automatically.
“Steve?” Eddie asks, even though his eyes are closed and his expression hasn't changed. “Dustin?”
Dustin makes some kind of strangled noise, fumbling for Eddie's other hand. “Can he feel us?”
“I've got his heart, and you've got mine, so yeah, he has to, right?” Steve asks, aware he sounds a little desperate and not really caring.
“Come on, Eddie,” Dustin pleads. “You have to wake up, okay?”
Eddie wakes up.
—
“I should have died in there.”
Steve feels his jaw tense. “No, you shouldn't have.”
“No, I meant - doc says I would have died, if you hadn't taken my heart,” Eddie says.
Oh.
“I know,” Steve admits. “That's why I asked for it.”
Eddie exhales, long and slow. “Where'd you learn that?”
“Eighth grade science,” Steve replies, shooting a little grin at him.
Eddie gives a surprised little laugh. “Seriously?”
“Eh, kind of.” Steve considers for a moment. He's never talked about this with anyone, but - “My parents used to lock their hearts in a safe in my dad's study at night. When I was little, and I got upset at them leaving, they told me they put their hearts in there when they went on trips, too, and I had to stay behind to watch over them.”
Eddie looks at him, soft and tender. Steve'd think it was pity, if it wasn't for Eddie's heart in his chest. It's just sad, and a little angry.
“I told Mr. Clarke about that, and he said it was hogshit.”
Eddie snorts. “Mr. Clarke said hogshit?”
“Who's telling this story?” Steve retorts, then laughs when Eddie mimes zipping his lips closed and throwing away the key.
“It was hogshit,” Steve continues. “But then he told us that people could survive potentially fatal injuries with heart exchanges. Then, after Starcourt…”
He trails off, not sure how to say it.
“Robin told me a little,” Eddie admits. “That it was the Russians and the Upside Down, and you let yourself get caught to cover for Dustin and Erica. That you tried to draw attention away from her.”
Oh.
That makes him sound more heroic than the moment felt, but at least it also makes this easier.
“The Russian spies, they had this thing that could open your chest. They didn't believe I was telling the truth, so they took my heart out.”
Eddie reaches out to take his hand, squeezing it tight. There's a faint trickle of horror and guilt and affection, and he knows that Eddie's put it together with the changes in his heart.
“I healed a lot faster because we were doing heart exchanges,” he finishes. “So I figured it'd keep you safe.”
Eddie's grip on his hand tightens. “I really am sorry,” he mutters. “About last summer. After - after that, you needed a friend, and I just left.”
Steve licks his lips, considering his response for a moment, before he goes with honesty. “I had friends. I had Robin and the kids, and they were enough. I didn't really need anything else. But - I wanted you.”
Eddie looks at him, and Steve can feel - hesitation, uncertainty, does he really want me?
“Eddie,” Steve says, slow and thoughtful. “I don't want you because I'm lonely, or I have no one else. Maybe there was a part of that when it first started, but - I'm okay, I'm happy. I want you because of you, not just because I want anyone.”
Shock filters through Eddie so hard that Steve feels it like an almost physical blow.
His heart aches.
He doesn't have to ask if that's something that Eddie hasn't been told before - he knows it already.
“I'm not letting you go,” Steve tells him, only because Eddie's heart is still beating in his chest and he's confident it will be well received. “Not this time.”
“I can live with that,” Eddie says, only a little shaky.
—
Dustin takes a turn swapping hearts with Eddie, and Steve heads immediately for Max's room.
Lucas is there, sitting by her bed and holding her hand.
“Hey,” Steve says softly, pulling up a chair to sit next to him. “How's she doing?”
“Same,” Lucas says flatly. “But she's in there, I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Steve asks.
“We swapped before - before. Just in case. To give her another tether to the real world.”
Shit, that was a great idea. It gives him more hope, and he sags a little in his chair.
“Jesus, you kids are smart,” Steve says, impressed.
Lucas looks at him funny. “We learned that from you, Steve.”
He doesn't really think that's true, considering he learned it from them just as much, but he lets it be, just gripping the back of Lucas's neck and giving him a little squeeze.
Lucas unwinds, just a little bit, and Steve gets a better look at him - notices his swollen eye, his puffy jaw, and feels a cold surge of rage.
He waits for a moment to let the worst of it pass, then asks, “Swap?”
Lucas looks over at him, clearly hesitant.
“The three of us are kind of banged up,” Steve says. “Figure it can't hurt to have more heart power at work here.”
Lucas snorts. “Heart power?”
“Heart power,” Steve confirms, radiating as much confidence as possible.
He's not sure if it works, but Lucas does open his chest up and carefully pull out Max's heart. Steve's extra gentle as he swaps them, tucking her heart into his chest.
It's immediate, what Lucas was talking about. There's only the faintest sense of Max, and an equally faint sense of a fear and guilt and love that he recognizes as Lucas - the residual of what Max is feeling from him, he guesses. Even stranger is an echo he can feel of his own emotions - from him to Lucas to Max and back to him again, apparently.
“Huh,” he says, at the same time Lucas goes, “Woah.”
They sit there, together, and Steve must fall asleep at some point because the next thing he knows, there's the shifting of a chair as Lucas jumps up. Steve startles, only to see El and Will and Mike come flooding in. They sweep Lucas into a hug, and Steve watches them hold on, clinging and desperate.
Eventually, they peel apart, and El goes to Max's side, taking her hand. Her eyes close for a long while, then open again, looking sad.
“I can't reach her,” she whispers. “Not even with my powers back.”
“She's there, though, right? I can still feel her,” Lucas says.
El's brow furrows.
“Max and Lucas swapped before this happened,” Steve explains. “To keep her tethered here, so Vecna couldn't take her.”
Mike frowns. “Vecna?”
“One,” El says, which - okay, yeah, clearly there's a story there, but not the time. She holds her hands out to Lucas. “May I swap?”
Lucas looks over at Steve, and he takes Max's heart out and offers it to her.
“We figured the more helping, the better,” Lucas says.
El exchanges her heart for Max's, looking thoughtful. It's an even bigger rush, with El in the mix, and - even though Max's heart isn't in his chest anymore, he can feel the echo of her even more clearly.
Lucas sucks in a breath. “It's working,” he says. “She's stronger.”
“The more, the better,” El says thoughtfully.
“Eddie woke up from me and him and Dustin sharing,” Steve says, the realization coming over him. “I mean, it wasn't a real circle, but he was just regularly unconscious, not creepy wizard unconscious.”
El looks at Mike, who immediately turns on his heel and leaves. He comes back a few minutes later, with Dustin and Robin and Erica.
“We made Nancy and Jonathan and Argyle stay with Eddie,” Mike announces.
“Uh, yeah, do you want to tell us why?” Dustin asks.
El's eyes flash. “We're going to get Max back.”
Hearts change hands quicker than Steve can keep track of, but in the end, no one has their own heart in their chest. It's an avalanche of emotion that Steve can't make out - so much it’s almost overwhelming - until he feels something like a guiding hand, firm and insistent.
“Max,” El whispers.
Steve turns his thoughts completely on Max, focusing on her - on taking her to the arcade, on the skate park, on her hanging out in his kitchen as they cook dinner. One by one, everyone's emotions start to take focus - on how Max makes them feel, how much they care, how they need her here.
Max's eyes open.
—
They set up another rotation schedule, this time for Max, who looks a little shell shocked and overwhelmed by all the attention.
“Did you think we wouldn't do this for you?” Steve asks quietly when it's his turn, when Lucas and El are sleeping and it's just him and Max awake in her room.
She doesn't answer for a while, but he can feel her conflicted confusion and then unsteady acceptance.
“No,” she says after a while. “I knew you guys would.”
He breathes out, and they sit in silence for a bit.
“Did you read my letter?” she asks, purposefully not looking at him.
“Nah. You said it was just in case, and there wasn't going to be an in case. We weren't going to let Vecna have you.” He manages to keep his voice steady, though he knows she can feel the edge of the fear he'd had for her. “I wanted to hear what was in it from you.”
She makes a face, and he thinks she isn't going to tell him, but then she blurts out, “I said I wished you were my brother, not Billy.”
Oh.
His stomach drops out, and there's a rush of vertigo that leaves him breathless for a moment, but - not in a bad way.
He doesn't know how to respond to that, other than, “I am your brother.”
She scoffs. “It doesn't work like that.”
“Sure it does,” he counters, growing confident. “Billy was your brother just because of a piece of paper your parents signed, right?”
She frowns, finally looking at him again. “Yeah, I guess.”
“So what's stopping us?” He taps his chest, over where her heart beats. “We have each other's hearts. We'll always be family.”
Max looks away again, then, very quietly, says, “Okay.”
—
“Heard you call Max your sister when you were talking to the doctor earlier,” Eddie says.
Steve feels a little smile tug at his lips as he takes Eddie's hand. It grows when Eddie laces their fingers together.
“You know Dustin's going to throw a fit when he hears it, and insist that you were his brother first, right?” Eddie teases.
“Of course he is.” Steve rolls his eyes. “Welcome to my family. You sure you still want to stick around?”
He's joking, but Eddie's expression goes soft and contemplative.
“Welcome to your family, huh? You planning a proposal soon, big boy?” Eddie asks softly.
Steve's mouth goes dry. He thinks he should say something - anything - but nothing comes out.
“Swap?” Eddie asks, after a few minutes.
Steve's not sure if someone told him or if he figured it out himself, and part of him wants to ask Eddie if he's sure, but he decides to take Eddie at his word. He opens his chest up, holding out his heart.
Eddie copies him, and - it's his first real look at Eddie's heart. There's silver lines all over it, delicate scars mottling its surface, but it's almost as deep red as Steve's still is.
“Oh,” Steve breathes once Eddie's heart is safely tucked inside his chest again.
There's a love there so strong he almost doesn't know what to do with it - isn't sure if it's Eddie's or his for a moment before he realizes it's both of them feeding off each other.
“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly.
Steve lifts Eddie's hand up, presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I know what I want my future to look like,” Steve admits. “And I want you in it.”
Eddie swallows, and Steve can feel an edge of trepidation before it solidifies into something sharp and determined. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Steve asks.
“I'm sticking around, this time,” Eddie confirms. “For good.”
“Okay,” Steve agrees.
He knows it's a risk, but - right now, they're alone, and so he leans in to seal the promise their hearts are making with a kiss.
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And that's the final part for now! I do have a sequel planned down the road for what happens after they get out of the hospital, folding Eddie into the heart sharing and settling Eddie and Steve and Robin into a trio - I plan on using the tag "hearts out steddie" if anyone would like to follow it for when it comes out!
Thank you so much to everyone who commented, reblogged, liked, or otherwise interacted with this! Everyone's reactions were so amazing, and I really love reading your thoughts!!
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