"Joyce," the man said with a small nod of his head, "and it now officially Viktor on my papers. I think your Dr Owens has a sense of humour." 

There was definitely a story there if Owens was involved, but the Russian accent put Steve completely on edge. The way Robin's fingers wound into his, squeezing hard, told him all he needed to know about her reaction as well.

"Everyone," Hopper said with a smile, "this is Dimitri, he helped me get out of the Russian prison. We fought a Demogorgon together."

It was a ridiculous thought, but Steve knew just how that worked to bond people.

"Hello," Dimitri greeted the room. "I was with Murray when your call came through. I have come to offer my assistance."

"Did your wife and son make it into the country okay?" Joyce asked, going over to the pair.

"They did, thank you," Dimitri said. "Anna would very much like to meet you. She was most impressed when I told her of your exploits. And Mikhail is already obsessed with your television. I would worry, but his English is already better than mine because of it."

The way Joyce smiled at the man then, made Steve feel a little better, but he couldn't help still being tense.

"I tried to explain that it's all over and there is nothing to help with," Hopper said, "but he doesn't believe me."

"American, I have seen your Dr Owens' idea of a patrol," Dimitri countered. "I have already walked the perimeter. I owe you my life. It will make me feel better to make sure yours is protected until at least sunrise."

"You plan to patrol all night?" Joyce asked.

Dimitri gave a curt nod.

"Well, at least eat something before you do," she added, dragging the man further into the house.

"I do not wish to intrude," Dimitri started to say.

"Nonsense," Joyce declared and left the man standing in front of everyone else as she hurried off to the kitchen.

"Hello," Dimitri said awkwardly.

Hopper patted him on the back as he walked past and folded into one of the armchairs.

"Hello," Steve's mom said and held out her hand, "Sylvia Harrington."

"A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Harrington," Dimitri said, shaking her hand politely. "I understand this is your house."

"It is," his mom replied, "but friends are always welcome."

There followed a short round of Wayne, Argyle, Jonathan and Eddie introducing themselves, while Robin and Steve remained warily silent. Steve realised he was going to have to speak before it got awkward when Robin suddenly filled the void. It took him a second to realise she had spoken Russian.

Dimitri looked surprised for a few moments, before inclining his head to her and responding in kind. Steve had no idea what the pair said to each other, but Robin's grip on his hand loosened slightly. He knew Robin had taken learning Russian very seriously after Starcourt, her own way of being prepared in case anything like that happened again. She sometimes practiced on him when they were on shift together, even if he didn't have the first idea what she was saying. Apparently, it helped her pronunciation, and he was always happy to act like a clueless sounding board.

Hence, he recognised the sounds, even a few of the words, but it was completely useless.

"You have a very good accent," Dimitri said in English once more.

"Heard quite a few under Starcourt mall," Robin replied.

"Where you 'died'?" Dimitri asked, looking at Hopper.

Hopper nodded.

"Robin and Steve were two of the kids who broke your guys' top-secret code," Hopper said.

"Remarkable," Dimitri said and seemed to mean it.

"The other two were ten and fourteen," Steve felt the need to add.

"I am glad to be on your side now," was the man's quick answer.

Joyce returned soon after that with food for Dimitri and everyone fell into chatting, which turned into explaining a lot of what had happened that day and what had happened in Russia. No one mentioned powers, but everything else was covered. Steve stayed out of it, holding Robin's hand, and letting the older adults do most of the talking. It was clear Hopper and Joyce trusted Dimitri, surviving Upside Down creatures as a group tended to do that to people.

Dimitri even produced a picture of his wife and son at one point, which helped to humanise him, even to Steve's wary subconscious. However, it was going to take a while longer to be comfortable. He couldn't say he wasn't glad when Dimitri decided it was time to make good on his promise.

~*~

"I need to shower before I fall asleep again," Steve finally decided as he found himself almost dropping off for the third time.

Joyce had vetoed Hopper joining Dimitri for the beginning of the Russian's self-imposed patrol and they were all just sitting around talking about mostly nothing.

"Don't think anyone's very awake," Eddie said looking around the room. "It's been a long day."

"Munson, I think that might be the understatement of the century," Hopper said with a quiet laugh.

"Everyone sorted for sleeping arrangements?" Steve asked, falling into host mode even though his mom was right there.

"I'm bunking with you, Dingus," Robin declared before anyone else could say anything. "As I told my mom when I let her know I wasn't coming home tonight, no way I'm getting any sleep tonight unless I can make sure you're alive."

With any other group it might have been a joke, with them, not so much. When he glanced at Eddie, his boyfriend looked kind of anxious all of a sudden.

"So's Eddie," Steve decided because he could not be bothered with that argument. "Nightmares," was all he added when he saw a couple of raised eyebrows.

Not one of them could object to that.

"I'm good with a couch," Jonathan said.

"Me also," Argyle agreed.

"Then I believe that just leaves Hopper, Joyce and myself, unallocated," Steve's mom said with a smile, "and we will divide ourselves between the two guest rooms upstairs."

"I'll get the spare blankets and pillows," Steve said, climbing to his feet.

"Steven," his mother said, making him freeze in his tracks.

He turned to find her giving him an exasperated look. She stood up and leaned forward, giving him a motherly kiss on the forehead.

"All you have to worry about is getting upstairs," she told him in a fond tone. "I will make sure our guests are looked after. Now do not make me use your full name."

It made him feel about four again, but it also gave him a warm feeling and a lump in his throat. He kept forgetting he didn't have to be the responsible one right now.

"Okay, Mom," he said, doing his very best to not sound as emotional as he felt.

"I'll let Eddie make sure Steve doesn't fall asleep and brain himself in the shower," Robin said as they headed towards the stairs as a group.

"I have never ..." Steve protested.

"Three days after Starcourt," Robin said, giving him a pointed look.

"That was concussion," he complained.

"Still counts, Dingus," she told him, which launched them into a round of bickering, because he was not agreeing to that.

There was a big difference between falling asleep and having a minor episode because of major head trauma. He was in the bathroom with Eddie shoved in beside him while Robin was still telling him how wrong he was through the door when he realised he had lost the argument.

"Fine," he said, opening the door and giving his best friend a look just to get his level of petulance across properly.

Robin just smiled at him until he closed the door again.

Eddie was standing there looking unsure of what to do.

"Want to shower together?" Steve asked, because he was too tired to worry about whether their relationship was at that stage yet or not. "But I have to warn you, I only have the energy for actually washing your back, not what 'washing your back' usually means."

That got a smile out of Eddie.

"Your virtue is safe with me, My Liege," Eddie replied with a flourish. "Come on, let's get clean."

Eddie naked was not a new sight. Eddie naked when he was allowed to touch was, and Steve really wished he wasn't about to fall asleep at any moment. He would absolutely have liked to have had time to indulge in the touching department. As it was, they were in and out as quickly as possible, dressed in the night clothes Robin had clearly flung through the door when they weren't looking, and crawling into bed while Robin cleaned her teeth.

Steve gave Eddie a quick kiss before all but passing out. He completely missed Robin actually coming to bed.

~*~

Steve woke up to find Robin snoring quietly in his ear, but the bed the other side of him empty. He immediately went on alert on finding Eddie missing. It took him a moment to notice the low light coming from the almost shut bathroom door, but he recognised it as the light from above the mirror. Moving carefully so as not to wake Robin, he slid out from under the covers and went to the door.

"Eds?" he said quietly, pushing the door open a little further.

He could see Eddie standing in front of the mirror, just staring as his own reflection. When Eddie didn't acknowledge him, he stepped into the smaller room, pushing the door back to almost closed again behind him.

"Eddie," he tried again.

"I'm a monster, Stevie," Eddie said, still staring at himself in the mirror. "This is just a façade."

Now Steve understood what was going on.

"Bullshit," he replied without hesitation. "You're no more a monster than me or El or Will."

Eddie turned and looked at him then.

"You don't grow fangs and claws," Eddie replied. "You don't drink blood."

"No," he agreed, "all my strange shit is well hidden. Your superpowers come with more obvious adaptations, but that doesn't make you a monster."

"I wanted to kill that colonel," Eddie confessed, looking away again. "I almost ripped his throat out."

"But you didn't," Steve told him.

"I could have," Eddie said, "it would have been so easy."

"And I could have stopped his heart with a thought," he said simply.

"You would never..." Eddie said immediately.

"And neither would you," he interrupted, moving up to Eddie's side. "It's not what we can do or what we look like that makes us," he added, reaching out and placing his hand lightly on Eddie's arm, "it's what we actually do. We've dealt with monsters, one who looked the part, one who looked like an ordinary man. You defended me, you defended El and Will. That makes you a hero, not a monster."

Eddie looked up at him through his dark lashes.

"How do you deal with all this shit?" Eddie asked, voice tiny and broken.

Steve moved in as he saw the first tear fall. He'd been amazed with how well Eddie had dealt with everything so far, but it seemed the previous day was the last straw. Wrapping his arms around the other man, he pulled him close, holding him tightly.

"I'll let you into a secret," he said gently while rubbing Eddie's back, "I don't always. I've fallen apart on Robin more than once. I just don't like to do it in front of the kids in case they need someone they can fall apart on."

"Self-sacrificing asshole," Eddie mumbled between quiet hiccupping sobs.

"We all have our talents," he replied, which got a tiny laugh from Eddie, even if Eddie was still crying into his shoulder.

He held on tight for a while, just rubbing gently at Eddie's back, letting him get the breakdown out of his system. From his own experience he knew only too well that sometimes, that was the only thing to do.

"It's all too much sometimes," he eventually said, when Eddie's breathing began to even out, "but you've always got all of us. You're one of the party now and there are no take backs. And you'll always have me too."

Eddie finally lifted his head and Steve let him pull back a little.

"You know it's really unfair that you're still pretty after you've been crying," he said, gently wiping his thumb across Eddie's cheek. "I always look like I was stung by bees or something."

The faintest smile flickered across Eddie's face.

"We all have our talents," Eddie parroted back at him.

"I suppose being pretty is a requirement for a future rockstar," he said, returning Eddie's smile.

Unfortunately, it did not land the way he had hoped as the smile slipped off Eddie's face.

"What if one day I can't control this thing inside me?" Eddie asked quietly.

"I don't believe that will ever happen," Steve replied, "but if it does, I'll be there to help. To me I think you have a life-or-death survival mode."

"Life-or-death?" Eddie asked, clearly not following.

"Yes," he said. "I'm not saying you'll never figure out how to control the vampire part of you, but it looks like so far, you've only grown fangs in life-or-death situations. You are a vampire, you need blood, so the other you comes to the surface when you need to feed. Then when someone was literally standing over me with a gun, your vampire side decided that shit was not going to stand, and you went superhero on the meathead."

"Superhero?" Eddie said quietly as if he couldn't believe the description.

"Eds, you leapt over the landing banister with the bad guy, landed on the couch, then threw him across the room. That was pretty superhero to me," Steve replied. "Just as badass as everything El and Will did."

"Don't forget to add yourself in there, Big Boy," Eddie replied, somewhat deflecting, but sounding more like himself at least.

"Then we all get to be superheroes together," he said, even though he was still convinced the others were far more badass than he was.

Eddie looked down for a few moments.

"It could happen," Eddie said eventually. "I could lose control."

"And I could have picked a boyfriend who was a serial killer," Steve countered, "but I'm pretty sure I didn't."

Eddie blinked at him for a moment.

"Boyfriend," Eddie said, and Steve realised he'd finally said it out loud. "You want to make it official, then?"

He felt his cheeks heating up while he dealt with the mental whiplash of the sudden change of topic.

"Been thinking it for a while," he admitted, "but if it's too soon..."

Eddie put a finger on his lips.

"You sure you want a monster for a boyfriend?" Eddie asked.

Steve leaned in until their foreheads were touching.

"Still not a monster, unless you want to be monsters together," he said, "but yes."

Eddie smiled at him. It was still a small smile, but it was completely real.

"Monsters together sounds kind of metal," Eddie said. "Might save that for an album title. And for the record, crying or not, I am not pretty, I am ruggedly handsome like a metal rock god should be."

"Of course, how could I be so wrong, I will always bow to the metal for you," Steve replied.

"Boyfriends with the king himself," Eddie whispered, kissing him lightly on the lips. "Little ole me and the Steve Harrington. Who could have guessed?"

"Well not me before it was far too late to run in the other direction," Steve said, smiling against Eddie's mouth.

That startled a laugh out of Eddie.

"I think I should be offended," he said.

"Think of it as a compliment," Steve replied, "you eluded all my defences and caused my bisexual awakening."

"Okay, I'll take that," Eddie said, leaning against him again and kind of sagging.

"Come on," he said, "let's get back to bed, you're exhausted."

"Hah," Eddie said standing back, "says the man who pulled off not one but two miracles today."

"Yeah, well I didn't say I wasn't tired as well," he shot back, "but, as you're so fond of pointing out, you know what I get like when I'm worried about someone else."

"Hmmm," Eddie said, "I do," and kissed him again. "Come on then, before we end up sleeping on the bathroom floor."

Eddie reached out and pulled the little chord on the light above the sink, plunging them into darkness. It took Steve's eyes a few moments to adjust, but it was a clear night and the blinds on his windows were only half closed. He let Eddie lead him out of the bathroom and back to the bed, where he climbed in first, careful not to jostle Robin.

"Can I have a cuddle?" Eddie asked in a low whisper as soon as he climbed in as well.

"Always," Steve replied, shifting so Eddie could snuggle back against his body as he wrapped one arm around his boyfriend's waist.

"If you two start making out in the bed I am trying to sleep in, I will hit you both with pillows until you stop," Robin muttered from behind Steve.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied quietly.

"Much," Eddie added for good measure.

"Stupid boys," Robin concluded, but Steve could tell she was already falling asleep again.

He buried his nose in Eddie's shoulder, smiling as he felt Eddie beginning to relax. No doubt there would be other moments for all of them as they recovered from the latest crisis on top of the previous one and the one before that, all so close together, but he hoped it really was finally over.