"Okay child geniuses," Eddie said with his usual dramatic flair after food had been consumed and everything tidied away.

"Hey," came from several directions. 

"Technically he's not wrong," was Erica's view on the matter.

"As I was saying," Eddie continued, "there is a matter we need to discuss."

Steve could tell Eddie was nervous under the bravado, but he hung back, letting Eddie deal with this how he wanted to but ready to step in if Eddie needed him.

"Okay, Eddie," Dustin said, "what is it?"

"Well," Eddie said, "just to make sure everyone is caught up, El declared me completely de-Vecna'd yesterday, thank you El, but also a little bit other."

"Like me and Will and Steve," El said with a smile.

"This morning we found out what the other is," Eddie went on, giving her a nod and a tight smile. "I woke up with fangs."

"Fangs?" Will asked.

"Like when you were a minion?" Dustin added.

"Kinda, but not really," Eddie replied. "Much neater."

"They were shorter than the ones he had in the Void," Steve revealed, since he had been the one to actually see them, "but his eyes were the same; black, with a red ring."

"And everything what, just went away?" Mike asked next.

"That would be a nope," Eddie replied with a very much false smile. "They came with this really gnarly thirst."

All the kids were looking at Eddie now. The tension was obvious.

"So, you're still a vampire?" Dustin asked, seeing straight to the root of the issue.

"Yep," Eddie said, popping the 'p' in emphasis.

"But you don't have any vampire weaknesses," Mike pointed out, waving in the general direction of the windows and the bright morning sun.

"Also true," Eddie agreed, "and it's not like I can will the fangs back. They were there, but now they're not, or at least they aren't extended. Not sure how that works to be honest."

"How did you get rid of them this morning?" Lucas asked.

"Um ... well ..." Eddie hesitated for the first time.

"I convinced him to bite me," Steve entered the conversation once more.

"You did what?" Dustin demanded.

"Henderson, you don't have a leg to stand on, so button it," he countered. "I made Eddie bite me. It wasn't like we hadn't done it before, and I healed the wound. See, no bite marks."

He held out his wrist which no longer even had the little pink spots.

"He took like two or three swallows and that was it," he added.

"And you let them?" Dustin asked, glaring at Robin.

"Robin wasn't even there," Steve defended his best friend. "Eddie and I were in my room. We were sleeping in the same bed because of nightmares. You all know what those are like."

It was sad because every kid in the room nodded, even Erica, but it meant they all got each other.

"I figured it would be easier to deal with Eddie's condition if there was an easy solution," Steve told them, "and there is."

"It could have been dangerous," Dustin pointed out, but his tone was much less accusatory.

"I've seen Eddie's control when he was starving and dying," Steve defended himself. "I trust him."

And that was the crux of the matter. No matter what, he trusted Eddie. It would take something far more than fangs to shake that trust. It was the same trust he had in all the party. Occasionally they did stupid things, they were kids, but he trusted their motives.

Eddie looked kind of astonished at his vehemence, but it got the message over to Dustin. Although Steve could understand Dustin's worry, after all he had lost Eddie once and they'd all just been through hell and their own near-death experience, the kid needed to understand.

"And after you fed, the fangs just went away?" Erica asked, getting the inquiry back on track.

"After I fed, I was high as balls. No, I don't understand either because it wasn't like that before," Eddie admitted. "Steve went into mother hen mode and got me to lie down, and I slept it off. When I woke up again, the fangs were, well, normal."

He opened his mouth to demonstrate.

"Are you stronger or faster than you used to be?" Mike asked.

"I ... ah ... don't know," Eddie said with a shrug.

"We should test that," Mike said, looking at Dustin.

"We could use Steve as a control," Dustin agreed with a nod. "Steve, do you have any weights?"

"Will and I were going to help Steve test his powers," El said before he could reply.

"We won't need him for long," Dustin replied. "We only need a baseline, and Steve's a jock so he's strong."

Steve shared a resigned look with Eddie. He could feel the morning slipping away from him as their child geniuses conspired.

~*~

Being a baseline consisted of hefting a few weights, which Steve was more than happy to do. He had a set up in the corner of one of the garages where he sometimes did weight training, so they had plenty of kit to play with. It was what was coming next that had him worried.

While Dustin, Mike and Lucas had camped out with Eddie in the garage, Steve had soon found himself in his living room with El, Will, Erica and Robin. Under El's direction they moved the coffee table so it was closer to one of the couches, at which point she produced a piece of card with concentric circles on it and a ball bearing.

Steve watched as El put the card on the coffee table and the ball bearing on top of it right in the centre.

"We made this so Will could practice," El told him with a bright smile.

"I'll show you," Will offered.

Steve nodded, because he really hoped someone would give him a clue before he made a complete idiot out of himself. Will sat down on the couch, took a deep breath, and fixed his eyes on the ball bearing. The hairs on the back of Steve's arms lifted up as if there was static in the air. After only a second or so, the ball moved off its spot to the edge of the next circle. It then started to follow the circumference of the ring, slowly, but accurately.

"See?" Will asked, blinking as if coming back to reality.

The kid automatically put a Kleenex to his nose.

"Um, no," Steve admitted.

"Don't worry, you will," El assured him, "and the nosebleeds get less."

"It's like using a muscle," Will explained, "the more you use it, the more you can do without hurting yourself."

"If you say so," he said, he was very unsure. "What do I do?"

"Sit on the couch," El told him with one of her small encouraging smiles.

He and Will swapped places.

"Focus on the ball," she explained simply, "and push from here."

She put two fingers on her forehead.

"Okay," Steve said, but that sounded far too simple.

It was. He spent the next half an hour staring at the steel ball and failing to do anything except make himself go cross-eyed.

"I don't get it," he admitted eventually. "What does it feel like?"

"It's like a pressure between your eyes," Will said.

"Could you demonstrate again," he asked, "and would you mind if I touched you while you did it?"

"Sure," Will said with a smile and they swapped again.

Steve placed a hand on Will's shoulder and closed his eyes. He figured if his healing was touched based, if he had a chance of understanding what Will and El were trying to teach him, touch might be the key.

"Ready?" Will asked.

He nodded without opening his eyes.

The hairs on his arms stood on end again and this time he felt something else. It was kind of like a pressure, or at least the echo of it, but it felt different, more ethereal. He also sensed something off and automatically reached out to fix it.

"Did you get it?" Will asked and went to wipe his nose.

The Kleenex came away clean.

"Did you just fix my nose?" Will asked, looking at him.

"Um," he said, "maybe."

El laughed.

"That could be useful," she said, sounding positively delighted. "Did it help? If not, we could try a more emotional approach. It's how I do bigger things."

"I did feel something when you were moving the ball," Steve said. "Only one way to find out, I guess."

"Yeah, because it's really boring watching nothing happen," Erica said in her usual judgemental tone.

"It's really boring not doing anything too," Steve quipped back as he took up his position on the sofa again.

This time as he focused on the ball, he did his best to recreate the echo he had sensed from Will. He tried to approach it like learning a new skill in sports, since he was good at those. The first time was always the hardest.

"Oh," Steve said as he pushed hard with his mind, "that doesn't feel right."

For the first time the ball bearing moved. Not very far or very convincingly, but it moved.

"You did it!" Robin crowed, clapping her hands and she was echoed by Will, El and even Erica, only Steve missed most of it.

The world went very fuzzy for a moment as pain shot through the left side of his head. He swayed in his seat as the room looped the loop. This was very not good.

"Oh shit, Steve," he heard, and he thought it might have been Robin, but everything was distorted and surreal, so he couldn't be sure.

Nausea twisted his stomach as the universe lurched and he made a desperate dive for the trash can at the end of the couch. His breakfast revisiting was unpleasant to say the least as vertigo turned his stomach inside out.

"Erica, can you get some water?" he heard Robin say, and at least this time her voice sounded properly like her.

"Yeah, that's disgusting," Erica said, "I'll be right back."

"Steve, are you still with us?" Robin asked as a gentle hand touched his back.

He nodded, closing his eyes and trying to force the spinning feeling to go away.

"Let's not do that again," he said quietly.

"Here," Robin said and passed him a Kleenex.

"Thanks, but ow," he replied. "Did the drum section of Hawkins High Band just take up residence in my head?"

He didn't even try and sit up yet.

"I'm so sorry, Steve," El said from somewhere close by.

"Not your fault," he said, reaching out blindly and patting her on the arm. "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to do what you and Will do."

"Well, you can do it," Will chimed in, "but it definitely doesn't look good for you."

Steve managed a small smile and carefully opened his eyes. The world stayed nicely in its correct orientation, which was a good step forward.

~*~

"Ugh," Eddie said, collapsing on the couch next to where Steve was already sitting nursing a headache with tissue stuffed up his nose.

"Had fun?" he asked.

"No," Eddie replied. "Those kids are sadistic."

"I know," he said with a small smile. "So, any superpowers?"

"Do I look like I have superpowers?" Eddie replied, putting his head back over the couch.

"Not even vampire strength?" Steve asked, a little disappointed.

"Stevie, I'm not even as strong as you," Eddie said, "and now I ache all over. You made it look easy, you bastard, and it wasn't."

"Sorry, can't help perfection," he replied and smirked as well as he could with Kleenex in his nostril.

"Dumb jock," Eddie shot back immediately.

"Wimpy nerd," he countered, and they both burst out laughing at the same time. "Ow," he said as it exacerbated his headache.

"Aren't you supposed to be able to fix yourself now?" Eddie asked as the amusement passed.

"Yeah," Steve said, "but seems I'm stuck with the headache because there's nothing really wrong. The way El and Will explain it, it's like training for a new sport, new muscles hurt when activated."

"If you say so," Eddie said.

"And, well, since I already had a headache, I didn't feel like making it worse by trying to heal the nosebleed," Steve continued.

"So how did it go?" Eddie asked. "Jedi powers activated?"

"Huh?"

"Are you going to start throwing things around with your mind?" Eddie clarified and Steve caught up.

"Oh, yes, but no," he replied.

"Gonna explain that?" Eddie asked.

"I can do it," he revealed as he rubbed his temples, "but I am never doing it voluntarily again."

"Why?" was Eddie's obvious question.

"He puked," Robin said as she walked into the room. "Full on Exorcist shit, or Starcourt aftermath."

"It was unpleasant," Steve added. "Thank you, you're an angel," he added as Robin handed him a mug of tea.

The smell of chamomile was heavenly. Robin had introduced him to various teas over their friendship and he kept a stock in the back of the cupboard.

"Is that chamomile?" Eddie asked, peering at the mug curiously.

"Yep," Robin replied. "My grandma swears by teas, and I got Steve addicted after Starcourt, but sssh, because big strong jocks don't drink tea."

"I think that ship sailed years ago," Steve muttered as he sipped the soothing liquid. "You a tea man?" he asked Eddie.

"You did see how many mugs were in the trailer, right?" Eddie replied. "You think all of those were just for coffee. Wayne is old school when it comes to tea."

Eddie's eyes went distant as he mentioned Wayne.

"He thinks I'm dead, doesn't he," Eddie said after a moment.

Steve nodded.

"Dustin told him, even though we couldn't tell him everything that happened," he replied. "Look, we'll need to talk to the others first, but we'll come up with something. I saw him at the school the other day, so he came back to town as soon as he was allowed."

"Stubborn old man," Eddie said quietly.

Steve glanced around to make sure it was still only the three of them before he reached out and took Eddie's hand. They stayed like that for several minutes.

"So," Eddie said eventually, apparently snapping out of his thoughts, "no telekinesis. Did you figure anything else out though?"

"They did some of the Void stuff," Robin piped up, crawling into the last space on the couch and throwing her legs over both of them. "Really weird to watch."

"Void stuff?" Eddie asked.

"Mostly we were just talking, only there, not here," Steve did his best to explain. "It was weirdly easy. El says it's harder with distance, but we should try that at some point. She was also trying to explain going further and piggy-backing into someone's mind, but that's way too advanced for me or Will yet."

"Way too advanced, he says, after telling us about talking to people on another plane of existence," Eddie said with a shake of his head and exchanging a look with Robin.

"You asked," Steve protested, sipping his tea.

His headache was showing signs of receding, which was a nice change from the migraines he had suffered in the past.

"I did," Eddie agreed, "but allow me a moment of reflection, these are big concepts."

"Tell me about it," Steve could only agree. "El is a frighteningly sweet, but very focused coach."

"She's probably enjoying having friends like her, rather than fellow lab rats," Robin said while shifting around to make herself more comfortable.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "The way her and Will are together, it's like they really are blood related."

"Does that make you the weird older brother?" Eddie asked with a laugh.

Steve turned his best hurt puppy dog eyes onto Eddie for that.

"You couldn't have gone for cool?" he said. "You had to go for weird?"

"In this town, Stevie," Eddie said with a sweet smile, "everything's weird."