Note: This chapter has been censored, you can read the full version at AO3 or Wattpad, links in profile

"Where is she?!" Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan slammed his hands down on the interrogation desk.

Sam Owens flinched at the sound. "You tell me. After Brenner's men locked me up, I have no idea what happened to her. I thought you had your men on her?" He pulled at the cuffs tethering him to the table.

"She took down a helicopter, destroying two vehicles in the process. I lost quite a few good men, and later that same day I find out that Hawkins suffered a massive attack from an unknown source? That doesn't seem like a coincidence to me."

"Look, Eleven figured out who is responsible for these attacks. It's another of Dr. Brenner's 'pets', as you call them. His name is Henry Creel, aka One."

Sullivan stood and looked down at Dr. Owens. "And where can we find this Henry?"

"He's in that other dimension."

He squinted, "isn't that convenient?"

"I know our lab screwed up. I'm willing to take the blame for even Brenner's mistakes, but you can't fight this without Eleven."

"You will take the blame and the punishment. Whatever is causing this we can take out without the help of your science experiment."

"Give us one more chance to clean up our mess." Owens was almost begging.

Sullivan sneered. "And let you hide the girl again while she murders more innocent people? I don't think so."

"You have men in Hawkins right now. Do they have any idea what they're up against? Do those sinkholes look like any natural disaster you've ever seen?"

Sullivan looked down the bridge of his nose at Owens.

"We have seen those. My men and I have far more knowledge of what we're up against. We are on the same side, Sullivan!"

Sullivan stared silently at Dr. Owens before turning around to look at the two-way mirror. "Each of your men will be stationed withtwo of mine to make sure you aren't up to anything suspicious."

"That's all I ask."

He turned sharply to face Owens. "If anything, and I mean anything, goes awry you are off the case and you and all of your men will be placed in the strongest prison I can find"

Owen gave him a solid nod.

Steve continued his new routine; helping out at the makeshift shelter, then hanging out with Robin. Robin teased him often and asked a few prying questions about the guy he'd been with, but never pushed too hard when Steve said he wasn't able to tell her. He'd always appreciated how straightforward and understanding Robin was. Other than her having an uncontrollable big mouth, he felt like he could talk to her about anything. If she wasn't gay, he would probably already be dating her. But maybe not having to worry about sexual tension is what makes their relationship so strong.

As usual, he drove Robin home. There was more than one time that she had gotten lost riding her bike home by herself, especially with the detours from chasms. "So, exactly how far have you guys gone?" she pried as she leaned her head against the window, staring at Steve.

Steve looked at her with a cocked brow. "Not very."

"That's not an answer."

Steve sighed with a mix of annoyance and embarrassment. "Only hands and mouth." He tried to ignore the feeling of his face getting warmer.

Robin smirked as she noticed the color change in his cheeks, but tried not to laugh. "That means you've still got a lot of room to experiment."

"I guess," Steve said flatly.

"Have you seen him again?"

"No," Steve's face sunk slightly. "Haven't heard or seen anything from him." He pulled the car over in front of Robin's house.

She gave him a concerned look and messed up his hair making him swat at her like a fly and stare at her with indignance as she walked to her front door.

Steve's drive home seemed to take longer than usual as Eddie continued to consume his mind with memories of that night, their past, and imaginary scenarios. He even tried to think about what he'd say or do the next time they met. Would he eagerly accept anything Eddie did? Would he still be apprehensive? What would Eddie do? What does Eddie want from him? Is this just a sexual thing, or did Eddie's feelings go deeper than that, and how did Steve feel in that regard? What didhe want from Eddie? Many more answerless questions swam relentlessly around his head. The loudest one was, What do I want from Eddie? It was a question he didn't even know how to begin to tackle. With girls, it was always obvious what he wanted, but whether it was because Eddie was a guy or because it was Eddie, that question was vastly harder. What did he want?

His distraction led him back to the park from the previous night. He scoffed at himself and turned around to his house. All the while wondering if Eddie was watching him from the trees or rooftops. And if he was, why didn't he show himself? Disappointed at the uneventful drive, he returned home and had an uneventful night.

"Looks like I'll be crashing with you a bit longer, dude." Argyle hung up the phone and looked at Jonathan, who was sitting on the hotel bed, staring up at nothing.

"What?" Jonathan responded, Argyle's words took a while to sink in. "Oh, that's awesome." He said when it finally hit him.

"I lost my job." Argyle started laughing, causing Jonathan to follow. "Apparently they didn't like me leaving mid-shift. And they didn't believe me when I said I needed to save my peeps from being hunted down by some secret government agency."

"Wait, you actually told them that?" Jonathan looked up at him in amusement.

"It's the truth, man." Argyle sat on the bed opposite Jonathan.

"No one ever believes the truth." Jonathan started laughing again, falling back onto the bed.

A knock at the door made them panic and start spraying air freshener in the room madly.

"Boys?" Joyce's voice called from the other side.

"Ye-yeah?" Jonathan called, almost tripping on the corner of the bed.

"We're all going to the cabin, we need to talk, all of us, so bring Argyle, too."

The two turned and looked at each other with worried expressions.

"Boys?" Joyce knocked again.

"Yeah, we'll be out in a minute!" Jonathan called.

"Alright, meet me in my room."

"We will!" They said together.

They watched with bated breath as her silhouette moved across the motel curtain and out of sight. The two looked at each other again and started laughing. Argyle fell onto the bed, Jonathan followed suit, immediately sliding off and onto the floor. There was a moment of pause before another wave of hysterical laughter erupted from them.

The passage of time felt different in the Upside Down. With no day and night cycle, Eddie had no way of knowing how long he'd been walking, but he was getting tired. Eventually, he found a secluded place, a cabin hidden deep in the woods. He walked in and set the egg down in a claw-footed tub in a small alcove of a bathroom. His clothes were covered in the egg's slime. He carefully took his bag and guitar off, setting them on an old couch, luckily those were mostly saved from the slime. Only a little ended up on the straps.

The cabin looked like it had been used for storage, so he started rooting around trying to find clothes. Tucked in a back corner, he finally found a box of old clothes. He was not pleased when he opened it to find it was full of flannels, polo shirts, and khakis. He sighed and upturned it. At the very bottom, he found a pair of jeans. They were a few sizes too big, but at least there was a belt. He got undressed, tossing his sogged clothes into the bathroom sink with a wet slapping sound. Luckily, not much had soaked through the clothes, so he was able to keep his boxers and just wipe the rest off with an old towel he found under the sink.

As he wiped away the slime, he looked down at his chest. He hadn't really had a chance to get a good look at his own body. He turned to the small mirror in the bathroom and ran his fingers over his vein-covered cheeks and the scars on his chin. Eddie sighed and looked into his own black eyes. "How was Steve okay with this?" He ran a hand over his torn chest, stepping back, so he could see himself better in the mirror. "Man, they fucked up my ink." He felt the area that once had a demon face tattooed to it, then moved his hand over slightly where his nipple used to be. "And they took my goddamn nipple. I hope it tasted good!" He yelled into the ether. "Assholes," he grumbled as he looked at his arms. Another tattoo was torn under a large scar on his inner right forearm. "Oh, come on, that one was new."

With a sigh, he ran his hands over the rest of his body, it was completely covered in large patches of scarring. He looked down as he placed a hand on his left pec, he was reminded of when he watched Steve explore him. Eddie traced the scars the same way Steve did. He took a few steps back until his back hit the wall. The vines behind him slithered around at his contact. At first, he was worried about the hive mind but then remembered, he was part of it too. He relaxed into the vines on the wall and looked down at his body. His fingers followed one of the larger veins on his chest. When it dipped down to his stomach, he noticed he was pitching a tent.

He groaned and let his head fall back onto the wall. A smirk crept onto his face. "I wonder if I'll be the first to do this here." He chuckled as his hand slid over a large scar above his hip and into his boxers. A sigh of relief escaped him as he recalled the feeling and warmth of Steve pressed against his as he fully lost himself in the moment. This wasn't the first time he'd thought of Steve in this way, but it was the first time he didn't have to rely entirely on imagination.

"Whoa," he shouted and jumped off the wall as he felt one of the vines creep over his inner thigh. He caught something off about his reflection in the mirror. Walking up he stared at his original eyes. He placed his fingers under one and was startled when they started to flood back to black. "What the fuck?" He furrowed his brow and turned away from the mirror. In an attempt to avoid blue balls he scanned for an area that didn't have too many vines.

The couch was his best option. He cleared it of his stuff and fell backward onto it, letting his mind delve back into his fantasies. His experience with Steve's scent, sounds, and textures added fuel to his imagination. He defaulted to an old favorite, Steve looking up at him with a slutty expression. His scenario was far more real than ever before. Eddie imagined gripping Steve's hair in his hand tight enough to pull it, using his groans of pain from him touching Steve's tender wounds. He slammed Steve's face firmly against him, watching as he struggled, suffocating. He released Steve's head, allowing him to breathe frantically, his face beet red, tears streaming down his cheeks. Eddie took over and finished on Steve's face, making sure to get some in his precious hair.

"I should probably feel bad about that." Eddie relaxed his body, wiping the cum off his hand and onto the back of the couch. He shrugged and heaved himself to his feet, pulling his boxers up the rest of the way. He turned his attention back to getting dressed in those awful clothes.

He pulled on the pants, tied them off with the belt, and put on a brown and white plaid button-up flannel shirt. He looked at himself in the mirror. "I look like a hick." He groaned and continued to root through the house. He tripped over a loose rug, pulling it with him as he fell. When he stood, he saw there was a hatch underneath. It led to a storage crawl space. Eddie started pulling out boxes and finally found one that said clothes on it. He tore off the tape, and inside was clothing a bit more to his taste. There were old band tees among various other logo shirts that he didn't recognize. He pulled out a black one with a rolling stone's logo on it. "That'll do." He took off the brown flannel and replaced it with the new t-shirt. It was a little on the big side, but not too bad. The rest of the clothes in there were either far from his style or ridiculously big.

Eddie continued to pull out boxes. He found a few labeled Vietnam. He tore the first one open and was bummed to see it was just paperwork and files. Setting it aside, he opened the next one, this one had more promise. He removed a pair of combat boots and pants. "That's what I'm talking about!" He stood, shook off the way too big jeans, and put on the army pants. They weren't quite as oversized and looked better than the jeans. Next, he slid on the boots, those were only one size too big. He strapped them on, tucking the pants into them. This time he liked what he saw in the mirror. "Much better."

Not sure what to do with himself, he continued to look through the boxes. In the same box as the pants, he found the matching army jacket. It had a name embroidered on it, 'Hopper'. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Eddie tossed the jacket aside and started looking through the Vietnam box full of files. His suspicion was confirmed as he pulled out a file labeled 'Jim Hopper'. "No wonder the clothes are so big." He laughed to himself. "Of all the fucking places I could have wound up, it had to be your place." There was one other Vietnam box he hadn't opened. Inside were small boxes of rations. He sighed as he was reminded of his time back at Rick's. "You'll do." he picked up a random box and stood.

Eddie sat heavily on the couch and opened the small box. As he examined one of the weird little cans, he heard a faint whispering and shot upright. It was a voice he hadn't heard in over a year, but a voice he was very familiar with, Chief Hopper. He was confused, Hopper was dead, how could he be hearing him? Jim wasn't the only one talking, but he didn't recognize any of the others. The voices sounded the same as when he heard Dustin at the Wheeler's house, vague and distant. He strained to listen.

"With the way things are, we need to stay here, at least until this whole Upside Down thing is over." Joyce paced behind the couch.

"I need to be here this time," El said firmly, sitting cross-legged in a recliner. "I do not want to leave until we know for sure he is gone."

"Unfortunately, you are the only one that can actually do anything about it." Will sighed at the dining table, Jonathan sat across from him.

"That doesn't mean we can't help her," Hopper added, leaning against the wall near the kitchen.

"Exactly," Joyce sat heavily on the couch with a sigh.

"How about you stay at my house by Lake Tippecanoe?" Jim suggested, pushing himself off the wall. "I don't use it anymore now that I'm staying here with El, so you and your kids can take it while you're here." Hopper sat next to Joyce on the couch.

"You sure?" Joyce asked with concern.

"Of course, it's better than you wasting your money at that damn motel. We can move you in tomorrow." He put an arm around the back of the couch behind Joyce.

"I don't know," She looked up at him with unease. "I feel like we'd be intruding."

"Nah, think of it as housekeeping." He looked ahead at the front door as he spoke. "Right now it's sitting there unused and going to waste. And if a beautiful woman and her family were to move in,"

Will and Jonathan looked at each other with a grossed-out cringe.

"Then maybe I'd feel more comfortable about it." He looked at her with a coy smirk.

Joyce playfully hit him. "You sweet talker." She smiled. "Fine, we'll take it."

"Perfect." Jim turned and smiled at Will and Jonathan. "Then I can rest easy knowing it's in good hands." He looked around. "Where did that friend of yours go?"

"Argyle?" Jonathan clarified. "He likes the woods around here, so he's probably off looking for mushrooms or something."

"Doesn't he need to go back to California?" Will asked.

"Apparently not," Jonathan explained. "He lost his job."

"Hey, d'you think this is edible?" Argyle called in from a crack in a boarded-up window next to Jonathan, he was holding up a mushroom.

The park on Steve's way home became a regular visit after dropping off Robin. The last couple of days had been stressfully uneventful for him. He used the park as a place to think about whatever came to his mind, not just Eddie, but also what they could do about Vecna's imminent return. Vecna may be in hiding right now, but it was obvious he'd return with a vengeance. It was great that El got her powers back and Hopper was alive, but how much could they really do against such a threat? Max was still unconscious in the hospital, and Lucas rarely left her side. Steve was actively avoiding Mike and especially Dustin, he was worried he'd slip up and tell them about Eddie. Luckily, Mike at least was thoroughly distracted by El and Will being in town. And with Will being here, that also meant that Nancy was busy catching up with Jonathan.

For the most part, he's just had Robin, and even Robin got to see Nancy more than he did, but seeing her with Jonathan was not exactly his favorite thing. Not that Jonathan didn't treat her well, he did, Steve just missed his time with her. The intrusive thought, She's too good for me, loved to creep its way in at any chance it had. While he still hoped that one day Nancy would come back to him, he had the nagging Eddie obsession to distract him at least a little. There was a time when he would be relieved to have such normal days, but now he finds himself looking to the sky, trees, and rooftops hoping to see Eddie's silhouette. Any shadow that caught his eye, any sound in the middle of the night, it was all Eddie, but it never was.

Each day that passed made that night feel more and more like a dream. He started doubting his memory, if it wasn't for Eddie's rings, and the fading mark on his inner thigh, he would be convinced it was a dream. Everything made him think of Eddie as well, every time he saw anything related to fantasy and guitars. He couldn't eat anything strawberry-flavored, and he perked every time he heard heavy music. Whenever he wasn't focused on something, Eddie was on his mind. Nancy didn't even have this strong of a hold on him.

At night in his room his eyes would play tricks with the shadows, he would get glimpses of Eddie on the ceiling, or perched in his window. Every gust of wind was his whisper. Invasive scenes interrupted not only his sleep but his daily life. Be it reliving something that actually happened or imagining something new. Even his dreams were being invaded. Some of them were startlingly realistic, those usually ending with him waking up to sticky underwear. He'd masturbated to the thought of Eddie more than he's comfortable admitting.

His most vivid dream about Eddie wasn't sexual, but it stuck with him.

Steve was wandering around a barren landscape in the Upside Down. It didn't look like anywhere he'd seen before, but he knew it was the Upside Down by the particles in the air and the vines that spread across the ground. As he walked, the vines got more sparse until they were all but gone. A little way out into the cracked land was Eddie in a heap with a cyclone of demobats around him. Steve ran toward him, yelling his name and attempting to shoo the bats away. When he got within range of the bats, he swung a punch that felt like it was moving through molasses. It connected with one of the bats. Steve stumbled forward as his fist phased through it like a ghost. He looked down at his hands, he could partially see through himself. He turned his attention to Eddie, who looked like his old self, with no veins across his skin, and his eyes looked normal, except they were staring at nothing, unblinking.

Steve's heart raced as he realized he was looking at Eddie's corpse. His hands shook as he knelt next to him. Even knowing he would pass through him, he tried to lift his head, and sure enough, his hand slipped through his hair. Eddie's clothes were torn as he remembered them on the night he showed up, but the blood stains were fresh.

The swarm of bats dispersed suddenly, startling Steve. Slowly he stood and looked around. Above him, he saw a figure slowly lowering itself. Steve stepped back, getting out of its way. Vecna. He wanted to protect Eddie's body, he knew there was nothing he could do, but he had to try. He ran forward and tried another punch, this one managed to move at full speed but was stopped by Vecna's hand, gripping it tightly, painfully. Steve looked up at Vecna's face and was horrified to see him staring directly back. A malicious smile infected Vecna's face, and he pushed Steve back with a force he'd only felt from El, but this was much stronger.

Before Steve was able to get to his feet,Vecna was already manipulating Eddie's body. He placed a foot on Eddie's shoulder and rolled him onto his back. With a clench of his fist, Eddie lifted off the ground chest first. The particles around them accumulated into tendrils. After eight, long, squirming shadows had formed he clenched his other fist dramatically, causing the tendrils to twist together, momentarily taking the shape of the Mind Flayer. With a sharp swipe of Vecna's hand, the tendrils shot into Eddie's mouth and eyes. They wrapped themselves around him, binding him like an anaconda.

Steve ran forward, yelling at him to stop. Vecna smiled and rose himself and Eddie higher in the air, far out of Steve's reach. The shadows constricted Eddie tightly as they forced their way into him. Steve continued to yell from below. Vecna paid no mind as he defiled Eddie's corpse. Once every bit of the shadow had made its way into Eddie, Vecna slowly lowered him down. Steve hurried to position himself below Eddie in an attempt to catch him, but as he expected, Eddie passed through his arms.

"He's ours now." Vecna's voice echoed from within Steve's mind as well as from every direction around him, then he disappeared into thin air.

"Eddie!" Steve yelled as he watched him convulse on the ground. His eyes were rolled up into his skull, so only the whites were visible, his chest heaved, his arms and legs were stiff and straight, the muscles impossibly tense, and every surface vein and artery bulged. The whites of his eyes had what looked like thin black worms squirming over them. Dark veins slithered their way out from his mouth and eyes, making their way down his neck and arms until they overtook his whole body. Steve didn't want to see this, but he couldn't look away.

Gradually the seizures ebbed, and he laid motionless at Steve's feet. Steve knelt down next to Eddie. He reached out to brush his matted hair out of his face, but forgot he was incorporeal. A sharp intake of breath from Eddie shocked Steve onto his ass. "Eddie?!" He scrambled to get back up beside him. Eddie shot up, coughing violently, and puffs of dark particles shot from his mouth. Eddie looked around to get his bearings, and Steve watched his eyes flood with black.

Eddie looked right through Steve as he tried to stand, only to be forced back to the ground on all fours in agony. He let out a blood-curdling scream as his back bulged, his black leather jacket began to split, dark red filled the inner lining a second before it tore, and giant fleshy demobat wings birthed from his back. He fell to the ground whimpering in pain, the wings fell limply with him, one over him like a blanket, the other out flat behind him. Eddie curled himself into the fetal position and quivered pathetically.

Jesus. Steve didn't know what to make of what he just saw, but he positioned himself next to Eddie, this time he was able to move his hair from his face, it was damp with sweat. Eddie let out a few more whimpers and looked up at Steve, his face streaked in sooty tears. "Harr-ington?" he croaked before passing out.

Steve immediately woke up in a cold sweat.