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Chapter Text

After fighting and defeating numerous homicidal, interdimensional monsters, everything afterwards should be easy. However, it is with great difficulty and reluctance that Steve Harrington drags himself out of bed in the horrendously early hours of Monday morning.

It should be a crime against humanity to have to return to work the week after almost dying in possibly the most gruesome way one could imagine, Steve thinks sulkily. Still, he manages to brush his teeth and dress himself and wrestle his hair into something arguably presentable before gunning it to Family Video five minutes before his shift is supposed to start.

Robin greets him with a two fingered salute and a sympathetic grin as he stumbles through the door, midway through tugging his green uniform vest on over his shirt. The little bell above the door tinkles to announce his entry. He resists the urge to curse at it. His head is pounding.

“Looking especially dishevelled this morning, Harrington.”

“Thank you,” Steve grunts, then realises a moment too late that he’s just been insulted, and lifts his gaze to frown at her. She’s smirking. 

“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” Robin leans forward over the desk and cups her chin in her hands. “Going back to normal so quickly. It’s like Starcourt all over again. Oh, except this time our beloved place of employment wasn’t invaded by evil Russians and then brutally demolished by a faceless, tentacled–”

She has bags under her eyes, Steve notices as she rambles, but he also knows that he shouldn’t be too concerned because they likely all do. Hell, his own are probably the darkest of all; he’s been avoiding mirrors lately for that precise reason. He hasn’t slept properly since… well. Since everything.

In response to Robin, who has now fallen silent and has taken to staring at him forebodingly, he just gives a slight shrug of his shoulders. He doesn’t really know what to say.

Luckily enough for him, he never needs to know what to say, because Robin always seems to have plenty of words for the both of them and everyone else on the planet.

“By the way, how’s your…” She gestures loosely to his stomach, the subtle crease of her eyebrows revealing her concern. “Have you been looking after it? I know I asked you this yesterday, but I just need to clarify that you understand the importance of maintaining a consistent cleaning routine so that it doesn’t get infec–”

“Robin.” Steve cuts her off, but his tone is fond. The smallest hint of a smile lifts the corner of Robin’s mouth. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I changed the bandages last night.”

“Gonna have some gnarly scars,” Robin breathes after a beat of silence, almost like she’s jealous, which… Steve can’t blame her. The ladies dig gnarly scars. He relays this thought aloud, perhaps foolishly, and Robin screws her nose up and opens her mouth in preparation to scold him. Though before she can, the bell on the door clangs harshly and in whirls a human tornado.

“Jesus, man, we aren’t even open yet. This has to be a new record.”

Dustin looks like he’s just rolled out of bed, which probably isn’t too far from the truth considering the time, and he’s clutching his walkie in a white-knuckled grip as if with the intention to throttle it. Steve’s stomach drops. He has to pause to remind himself that it’s all over now, they got rid of Vecna, and Dustin is probably just being a general nuisance. Everything is fine.

“Steve, Robin, it’s an emergency,” declares the little shit, and Steve’s heart stops beating entirely, turns to cement, and plummets to the pit of his gut. He meets Robin’s gaze, who widens her eyes and shrugs at him.

“Henderson,” Steve says carefully. “Is this an interdimensional-monsters-are-invading-the-town-again emergency, or do you just need a lift somewhere?” 

Dustin opens his mouth to reply but Steve cuts him off before he can get anything out, maybe because he’d rather not know the truth. 

“Because if you haven’t noticed,” he continues, feeling his palms grow damp with sweat, “We’re working.” He gestures pointedly to his name tag. Dustin doesn’t follow the motion, but hesitates, deliberating Steve’s previous question.

“None of the above,” he concludes eventually, and Steve feels the life flood back into him. “Or maybe both.”

And there goes his pulse again. 

“Look,” Dustin sighs, “I don’t know. I hope it’s nothing. But you guys know more than anyone else that it’s better never to assume everything’s fine.”

“You’re not giving us much to work with here,” Robin interjects. She’s somehow teleported to the other side of the desk and is standing beside Steve, her arms folded over her chest. Steve can sense the nervous energy emanating from her, and it’s not her usual irrational anxiety. “You’re freaking Steve out. Look at him, the poor man is trembling.”

“I’m not trembling–”

Dustin groans and drags a hand down the side of his face. “It’s Eddie.”

And that successfully has Steve and Robin halting their bickering. 

Steve hasn’t really seen Eddie since they put an end to Vecna and went their separate ways just over a week ago. It hasn’t been that long in the grand scheme of things, but now Steve thinks about it, it feels like a lifetime ago that he was blasting some grungy Dio song at full volume and wrenching a whimpering Eddie from Vecna’s slimy grasp. A frigid shudder shoots down his spine at the memory. Shit, he can’t do this again.

“What happened with Eddie?” He hears Robin begin her interrogation through the haze that has now enveloped his mind and his senses like a dense, stifling fog.

“I was talking to him, asking how he was doing, and he just trailed off mid-sentence… like, went completely silent.” Dustin brandishes the walkie in front of him, bringing Steve back to Earth with a jolt. “Then it just… cut out. I’ve been trying to reach him all morning.”

“I see,” Robin says quietly.

Steve grabs a fistful of his own hair and scrunches his brow, attempting to slot the jumbled pieces of Dustin’s puzzle together in his clouded brain. “Wait, wait, wait. So Munson has gone M.I.A. and you’re asking me to drive you to his place to check he isn’t lying unconscious somewhere in a pool of his own blood?”

Dustin winces. “Harsh, but yeah, pretty much.”

“Why not just bike there?”

“My mom confiscated my bike,” Dustin replies bluntly. “She doesn’t think it’s safe for me to go out by myself. I snuck out anyway, but the trailer park is too far to walk.”

Robin and Steve share a brief glance. Steve heaves a sigh. “Look, I’m just as concerned as you are, dude, but we can’t just pack up shop and leave before we’ve even opened.”

“Actually…” Robin is already striding towards the door with the store keys dangling from her grasp. For someone so uncoordinated, she sure moves fast. “We can do whatever the hell we want, Steve.”

Steve watches her helplessly. She turns to face the both of them, holding the door open.

“Don’t you guys also feel as if your lives are rather mundane after everything we’ve been through? Like, maybe nothing actually matters because we’re just tiny specks of dust clinging to a marginally bigger speck of dust, floating through space and time with no known destination or driving purpose?”

A triumphant grin melts over Dustin’s features and he hurries to follow behind her. Steve just gapes. He has come to the troubling revelation that not a single one of his friends is actually, clinically sane.

Naturally, Robin’s existentialism is how the three of them end up packed into Steve’s BMW on a mission to rescue their alleged damsel in distress.

As he drives, Steve watches Dustin fidget in the rearview mirror, turning his walkie over and over in his hands, extending and retracting the antenna restlessly, and his heart aches for him. Poor kid. He really adores Eddie; Steve can tell. He recalls himself and Eddie’s conversation as they had trekked through the Upside Down side-by-side, Eddie raving about something to do with biting bats’ heads off and Steve being “metal”, whatever that means, and Steve had listened intently, intrigued by this strange little man who he might never have given the time of day to under different circumstances.

“I guess I got a little jealous, Steve.” 

The words ring through his ears. Steve peers at Dustin now and wishes he could capture this moment in his mind and extract it to show Eddie later. With the way Dustin is gazing out of the car window and jigging his knee up and down impatiently, anyone would think that Steve should be the jealous one. 

“Hey, don’t worry, kid.” Steve finds himself reaching back to clap a firm hand to Dustin’s knee, stilling its erratic bouncing. Dustin whips his head around to stare at him with large, anxious eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to him. I promise.”

It’s a promise that – after all of the monsters he’s slain and the friends he’s protected and the supposed murderers he’s harboured – he’s certain he can keep.

The second Steve pulls the car to a stop and shuts off the ignition, Dustin is scrambling from the back seat and racing up to Eddie’s trailer, shouting his name and battering his fists recklessly against the door like he had back at Reefer Rick’s place.

“Oh my God, this kid is going to be the death of me,” Steve huffs, but emerges from the car to follow Dustin. He’s only been to Eddie’s trailer once before, and he can’t say he has the best memories associated with that visit, but he supposes Eddie isn’t any better off, being the one who has to live here after watching a girl have her eyes gouged out and limbs disfigured on his living room ceiling. Steve shudders. He walks over to stand behind a screeching Dustin.

“Man, you’re just gonna scare him. Let’s go ‘round the back.”

Dustin obliges, and they make their way around the side of the trailer, peering through dim, dusty windows as they go. The glass reveals nothing but darkness; not even the slightest hint of life or movement within. It’s eerie. Steve is so unsettled by it all that he briefly contemplates grabbing his bat from the trunk of his car as a safety precaution.

The three of them spend what feels like an eternity knocking roughly and calling Eddie’s name, but to no avail. If Eddie is home, he’s quite adamant on being alone. Or maybe he really is unconscious. Or dead. Steve would rather not entertain that possibility.

“I think we should break the door down,” Dustin declares eventually, deadpan, and Steve is just about to talk him down from that inherently terrible idea before he spots a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns, squinting through the window, then is promptly sent stumbling backwards with a shout when a ghostly face appears behind the glass.

“Jesus, fuck!”

“Steve! What is it?” Robin rushes to his aid, then also lets out a squeak of surprise when she meets the eyes of whatever entity is staring ominously out at them. 

Dustin gasps. “Eddie!”

“That’s him?” Steve’s voice has shot up several tones. If the man behind the glass is actually Eddie, he looks rough. Steve had thought his own eye bags were bad.

“Guys?” Eddie’s voice is timid, muffled from where he’s crouching on the other side of the wall. Steve manages to compose himself enough to step forward. Eddie is cowering beneath the ledge of the window, dishevelled bangs hanging across his eyes, which are big and dark and peering right up at Steve. The pure, unadulterated terror softening Eddie’s usually sharp features sends a pang of sympathy rocketing through Steve’s chest. And also a stab of dread. Because what could possibly be terrible enough to reduce Eddie to this? What else but… 

No, Steve doesn’t want to think about that. About him.

Vecna is gone.

“Edward Munson,” Robin calls, a hint of relief mixing with the panic in her tone. “You’d better open the goddamn door right now and explain yourself because I don’t think I can hold Dustin back any longer.” 

Eddie promptly disappears, and a few seconds later the rusted screen door at the back of the trailer is being swung open.

“Oh, thank God,” Dustin deflates, relief dripping from his now slumped shoulders.

Eddie glances past him, preoccupied with poking his head out of the doorway to scan his surroundings. When he assumedly deems the barren dirt track of the trailer park safe, he gestures for the three of them to enter. “Get in. Quick.” He ushers them inside one by one. First Dustin, who claps him on the back happily, then Robin, who gives him a sort of death glare mixed with something akin to extremely cautious pity. Steve enters last, but Eddie clutches at his arm as he goes to push by. Steve halts and looks down, raising an eyebrow.

“Harrington.” Eddie sounds petrified. His voice is scratchy and unsure, which is nothing like his usual exuberant demeanour, and consequently catches Steve completely off-guard. His decorated fingers are trembling where he’s wound them into the thin material of Steve’s jacket. “The kitchen. The… the light.” 

There is a glint in Eddie’s eyes and it’s darting across his pupils, dancing and sparkling, like a restless sunspot. The skin beneath them is inked dark and sagging with exhaustion. Steve’s heart jumps, for whatever reason.

“What?” he says faintly, carefully placing both hands on Eddie’s shoulders to steady him. “Dude, calm down, what light?”

Eddie tugs at his sleeve and points shakily down the hallway. “It… it started flickering, and… I dunno, maybe it’s nothing, but… I just… ever since… I know it’s pathetic but I- I freaked out–”

“Hey, it’s not pathetic,” Dustin reassures him. The kid doesn’t seem too disappointed about being ignored, only thrilled to have found a very conscious, very living and breathing Eddie. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

Eddie flinches, pupils darting around the room. “Yeah, sorry about… that. I didn’t expect you all to come looking for me.”

Hands still firmly on Eddie’s shoulders, Steve leans down and meets his flitting gaze. “You really still doubt our ability to protect you? After all you’ve put us through, Munson? Unbelievable.”

This wrenches a small, airy chuckle from Eddie, which Steve finds himself immensely pleased about. 

“Okay, enough giggling, lovebirds.” Robin jabs a finger in the direction of the kitchen, disregarding Steve’s ensuing scowl. “Can we take a look at this supposedly haunted light?”

As it turns out when Steve reaches up to check, the lightbulb in the kitchen ceiling has come loose, and subsequently blown. 

“So, great news, no Vecna,” Steve exclaims cheerfully, brandishing the bulb in one hand and forming a thumbs-up with the other. “But bad news: no more midnight snacks unless you wanna run into a couple walls.”

His shitty joke doesn’t quite land. Eddie’s eyes flick to the floor. “Jeez, I’m really pathetic,” he laughs dryly, but it’s more of a cough than a real laugh; it doesn't reach his eyes, nor does it bubble easily from his throat. Steve frowns.

“I think any of us would’ve freaked out in your situation, Eddie,” Robin reasons, moving to stand close enough to hold the man’s dejected gaze. “It doesn’t matter if it turned out to be nothing. It would have scared us all shitless in the moment.”

“I doubt it. You guys seem so…” Eddie flails an arm out aimlessly, looking away from Robin. “I dunno… put together, after everything. I’m a mess. Seriously.”

Steve’s mind wanders to the sleepless nights and the cold sweats and the constant impending sense of doom and – perhaps worst of all – the nightmares, and thinks with vague amusement that Eddie knows absolutely nothing. 

Steve has learnt that some things can be pushed aside behind a façade of humour and apathy, but they will always find a way to resurface in the unconscious mind. There’s not much you can do about the way a human brain processes trauma. You’ve just got to survive it, which he’s managed to do fairly well so far, but he’s one of the few who can bury it deep enough for it to become invisible to anyone peering in from the outside.

There is a high likelihood that he’ll be made fun of if he dares word any of his Robin-level existential wisdom aloud, so he lets her and Dustin handle it.

“You seriously think we’re all just fine and dandy after going through hell and back?” Robin scoffs, but it’s good-natured, and it makes Eddie’s lips form a small smile. “That is a bold assumption to make for somebody who only discovered the existence of an alternate dimension last month.”

“This month, actually,” Dustin adds pointedly.

“This month,” Robin corrects.

Steve exhales heavily. He rests a hand on Eddie’s shoulder again, because that seemed to have calmed him down a bit last time. Also, he kind of likes touching Eddie. Not in a weird way; just in a way that grounds him and reassures him that everything is fine and real and here in front of him. Mere minutes ago, finding Eddie dead somewhere in his trailer had been a very feasible possibility. Now, the warmth of his body through his shirt is inviting and reminds Steve that he is very much alive. He hopes Eddie feels at least a tiny bit comforted, too. Judging by the way he now leans minutely into Steve’s touch, Steve guesses he doesn’t have much to worry about. 

“What she’s trying to say, man,” he says, looking down at Eddie, “is that we’re all screwed up.”

Eddie redirects his smile up at him. It stretches that little bit wider, and Steve feels a refreshing wave of pride crash over him. “Thank you, Harrington. I think I got that.” 

“Anytime.”

Eddie’s gaze lingers on Steve for a beat longer, before he tears it away and clears his throat. “Right. Well. Sorry for worrying everyone, but now we’ve cracked the case, I guess you’re good to leave.” He wanders away, out of the kitchen and into the adjacent living room, over to the small television set in the corner of the room, and crouches to sift through the lopsided pile of VHS tapes stacked beside it. “I've gotta hunker down and prepare for another sleepless night. Aha!” He selects a film and waves it over his shoulder. “A family favourite!”

Steve squints and recognises its cover: Back to the Future. His chest grows warm. He’d never have pinned Eddie as the type to enjoy that kind of sci-fi, futuristic shit. But then again, perhaps it makes perfect sense. Steve doesn’t really know. He doesn’t really know Eddie, though he’d like to.

“What?” Dustin screws up his nose. “Why?”

Eddie thinks for a moment, smacking his lips and tilting his head to one side. “Michael J. Fox, mostly.”

“I didn’t…” Dustin looks exasperated. “Not the movie.”

Robin takes over, considering Eddie strangely. “He means why are you preparing for a sleepless night? Haven’t you been sleeping?”

Eddie scoffs almost childishly. It’s clear that he’s growing uncomfortable. “Have any of you been sleeping?” 

He uses the tape to point at the three of them in turn, and Steve is once again struck by just how insane the man looks. He stands there, wielding Back to the Future before him like a deadly weapon, his hair wild and frizzy and flouncing around his face messier than usual, which in itself is gaunt and pale, sculpted cheekbones prominent. His clothes even seem to hang off him differently. His jeans fall lower on his hips, and his t-shirt cascades loosely down his shoulders and torso. Steve frowns for what feels like the hundredth time that day. It can’t be good for his complexion.

Dustin sniffs and Steve is reminded of Eddie’s question. “Uh, yeah. I sleep like a baby now I know Vecna isn’t gonna possess me in my sleep.” Dustin rolls his eyes back in his head and holds his arms out like a zombie, and Robin solemnly nods her agreement.

“Speak for yourself, dude,” Steve says quietly, but not quietly enough, because Eddie perks up, now brandishing the tape towards him.

“See? Harrington gets it.” 

“Steve?” Robin’s expression crumples with concern. “You’re not sleeping? Why didn't you tell me?”

“No, I am,” Steve groans, sensing he’s made a mistake. “Like, I am sleeping… it’s just…”

It’s just that I get it, I’ve been there, and I wouldn’t have admitted it anyway if it wasn’t to make Eddie feel less alone, because I remember when I went through all this shit for the first time and felt so fucking lonely, like nobody else in the world understood or felt it cut nearly as deep, so time just stood still for months while life went on around me which was probably the worst thing I’ve ever felt, and I can’t bear to think of Eddie having to go through that too, and shit, it would’ve been ten times easier for me if I had somebody beside me when things were that bad, so maybe I want to be that person for Eddie now. 

Of course, he doesn’t stoop so low as to actually say any of that. But he attempts to telepathically communicate it to Eddie nonetheless, holding eye contact so intensely to the point where Eddie flinches and glances away.

“Don’t strain yourself, man,” Eddie mumbles.

Steve huffs out an incredulous laugh. “Look, Munson, it’s just that I know what it’s like to feel alone after everything.” He crosses his arms as if that will help conceal the vulnerability pouring from the depths of his chest like an uninhibited waterfall. He pretends not to notice Robin’s glare burning through the side of his face. “I have a spare room. And my parents are out of town ‘til probably forever, so you’re totally welcome to crash at mine for however long you need. If you need. No pressure,” he adds, shrugging nonchalantly as if it’s no big deal, but he feels like it might be a slightly big deal because Eddie is staring at him and his eyes are twinkling in the dim light of the trailer and Steve really can’t tell if it’s a good twinkle or a bad twinkle and it’s driving him crazy.

Then Eddie grins. “Seriously? That would be pretty great, Harrington.”

Steve perks up. A good twinkle, then.

“Good. Great.” 

“Ew, I hate sentimental Steve,” Dustin comments, but Steve doesn’t really process it.

In almost immediate succession to his impulsive proposition, reality catches up with him, and he realises that he’s just invited Eddie Munson to stay with him interminably. Although the fact that a girl got murdered on his ceiling and he can’t sleep is a pretty rational explanation for welcoming someone Steve honestly barely even knows into his home for an undisclosed extent of time, it’s making him feel odd. He wonders why. It’s only Eddie; the man is virtually harmless.

Steve doesn’t have time to dwell on it, however, because when Eddie goes with Dustin to pack his things, Robin elbows him harshly in the ribs.

“Ow!” Steve hisses. “What’s your problem?”

“I thought you had evolved from your douchebag phase, but perhaps that was naïve of me to assume.”

Steve rolls his eyes at her dramatics. “What are you even talking about?” Faintly, he can hear Eddie clattering about in his bedroom, Dustin nattering on at his side whilst helping him pack. Or, more likely, delaying said packing. 

“I’m literally your best friend,” Robin goes on. “Or, if I’m not yours, you’re definitely mine, and I don’t care if that’s kind of sad because I really, really care about you, Steve, and it’s so hard when you don’t tell me anything. Seriously, I’m closer to you than I am with anyone else in the world and sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you.”

Her cheeks are dusted with a delicate layer of pink and her eyebrows are knotted, in turn making something knot in Steve’s stomach. He feels bad. He really does. Maybe Robin tells him everything about herself, but it hadn’t ever crossed his mind to reciprocate. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust her; he does. He just feels like he hasn’t really got much to tell.

“I’m sorry,” he settles on, which is kind of lame, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “Some things just seem… insignificant.”

Robin’s expression is bordering on pitiful. It frightens Steve a little. “Nothing is insignificant,” she says, almost fiercely. “Your feelings are important, even if you think they’re dumb. You’re important, dingus. To me. And to so many others.”

Steve laughs dryly and rubs at the back of his neck. “Jeez, Robs, you sound like you’re trying to talk me down from the edge.”

In the next room, Eddie snaps something at Dustin, then there are two sets of heavy footfalls approaching from down the hall. Robin gazes at Steve for just a moment longer, something in her eyes that Steve can’t place, then she looks away. Eddie and Dustin burst into the room. Dustin has a shit-eating grin on his face, which rarely entails anything good, and Eddie looks as if he’s about to explode.

“If you tell them, I’ll throttle y–”

“Eddie listens to ABBA!”

Eddie’s face glows an impossibly deep shade of red. “There is a difference between listening to them and owning one of their albums.”

All previous internal conflict is immediately erased from Steve’s consciousness as he tunes into this immensely intriguing conversation. Robin gasps beside him. His own eyes widen and lips mould into a smug grin. “Do my ears deceive me, Henderson? Not the king of metal himself, an ABBA fan, surely?”

“Your ears work fine, Steve,” Dustin cackles gleefully. Eddie brings a hand up to cover his face.

“He’s lying,” he gets out through gritted teeth. Robin has begun to bounce up and down on the balls of her feet joyously. “Harrington, Buckley, it’s his word against mine. Who do you believe?”

“The proof is literally sitting in this very trailer!” Dustin exclaims, delighted.

Steve smirks. “Don’t try to deny it, man. The kid has evidence!”

“I don’t know if I’m more disappointed or impressed,” Robin chimes in.

“You guys are insufferable.” Eddie scowls, palming at his cheeks as if that might help ease the vicious blush blooming there. “So what if I have one ABBA album on vinyl? It doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I just liked the cover.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. All I’m hearing right now is bullshit.”

Eddie promptly leaps towards Steve, pummeling his chest with metal-adorned fists that probably aren’t supposed to hurt as much as they do, but his extensive collection of rings isn’t the most comfortable thing to be smacked repeatedly against Steve’s abdomen. He grabs hold of Eddie and peels him off. The man is still scowling but there’s a hint of amusement to his expression now, like he’s accepted his fate and seen the humour in the situation. Steve lets his hands fall to his hips and assumes his I’m-putting-my-foot-down stance. It’s the one he usually only uses with the kids, but he supposes this time is an exception.

“Hey, I can revoke guest privileges at any time.”

Eddie over-exaggerates a gasp. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Are we just going to move on from the fact that the big, bad metalhead over here listens to ABBA?” Robin interjects.

“Yes,” Eddie replies.

“Absolutely not,” Steve says in unison.

“I’m hungry,” Dustin adds thoughtfully, and that marks the end of the conversation and the beginning of a new one, wherein possible lunch options are discussed heartily.

The four filter out to the car while they talk. Eddie calls shotgun immediately, swinging his duffel bag in at his feet and winding down the passenger window. Robin and Dustin reluctantly pile into the back seat.

While he drives them in the direction of the diner, Steve looks over at Eddie. He has his chin cupped in his palm, which is propped up by his elbow against the window, and the wind is whipping his dark hair about his face in a way that really shouldn’t be graceful, but somehow is. He’s smiling. It’s certainly an improvement from the cowering, stuttering mess he had been reduced to earlier. Steve feels a pleasant sort of contentment seep throughout his chest and down his spine, warm despite the coolness of the breeze. He thinks that maybe he likes the idea of this friendship more than he’d previously imagined.

A moment later, Steve realises that he’s smiling, too.

Chapter Text

The diner is empty but they all squeeze into a tiny booth together in the corner. 

Steve orders a stack of pancakes to share. He resolutely refuses Eddie’s offer to pay. It would be pointless anyway, seeing as Eddie doesn’t do much eating, opting instead for cutting up his pancake into dozens of tiny squares and pushing them around his plate with his fork listlessly. He is tuned in to the conversation, but doesn’t really contribute to it. Steve can see that he’s not uncomfortable; rather, thoughtful, in a melancholy kind of way. Steve tries not to let it get to him. He does nudge Eddie, though, when Dustin has demolished half the stack, and himself and Robin are finishing up their last bites, because Eddie has only had one pancake on his plate for the whole duration of their visit and has barely touched it.

“Not a pancake fan?”

Eddie looks up at him, almost in surprise, as if Steve hasn’t been working tirelessly to include him in the conversation for over an hour. Then his eyes drop back to his plate and he shrugs. “Not really hungry.”

Steve chews on his bottom lip, vexed. He peers across at Robin and Dustin, both of whom are engaged in a heated debate over the edibility of pure maple syrup. Robin, of course, is winning, because nobody in their right mind apart from Dustin Henderson would even think to drink maple syrup straight from the bottle.

Steve sighs and leans into Eddie, mouth close to his ear. “I lost my appetite too. You know.” He sniffs, hoping his admission is somewhat helpful and not just a waste of vulnerable breath. “Afterwards.”

Eddie grows stiff for a moment, then his shoulders droop and his lips curl slightly, softly, hinting at a smile. “God, who are you, my mother?”

Steve reels back, preparing to feign offence, but Robin cuts him off with a squawk of disgust. Dustin has seemingly decided that a fantastic way to prove his point involves literally drinking directly from the maple syrup jug, to which Robin has gagged and leapt out of her seat. 

“Jesus Christ, man, are you kidding me?” Steve screws up his nose and leans over the table to snatch the jug from Dustin’s sticky grip. Dustin resists, some of the syrup splashing up and onto his shirt. He grimaces down at himself. Taking advantage of the distraction, Steve claims the jug and holds it high out of Dustin’s reach.

“Steve,” Dustin groans, drawing out the word as if it personally wounds him to utter. Eddie muffles a snigger. Steve stares over at him, incredulous.

“Don’t laugh, you’ll encourage him!” he snaps, and this time Eddie doesn’t even try to mask his hysterics. Robin is still covering her mouth in horror, but her eyes have crinkled up, hinting that she’s laughing, too. Dustin is red in the face, either embarrassed or furious or both; Steve isn’t really paying close enough attention to tell, because he’s too focused on Eddie and the way his nose is scrunched, eyes alight with a brief flicker of joy that will likely be extinguished after this fleeting moment, but it doesn’t matter because right now, Eddie isn’t moping. He’s laughing. Steve’s stern façade crumbles.

Then they’re all laughing together in the tiny booth in the corner of the empty diner, and the workers’ disapproving stares don’t even matter because Steve’s chest is warm and he feels more content than he’s felt in a long time.

Eddie gets settled into the spare room fairly easily. It’s nothing fancy, Steve explains to him while awkwardly lingering in the doorway, watching Eddie drape himself across the mattress. But it’s nice, genuinely, and it has an ensuite bathroom, which is something Eddie points out in acute awe when he spots it for the first time. Steve shouldn’t feel embarrassed by that, but he does. Eddie lives in a trailer and Steve lives in a two-storey, four bedroom house with a pool that, admittedly, he hasn’t swam in since the summer of ‘83, but that’s irrelevant because he still owns the pool and the house attached to it. Or, his parents do. He shouldn’t feel guilty for it. That’s ridiculous. Eddie isn’t even making fun of him or anything. 

But Eddie’s expression of wonderment means he does feel bad, a little. He can’t help it.

Steve goes to bed that night and stares at the ceiling. The weight of his thoughts crushes him into the mattress. He frowns and draws the blankets tighter around him.

Eddie is sleeping in the room over, or at least Steve hopes he’s sleeping, but maybe they’re both just gazing at the roof and counting down the minutes until morning. He wonders if Eddie hates the nighttime, too. Steve does. He hates when everything’s so dark that he can’t see and he has to fumble his way blindly towards a destination, squinting to make out whatever lies ahead, shrouded in shadow. He sleeps with his door cracked open and the hallway light on because he’s too old for a night-light, but he refuses to lie alone engulfed in black, and his parents can afford the electricity bill, so he figures it’s justified. He’s not really afraid of the dark, per se; he’s more so wary of the things that lurk in dark places.

Sleep drags him under eventually. It always does. It’s not peaceful, but at least he can actually reach it, and remain unconscious long enough to recharge his body for the next day. The nightmares don’t pose as big a threat as they used to. He doesn’t have to hold his own eyelids open anymore, or pinch himself over and over until his arms are red and bruised, just to avoid them. When the bad dreams come, they come. And they don’t come tonight.

But something else does. A voice, through the dense haze of sleep. It calls out his name.

Steve could be dreaming. He doesn’t know, nor does he particularly care. He lets his eyes blink open nonetheless, narrowed against the soft, yellow light streaming in from the hall. There’s a figure standing in the open doorway, so he hadn’t been imagining the voice, and he recognises the unkempt mop of hair, starkly silhouetted. He relaxes into his pillow.

“Steve. Are you awake?”

The severity of the situation is escalated by Eddie’s use of his first name. Steve thinks the subtle desperation in his tone is very much authentic. He’s too tired to do much except grunt, but Eddie perks up at the acknowledgment. He moves towards the bed.

“Steve,” he repeats. “I can’t… I don’t know… I don’t know what to do.”

He’s frightened. Of what, Steve has no clue, but he doesn’t think he can find the words or the energy to ask, so he reaches out and lifts the corner of the duvet. Eddie freezes. Steve supposes he isn’t really thinking clearly about what he’s doing, and maybe it could be interpreted as odd to suggest Eddie sleep beside him in his bed, but Steve could really not care less right now because his pyjamas are a pair of black boxer briefs and just about nothing else, so it’s cold where the blanket isn’t covering him anymore. Quite frankly, he’s growing impatient. Steve hadn’t thought personal space was a concept for Eddie, so his current hesitance to invade Steve’s just seems counterintuitive. Whatever. If Eddie has a problem with any of this, he’s more than welcome to turn down the offer. Preferably sometime soon.

“Come here,” Steve mumbles, hopefully not too incoherently, to better convey his intentions in case there is somehow any uncertainty. Thankfully, Eddie seems to get the general idea, shuffling forward until his knees hit the edge of the bed. Then, after a prolonged moment of hesitation, he slides his legs inside and clambers in next to Steve.

Eddie is careful at first not to touch him, but Steve just wants to go back to sleep and can’t deal with the guy’s panicky flinching whenever their skin brushes together, so he winds his fingers into Eddie’s shirt and hauls him in against him. It’s a movement gentle enough not to hurt the wounds still tender on his stomach, but Eddie lets out a little oof of surprise, tensing up. Then he goes completely still. Steve notices after a little while that he isn’t breathing.

So Steve does the only logical thing that one would naturally do in such a dilemma. He reaches out, takes Eddie’s hand, and begins to rub slow circles into it with his thumb.

Though his every muscle is impossibly stiff, body rigid, like somebody has nailed wooden planks to all his joints, Eddie is shaking. Steve can feel it. His hand trembles in Steve’s grasp and he lets out a small exhale of surprise when Steve’s thumb works its way over his palm in gentle, languid movements, but he eventually relaxes into it. His back is to Steve’s chest. It’s almost like they’re spooning, Steve thinks with faint amusement, but not really because that would probably be weird; albeit no weirder than whatever this method of consolation is that Steve has apparently deemed his most practical option.

Eddie is pressed so tightly against him that Steve can feel the heat of his body through the shirt separating them. It’s an oddly comforting position, like he’s clinging to an oversized hot water bottle. Steve hopes the feeling is mutual. He figures he’s probably safe because Eddie makes no further attempt to move away. His hand grows limp while Steve massages it as soothingly as he can manage in his delusional, half-asleep state. Suddenly, Steve realises he doesn’t care if any of this is weird; he’s just happy Eddie is breathing again.

It’s nice. But maybe it’s not. Steve can hardly tell.

He drifts off before he can even begin to ponder it further, the hand that had been massaging Eddie’s coming to rest over his waist.

When Steve wakes up, Eddie is gone.

Not, like, completely gone, because he can hear somebody clattering around downstairs in the kitchen and he knows for a fact that it isn’t either of his parents, and unless somebody has broken in, there’s only one other possible suspect. Eddie is gone from Steve’s bed, however, which abruptly reminds Steve of the reason he had materialised there in the first place, and it makes his brow furrow a little. 

He rubs at his eyes, blinking away the remnants of sleep. He’d slept better than usual last night; he’s not sure he can say the same about Eddie. Whatever freaked him out enough to compel him to seek comfort in somebody as emotionally inept and thoroughly un-comforting as Steve in the middle of the night must have been pretty awful. A nightmare is his best guess. Steve finds himself wondering what Eddie does all the times he can’t sleep at his own home. He knows Eddie lives with his uncle, but he has no idea what kind of relationship they have, or even how often said uncle is home. He wants to ask about it, but also doesn’t know if bringing up the situation would be entirely smart. Eddie might not want to talk about it. Steve doesn’t really want to push the boundaries so far yet.

He figures he should at least go downstairs to get a sense for the atmosphere.

All anxiety is promptly eased when he finally bothers to wrestle on some sweatpants and haul himself to the kitchen. Eddie is indeed there, wearing some kind of insanely oversized tank top and his signature black jeans with his hair pulled back by the black bandana from his pocket, an outfit which makes Steve feel decidedly less underdressed without his shirt, and far more confident that he is the less ridiculous-looking one in this situation. The mood feels light. Steve may as well be floating. He leans against the doorway and grins lazily, watching for a moment. Eddie is humming something familiar under his breath, swaying his hips in time to the tune as he flips an egg haphazardly over the stove. Steve decides this is the perfect moment to obliterate the tranquillity of the morning.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Eddie starts, spinning around with wide eyes, wielding a metal spatula. Steve immediately throws his hands up in an act of surrender. Somehow, this is not the first time Eddie has threatened him with a hazardous inanimate object, and he doesn’t particularly want to test the man’s limits. Eddie shakes the spatula towards Steve, teeth clenched. “Jesus H. Christ, Harrington, don’t sneak up on me like that. You know what I’m like.”

Steve just smirks and drops his hands. “What’re you singing?” he asks, even though he knows perfectly well what Eddie is humming along to, and such knowledge is probably the highlight of his day.

Eddie turns and busies himself with the eggs again. One of the yolks has broken in his haste to scold Steve and has melted into an orange disaster that Eddie frowns down at. “It’s the song you were playing in the car on the way back from the diner yesterday,” he says, only vaguely paying attention, now distracted by the tragedy in his pan. He adds tunefully, just in case Steve didn’t already have it figured out, “Something happens and I’m head over heels, or some cheesy shit like that.”

Steve scoffs. “I know which song you mean, Munson, you don’t have to give me a concert.”

Eddie glowers at him over his shoulder. It’s playful, though. The pan hisses and spits and he swears, turning his attention back to it.

“I should let Dustin know that you’re going around singing Tears For Fears,” Steve goes on, shuffling further into the room and propping himself up against the counter. “First ABBA, now this. Disgraceful. I’m gonna personally tell Ozzy…” Steve struggles to recall the name. “Oswald… Oz-whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is.”

Eddie, to Steve’s amusement, tilts his head back and laughs. 

Steve watches, entranced, as rather than blushing like he had with the whole ABBA charade, or snapping something sharp and witty back at him, the man just cackles as if Steve has said positively the greatest thing he’s ever heard. Steve likes to think that he’s a pretty funny guy, but this just seems excessive. He grins along anyway, because he supposes it’s only polite, though his gaze remains glued to the crinkled corners of Eddie’s eyes, flicking down the expanse of his throat where fluid muscles shift beneath pale skin. He laughs with his whole body, Steve notes. When Eddie laughs, everything laughs, from his quivering shoulders down to the playful tilt of his hips. It’s mesmerising, in a strange way. Steve has never met anyone capable of holding so much emotion inside themselves. Or, more likely, he’s never seen it so confidently expelled.

Before Eddie was thrust into his life, despite being under unfortunate circumstances, Steve hadn’t known it was possible for a person to be so unapologetically themselves. He likes the way Eddie is. It’s refreshing. It makes Steve wish he’d always been friends with such genuine people. It would’ve benefitted his past self to know that he could actually be likeable and fun without pressing himself into moulds that he didn’t fit; moulds in the shape of those around him. And back then, he hadn’t surrounded himself with especially pleasant people. That era of his life is not something he’s proud of.

Steve shakes himself out of whatever trance he’s fallen into. He’s been thinking too deeply lately. He isn’t used to it.

Eddie has stopped laughing and a heavy silence has settled between them. His eyes flick from his pan up to Steve, stalling on the bandages secured around his abdomen, and then back down again. Steve abruptly feels very much exposed. He hadn’t thought twice about coming downstairs half-naked, because he’s home alone ninety percent of the time anyway, so it’s basically a reflex, but now he regrets not throwing on a shirt. He crosses his arms.

“Uh…” Eddie starts, and Steve’s heart jumps a little. “Also… about last night.”

So. They’re talking about it.

Eddie continues, turning off the stove, “I hope you know, like, that wasn’t supposed to be a weird thing. I was just… scared. Bad dream. And you were kinda right there across the hall. So.” Eddie’s voice grows small, and it’s insane, the way he can shrink from something larger than life to looking like Steve is about to bite his head off in a matter of seconds. “If it made you uncomfortable then it’s totally fine, it won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, dude,” Steve replies, perhaps too quickly, because why is Eddie apologising when Steve is the one who practically hauled him into his bed and then held his hand like a creep? “Isn’t the whole point of you staying here so you have company when you need it?”

Eddie clears his throat. “I guess, but… it's not… weird for you, right?”

His tone is panicked, almost interrogatory, and Steve’s thoughts shift involuntarily to Robin and what she’d told him on the bathroom floor when they were both high on whatever the hell it is Russians use to drug people, and how she’d been so careful, so hesitant to say it, like she thought it was big enough to change everything, and it makes Steve’s heart ache a little now. Sure, Steve had wondered vaguely if it was ‘weird’ last night - what he and Eddie were doing, how they were lying - but Eddie’s ‘weird’ sounds different; it sounds fearful, almost hostile to the mere idea. Steve wonders what Eddie would think if he knew Robin like Steve knows her. He wonders what Eddie would think of Steve for being best friends with someone like that. It feels useless to consider now, though, so he forces himself to disembark that train of thought. He can ponder where Eddie Munson’s morals lie at a later date.

In answer to Eddie’s question, Steve shrugs and says honestly, “I wouldn’t have offered if I thought it was weird, man.”

Eddie seemingly deflates with relief, which only serves to puzzle Steve’s perception of him further, but there’s still a hint of uncertainty to his expression. Eddie turns his focus to the eggs again, dividing them off onto separate plates.

“Wonderful.” His tone drips with sarcasm, thick enough to perhaps be covering something else. “I’m glad we’ve arrived at that conclusion.” He claps his hands together harshly. Steve jumps. “Right. Breakfast time.”

Steve lets his gaze follow Eddie as he bustles around the kitchen, throwing slices of pre-buttered toast and strips of bacon down haphazardly beside the eggs. He navigates the room as if he owns it. Steve doesn’t even mind. “Got your appetite back?” he teases. Eddie scoffs.

“Hm, not really. Just wanted to see if it was possible to raid the Harrington pantry dry, but this bad boy is seemingly infinite.” Eddie pokes his head through the pantry door and breathes a laugh. Steve shakes his head in disbelief.

“You’re crazy.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who invited the freak into your not-so-humble abode.” Eddie swivels around on his heel, pulling a face. “So who’s really crazy?”

“I’d still say you are,” Steve says pointedly, ignoring the subtle snark about his house, and Eddie beams.

“Here.” He nudges one of the plates and it slides down the counter towards Steve. “Not sorry about the eggs. Their questionable appearance is technically your fault.”

Steve can’t bring himself to care about what anything looks like because he’s more hung up on the fact that Eddie Munson has just made him breakfast. He didn’t even know Eddie could cook. Or maybe, judging by his struggle with the eggs, he can’t. Steve’s moved by the effort, nonetheless. “You didn’t have to,” he says, and he thinks he sounds stupid but Eddie just shrugs like it’s nothing.

“Yeah, but I figured I had to pay my due somehow.” He poses, one hand on his hip, the other cupping his own cheek. “I’m just your pretty little housewife, Steve Harrington. It’s all I’m good for.” Then he smiles, and it’s that crazy one; the one that makes people want to call him names because no normal person smiles with their eyes so wide and radiant and freakish. What would look absurd written on anyone else’s lips only looks flattering on his, though. Only looks fitting.

Steve bows his head to conceal his offending grin. It’s ridiculous, really, the way Eddie slots into his life so easily when in reality, their friendship should be the most difficult thing in the world. Steve the ‘jock’ and Eddie the ‘freak’ should never work like this, so effortlessly, in any universe. They have virtually nothing in common except their trauma, and apparently Dustin Henderson, but maybe that’s all they need. Maybe those are the most important things.

Fondly, Steve’s eyes meet those of a wonky smiley-face, smeared in ketchup over his toast, and he’s hit with a wave of gratitude for the existence of Eddie Munson.

Chapter Text

Steve and Eddie find themselves fortuitously falling into a routine, of sorts.

Steve works pretty much every day from eight to four. He doesn’t need the money, but Robin needs the money, and Steve needs the socialisation with his best friend. And if he finds himself at Family Video even on Robin’s days off just for something to do, stacking shelves with dusty tapes to keep his hands busy, then that’s nobody’s business but his own.

Eddie does not work. Steve isn’t sure if it’s because his uncle solely pays the rent for their trailer, or if they own the trailer and don’t need to pay rent, or if they don’t own the trailer but nobody else in town would want to live there after what happened, so it’s essentially free real estate. Honestly, Steve is not too sure how trailers work, period. He doesn’t feel the need to get into the logistics of it with Eddie. All he knows is that Eddie has lots of free time, a frequently empty house, and a knack for cooking. 

Steve learns quickly that the breakfast on their first morning together hadn’t just been a one-off occasion, or an apology for the decidedly not-weird behaviour the night prior, but a common occurrence which begins to manifest itself in a variety of other meals at all different hours of the day.

Steve is pleased. He has never come home to a home-cooked meal before in his life. So when Eddie makes a Sunday roast on a Tuesday, laid out nicely on the dining table ready for when Steve walks through the front door at half four in the evening, Steve is so very grateful that he could kiss him.

He tells him just that, jokingly, and Eddie lets out one of his insane cackles.

“You flatter me, Harrington.”

“This is just… wow.” Steve marvels at the spread of vegetables and chicken, hastily slinging his uniform over one of the six unoccupied dining chairs. “You really didn’t have to.”

Eddie grins, wide and welcoming. “What the hell else am I meant to do for eight hours alone? Wallow in self-pity?”

Instead of kissing him, Steve settles for a friendly pat on the back and makes little noises of approval as he eats. Eddie seems chuffed by this.

After dinner, they sit together on the living room floor and flick through the Harrington household’s impressive collection of films. They spend about an hour arguing, eventually deciding on a comedy; something stupid and mindless. They laugh and make fun of the bad acting and Steve gets up to make popcorn at one point. Then the popcorn ends up scattered across the carpet when Eddie tries to aim a piece into Steve’s mouth and it bounces off his lip, and Steve has always been competitive, so he doesn’t let Eddie stop until he’s caught one. Then, naturally, Eddie has to try for himself.

They part ways at an ungodly hour to shower, brush their teeth, and get into their respective beds. This is where their routine often differs from night-to-night.

Some nights, Eddie remains soundly in the guest room until morning. On others, he materialises in Steve’s doorway after a couple of hours, looking guilty and terrified, and every time without fail, Steve lifts the covers for him to crawl inside. He never asks Eddie what’s wrong, and Eddie always seems content in saying nothing. On these nights, Eddie needs soothing. So Steve soothes him the only way he knows how. 

He wouldn’t call what they do ‘cuddling’, because that’s not what it is, of course. Steve feels more inclined to call it ‘calming down a traumatised and frightened friend’. If they occasionally wake in the morning with Eddie’s back pressed solid and warm against Steve’s chest, and Steve’s arms wrapped tight around Eddie’s middle, then that is merely a result of human instinct. It’s April. It’s still cold at night. Clinging unconsciously to another body’s warmth is only natural, even if the central heating is working perfectly fine. Steve imagines he would do this with anyone, even Robin, although they’ve shared beds before and managed quite easily not to become entangled. Steve attributes this to Eddie being a warmer and bigger person than Robin. More surface area to accidentally brush up against and more heat generated to entice his sleeping body.

And so it goes. It is a system that becomes comfortable after a couple of days, and by the following Monday, it feels for Steve as if this is how things have always been.

That morning at work, a week following Eddie’s abrupt move-in, Robin opens her mouth and lets stream a string of thoughts and questions that she has likely been holding in for far too long. An hour or two, perhaps.

“So, is Eddie properly settled in now?” Her current task is plastering price tags onto each individual film from yesterday’s delivery, but instead she has created what looks sort of like (if Steve tilts his head just so and squints his eyes, like, a whole lot) a giant squid emerging from a volcano out of bright orange stickers on the countertop. Steve frowns. No, that can’t be right. An octopus, maybe? Robin continues without a breath. “Is he liking his room? Do you guys hang out a lot or is he kinda antisocial? I always pinned him as that type. I’m not close with Eddie, I don’t know what he does, man. This is all very intriguing to me. What does he do? You said he cooks you dinner sometimes? That’s very domestic. Do you cook for him? I’ve never seen you cook before. Hey, have you ever actually cooked before?”

“I cook all the time,” Steve cuts her off, choosing to ignore the majority of her questions and focus on the one that feels like a personal insult. “Anyway, he enjoys cooking, apparently. So I let him. It’s like his way of paying rent.”

Robin raises an eyebrow at him then turns back to her creation. She is in the process of giving the squid – octopus? – a hat. Her label gun gets jammed and she hits it against the counter. “Capitalising off your guests, Mr. Harrington? Tut tut.”

“He’s not my guest, really.”

“Ah, so he’s a fellow resident now?”

Steve tries to scowl, but it’s hard when he’s got an eyeful of Robin’s tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she fiddles with the jammed gun. “I did tell him he could stay for as long as he likes.”

Robin doesn’t seem to hear him, as she has now managed to unjam her gun. She reaches over and gently applies an orange sticker to Steve’s forehead. “I fixed it,” she beams.

Just then, a group of girls with big hair and bright lipstick walk into the store and Steve leaves Robin to her price tag art, plastering on a charming grin. “Hello ladies! What can I do for you this fine morning?”

When Steve arrives home from work that afternoon, Eddie is nowhere to be seen. 

Steve tries not to feel too disappointed when he walks inside to find a distinct lack of dinner, and a further, more distressing, lack of Eddie. He scans the living room, the kitchen, the dining room for any possible signs of a break-in. But nothing appears out of place. 

It’s obviously not a big deal. Eddie is allowed free reign of the house. He might have gone for a walk, or taken Steve’s old bike out for a spin. Maybe he’s just moping up in his room. Hadn’t Steve basically implied today that Eddie was a resident of the house now rather than a guest? He shouldn’t be tracking his every move, worried for his whereabouts. Eddie isn’t his dog; he doesn’t have to bound up to him and greet him eagerly by the door every single day upon his arrival.

Steve sighs and rubs the back of his neck. His stomach grumbles painfully. He is just about to rummage through the pantry in search of something quick and easy to throw together, when he hears a distant voice, singing a tune that he doesn’t recognise at first. It carries through the closed window that faces the back of the house, mellow yet solemn, the words muffled, too far away to make out any lyrics. But the melody… Steve has heard it before. It’s slow and it’s yearning for something, but it’s sad, somehow, like the person singing it is devoid of the hope that the original song emanates. Steve doesn’t know how he can decipher all of this from a distant tune. There’s really only one person who can be singing it, anyway. He’s not an idiot, he knows who the voice belongs to. Eddie’s tone is not perfect by any means, and Steve is not at all qualified to be analysing any form of music, but he thinks the way in which Eddie pours his emotions out of his throat like that, all scratchy and raw, is really something. It actually sounds quite beautiful.

Steve finds his feet carry him towards the back door before he has a chance to acknowledge his brain’s decision, because if he stopped to think for even a second, he’d probably realise how terrible of an idea this is.

He’s outside. The temperature is only marginally cooler than it is inside. The singing is loud and clear now.

“Running over the same old ground, what have we found?”

Steve freezes. The chlorinated water glows almost golden in the afternoon sunlight. It’s nowhere near sunset yet, and there’s not a cloud in the sky today, but it’s golden. It’s golden and it’s darkening, melting into red. It shimmers unnaturally in the light, broken particles dancing around the body which floats languidly on the steaming surface, and Steve feels a darkness wash over him that he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

“The same old fears, wish you were here.”

Suddenly, his fingertips are ice-cold. There’s a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before. Blood rushes in his ears, crashing and soaring, deafening static. It’s overwhelming, overstimulating, and he wants to turn and run. He wants to get away, far away from here, but his feet are glued to the ground and he doesn’t think he could move even if he tried. He can’t feel his limbs. They are numb, frozen.

The singing has stopped, or maybe the rushing in his ears is preventing him from hearing it.

“Hey! What’s up, man?”

Steve stares blankly at Eddie, who had originally been floating on his back in the deep end of the pool, but is now treading water, looking up at Steve with concern etched into his expression.

“Dude, are you good? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Get out.”

“Huh?” The concern becomes confusion, with a hint of fear, but Steve doesn’t care, he just needs Eddie out. Right now. 

“Get out,” he repeats, voice trembling, and he must sound truly fucked up because Eddie swims to the edge of the pool and gazes up at him, all big brown doe-eyes and floppy wet bangs, and it might be okay, actually, because nothing bad has happened yet, and the water is starting to look like water again instead of blood oozing into molten gold, and the echo of Steve’s heart in his eardrums is growing softer the longer he maintains eye contact with Eddie.

“Shit, sorry man. I didn’t realise the pool was off limits. You never said anything.”

Steve scrunches his eyes shut and shakes his head. His temples throb. His legs feel like jello, and he has to steady himself on the deck chair beside him. 

“Woah,” Eddie says. Steve hears a soft splash as Eddie heaves himself from the water. With one eye cracked open, Steve watches muscles ripple beneath pale skin, water droplets sliding down a long torso and dripping off onto the concrete. Eddie pushes up to stand, moving immediately towards Steve. Steve closes his eyes again.

“Hey, you okay?”

Steve forces himself to nod. God, what kind of an episode is this? He needs to get his shit together. He sees the pool through the window everyday. Why is it any different now? Why is it any different if Eddie is swimming in it? 

Nothing bad is going to happen. Not anymore. It’s over.

“Did something…” Eddie swallows thickly, his right hand landing on Steve’s shoulder and his left coming to rest over his chest. He can likely feel Steve’s thumping heart beneath his t-shirt, fighting to escape his ribcage. “Did something happen? In here? Is that why you… I mean, I’ve never seen you like that before, except…”

There’s no nice way to say it. So Steve puts it bluntly. “Nancy’s best friend died in this pool three summers ago.”

Eddie’s gone silent. His hand is still firm against Steve’s chest, grounding him, bringing his swirling mind back into the present. 

“Steve.”

Steve sniffs. He finds the pity in Eddie’s tone difficult to digest.

“Was it…?”

Steve nods, ever so slightly, and he feels sick. “We were having sex - uh, Nancy and I, I mean - when it happened. We went up to my bedroom. Barb stayed out by the pool. I think Nance blamed me for it for a while.” Steve chokes out a humourless laugh. “She was probably right.” He turns to look at Eddie now, stares him right in the eye. Eddie doesn’t falter, doesn’t glance away for a second. A flash of defiance darts across his irises. Steve is embarrassed to feel wet heat pricking at his own eyes, but he blinks it back quickly. “Who else is there to even blame for something like that? Because it feels like someone has to be blamed,” he says in a whisper, not sure if he’s making any sense.

Eddie curls his left hand into a fist, balling Steve’s shirt up in a vice-like grip. “Nothing that happened was ever anyone’s fault but his.” He clears his throat. “Vecna’s.”

Steve feels a chill at hearing the name. It’s still so fresh; they don’t tend to throw it around like they did when they were actively fighting him. It’s only been a few weeks since it was well and truly over. A few weeks. That’s no time at all.

Eddie seems to read his mind with his next words. “We don’t need to get over it yet. It would be stupid to try. We don’t need to get over it ever, if we don’t want to. But I think we can take a big step towards saying fuck you, don’t you think?”

He looks behind him, at the pool, then back at Steve, and a horrible sinking feeling engulfs Steve from head to toe. Eddie is, unfortunately, right. He should do this. He should conquer at least one of his fears. Eddie seems to have already conquered so many of his own.

“Yeah,” Steve says, feeling small. “You’re right.”

Eddie smiles now, soft and warm. His hands loosen their grip on Steve, one reaching up to brush a strand of hair to the side, out of his face. Steve blinks.

“Also, this is probably not a good time, but why on earth are you for sale, Harrington?”

“Huh?”

Eddie laughs, eyes sparkling, and all of the previous terror melts away almost instantaneously. Gentle fingers peel something sticky off Steve’s forehead. Steve grabs the orange label from Eddie’s outstretched hand.

“Fucking Robin,” he hisses, and Eddie almost collapses with more laughter.

“Kind of her to think you’re worth that much,” he says between fits of giggles.

“You know what? Fuck you, Munson.”

And then Eddie is falling backwards into the pool with a shriek, and Steve is closely following suit, not left with much of a choice after having launched himself at Eddie for some odd reason instead of just pushing him in. Or maybe the reason isn’t odd at all. Maybe if he hadn’t done so, in this brief, light-hearted moment, he might have lost the nerve and never done it at all.

Steve is only underwater for half a second but he comes up spluttering, reflexively reaching for the edge of the pool. The water is warm - the pool is heated to the perfect temperature all year round - but he feels cold. His fingers catch against something soft instead of concrete, and his nails dig in involuntarily.

“I got you, man, don’t stress.”

The water clears from Steve’s eyes and he opens them, once again face-to-face with Eddie. He can feel himself trembling again. This time, Eddie grabs both of his hands before Steve can have a full-blown meltdown like before. They’re in a shallower part of the pool where they can both touch the bottom, so Steve takes a moment to collect himself, breathing in deep and blowing the air back out slowly. It’s not nearly as horrifying as he had anticipated. Eddie squeezes his hands. 

“It’s my turn to comfort you.”

To his embarrassment, Steve feels his cheeks flush. He doesn’t respond, because he can’t think of anything to say. But he supposes Eddie makes a fair point there.

They stay in the water for a while, not moving much from where they are, Eddie floating listlessly and telling Steve various amusing anecdotes from high school; nothing of relative importance, mostly just talking to fill the silence. Steve doesn’t think he would mind silence, but he still listens attentively. Eddie keeps a firm grip on Steve’s right hand the whole time and doesn’t let go until their fingers begin to prune and Steve becomes acutely aware of his clothes clinging to him uncomfortably, and they decide to call it a day. The sun is threatening to dip below the horizon by the time they’ve dashed, shivering, back inside the house.

They dry themselves off and find chicken soup in the back of the pantry, and Steve heats it up in a saucepan.

“Hey, what was that song you were singing before?” Steve asks, ladling the soup into two bowls. Eddie is perched on the counter, still in a pair of swimming trunks. Steve has since gotten changed out of his soaking wet jeans into a pair of pyjama pants and a white t-shirt. He had heard Robin’s words of wisdom echoing in his head and had cleaned and redressed the wound on his stomach. Honestly, it is much less of a wound than it used to be. It’s almost entirely healed. He probably doesn’t even need the bandage anymore. He’ll always have a scar there, but that’s not such a terrible thing, is it? The ladies dig gnarly scars.

“Pink Floyd. Wish You Were Here,” Eddie says in response to Steve’s question. “Not really up my alley, but they just hit hard sometimes, you know?”

Steve shrugs. He doesn’t really know. He doesn’t listen to enough music. But the way Eddie describes it makes enough sense to him.

Eddie takes the bowl that Steve offers him gratefully and they make their way into the living room. They sit on the floor, as is tradition now, because somehow it is more comfortable to spread out on the carpet than curl their long limbs up on Steve’s couch. It’s an unspoken ritual.

They drink the soup in comfortable silence. Eddie brings their empty bowls to the kitchen, and Steve lays down against the carpet, closing his eyes. He must slip into unconsciousness for a moment because, next thing he knows, there’s a body pressed close to him. He nuzzles back into its warmth. 

“You did really great, man,” Eddie murmurs.

Steve feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as a result of the proximity of the warm breath ghosting from Eddie’s mouth. Eddie shifts closer behind him. They’ve never fallen asleep like this, pressed together at the very beginning of the night. Eddie has only ever joined Steve while he’s half-asleep, curling up under the covers quietly in an attempt not to disturb him. But Eddie has never disturbed him. Could never, Steve reckons.

“Thanks.” It comes out a bit hoarse with sleep, so Steve coughs lightly and tries again. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just tucks his arm up and under Steve’s head, sighing contentedly. Steve lets him. He’s too exhausted to think of much else except how nice it feels to now have a cushion between his skull and the floor.

They fall asleep like that, on the living room carpet, smelling of chlorine, Steve’s head resting on Eddie’s bicep.

Chapter Text

The curtains are never drawn in Steve’s living room, so when the sun peeks its burning head over the horizon, its first pale rays somehow manage to instantly find his sleeping face. He blinks, licks his lips, ponders rolling over and attempting to ignore the assault on his tired eyes, but is shortly halted due to a firm pressure against his back.

It’s not really a surprising thing, to feel a presence there beside him, even though he is lying on the floor, and Steve swears the carpet had felt so much softer last night, but now he’s just stiff and sore and the shoulder that he had presumably slept on is numb. Aside from his current location, he doesn’t initially notice anything out of the ordinary. Steve is usually the first to wake, anyway. He will roll out of bed, peeling himself reluctantly away from Eddie, his warmth and occasional soft snores. Steve will then get dressed quietly and head downstairs, and he won’t see Eddie again until after work, in the evening. The breakfast may not have been a fluke, but Eddie waking up before Steve on their first morning had definitely been a one-off occurrence. He’s learnt that pretty fast. Steve has it pinned down to first-night jitters; he has always woken up early on his first morning in a foreign bed.

This morning, however, as a singular strip of sunlight beams down relentlessly into his eyes, he shifts and feels a body pressed tightly to his back, an arm still strewn beneath his head, in almost the exact same position that they had fallen asleep in. This is new. Usually Steve is the big spoon - not that this is really spooning or anything. Right now, Eddie is very close behind him. Very warm. And very much, to Steve’s rising horror, sporting a hard-on. 

Now, Steve is a gentleman. He knows the respectful thing to do in this situation is to accept that, hey, it’s just the body’s natural response to waking up – not that he’s ever been in such a situation with another man – and ignore it completely. Steve wakes up hard pretty much every morning, and it doesn’t ever mean anything.  Just morning wood. Nine times out of ten, he gets up and goes about his day and forgets about it. So, naturally, he shouldn’t allow himself to read too deeply into this situation. It’s not like Eddie can help it. He’s still asleep, for Christ’s sake. He isn’t yet aware of his body’s betrayal. 

Eddie shifts and panic sparks through Steve’s body, bleeding into the corners of his mind like a vignette of viscous, black tar. Eddie’s still wearing those thin fucking swimming trunks and he’s pressed so, so close, that not much is left to the imagination. Steve’s stomach swirls. This is wrong. So wrong. He should move. He should roll over and get up, and if he wakes Eddie in the process, he can pretend he’s been up for ages, play it off like he has no idea what’s currently going on in his friend’s pants. Eddie would believe him. Eddie always–

“Shit,” Steve hisses, because Eddie’s hips have gyrated forward, probably out of instinct, because he’s still fucking asleep. Steve feels him, the outline of his cock, nudging against his ass, and in almost immediate succession, his own erection takes interest, then he’s shooting up and off the floor like it’s made of molten lava. 

Eddie sighs and stretches, arms reaching out for the empty space that Steve has left behind. Steve looks down at him, eyebrows furrowed, gnawing on his bottom lip. Eddie’s hair is a mess, still slightly damp but somehow wilder than ever, strewn about his face like a wrung mop. Steve shivers unhappily. He’s struck by how cold it is away from Eddie’s heat, and the sunlight that rudely woke him is now doing next to nothing to ease the chill in his bones. Instead, it laps at Eddie’s sleeping form, soaking into his pale skin, dappled with tattoos, and turning the ends of his dark hair golden. Steve tastes blood on his lip, swipes his tongue out to lick it away. 

He absolutely does not have the mental capacity to unpack whatever reaction his body had decided to have to Eddie’s unconscious advances. He doesn’t want to think about it ever again. He can do that. He is great at shoving shit down and ignoring it.

But then Eddie makes a little sound, something halfway between a moan and an exhale, and the tug in Steve’s stomach that follows is really quite mortifying. He tears his eyes away, stumbling to the stairs, and hauls his still half-asleep legs up them and into his bathroom. Despite the notable absence of warmth beneath his skin, he turns the shower on as cold as it can go, undresses, and steps under the stream.

He leans his forehead against the tile wall and shudders. He should really take Robin up on her fierce request for him to talk to her more. He just doesn’t know where to even begin.

“Have you ever slept in the same bed as a friend?” Steve asks casually after about an hour of anxious silence, filled only by Robin’s rambling, which he is extremely grateful for today. At this, Robin shuts up and regards Steve with so much curiosity and suspicion that he thinks she might implode.

“When I was like ten, yeah,” she responds, and Steve cowers a bit under her inquisitive gaze. “Why? I knew something was weird with you today. Did something happen? Is it Eddie?”

Goddamn Robin and her stupid, shitty ability to read his mind. 

“No.”

Robin places a hand on her hip, cocking her head in a way that screams stop lying to my face, and Steve crumbles.

“Okay, yeah. It’s Eddie. But I don’t need you to freak out,” he adds hastily as he sees Robin begin to freak out. “It’s nothing at all. Really. Definitely not what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Robin insists, but Steve also has the ability to read her mind, sometimes. “But do go on. You shared a bed with him? That’s… surprising.” 

Steve can see how hard she’s trying to keep her emotions at bay, judging by how red her face is growing. “It’s genuinely nothing. He just needed, uh, comfort, I guess? And I was the only person there…” Steve swallows, fighting down the unsettling sensation in his gut that makes him feel as though he might be sick. “... to comfort him,” he finishes, not meeting Robin’s eyes. Robin finds them anyway, grabbing his face in her delicate hands. 

“Steve.”

“That’s all, okay?” Steve can feel his own cheeks now turning beet-red. He looks down at the counter. Robin still has a hold of his face, and he can tell now it might be to soothe him, because her fingers are cold and rubbing gently over his burning cheeks. It helps, minutely.

“Have you guys been sleeping together, like, every night?”

It might be the double entendre that she delivers so innocently, or the soft, attentive tone of her voice, like she truly cares about him and how he feels and what he has to say, but a lump is sent hurtling into his throat and his eyes are pricking with wetness again and what the fuck is wrong with him? Why is he on the verge of crying so often these days? It must be all this vulnerability, all this talking about his feelings. It’s awful. He’s not used to it. It’s helping regulate his thoughts, a little, actually.

Furiously, he fights off the impending tears and clears his throat. Robin has let her fingers trail away from his face and down to his shoulders, holding him at arm's-length like he’s a child being scolded. Though, he doesn’t feel scolded.

“Not every night. But most.” When he answers Robin’s question, it comes out soft and meek. Robin just smiles and nods, and Steve kind of despises that knowing look on her face.

“It must feel nice, to have somebody there at night,” Robin says, letting go of him. “You were saying you weren’t sleeping properly. Maybe this… arrangement is helping you, too?”

Steve pauses to think about that for a moment. It’s true. Before Eddie had reentered his life, and Steve had invited him into his house and his bed and his space, he’d still been having nightmares. They weren’t as frequent as they used to be, back when he had first fought so many years ago, when everything was new and confusing and horrifying. It was still horrifying, towards the end, but it was admittedly a weight off his shoulders to know it was well and truly over. He still had bad dreams, still woke up sweating and kicking and screaming, but… yeah, that hadn’t happened at all since Eddie moved in. Since Eddie started sharing his bed.

Steve furrows his brow and nods, slowly. “It’s been… nice. Good for both of us, I think.”

Robin hums thoughtfully. “Has anything else happened that you wanted to talk to me about? Between you and Eddie? Or otherwise.”

Steve freezes up, thinks back to this morning, his body’s reaction to Eddie pressing against him in his sleep, and he has to take a breath to calm his steadily rising heart rate. Maybe some things are a little too personal, best kept private. Robin doesn’t need to know about the events of this morning; she probably already gets the gist of what he’s panicking about. She’s smart enough. He’ll spare her the gory details. “Uh… no. That’s it.”

“All right.” He doesn’t know if she believes him, but she drops it regardless. Kind of. It’s also Robin, and she can’t keep her mouth shut for too long for fear of spontaneous combustion, so she follows casually with, “It’s okay, by the way.”

“What?”

“It’s okay if you, y’know, bat for the other team.” She’s grinning, and he can tell she’s surprised, but her smile is kind and easy and it takes all of the weight out of the accusation. The fear in Steve’s chest dissipates just a little. She goes on, “All the time, or sometimes. Or whenever.”

To his shock, Steve finds himself laughing, light and airy. He doesn’t feel like he needs to deny it in front of her. In fact, he’s warming up to this whole talking more thing. He wants to be honest. She doesn’t judge him, or ridicule him, or even seem to look at him any differently. God, he loves her.

So he shrugs and says, “Maybe I bat for both.”

Eddie tosses yet another tape over his shoulder onto the couch with a groan, adding to the ever-growing pile of discarded films. “Harrington, seriously! What the fuck is going on here?”

A little behind him, on the floor with his legs pulled up to his chest, Steve watches on in amusement. He’s happily buzzed on a couple of glasses of a really nice cabernet sauvignon, pinched from his father’s wine rack, the one that’s probably never been touched and likely never will aside from Steve’s occasional thievery. Steve figures his dad won’t miss one bottle. He’s never been that much of a wine fan, but after sharing the bottle with Eddie, the rich, fruity taste no longer bothers him. 

They’ve been trying to choose a movie to watch for what has to have been hours, but it’s been almost two weeks since Eddie moved in and they’ve already sped through the good ones, the mediocre ones, and then some of the good ones again. Eddie is growing frustrated, rifling through romances and romantic-comedies and more romances – Steve’s mother’s collection, mostly – and then a couple of really old films that Steve hasn’t seen since he was a little kid. One of them stands out: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That was his favourite when he was younger. He’d always marvelled at the flying car, wondered in his tiny, adolescent brain how such a feat was even possible. He’d driven his father crazy singing along to the theme tune, all by himself in front of the television, after begging his mom to rewind the tape for him again.

Steve is a bit surprised; he didn’t know his parents even kept shit like that. He can’t imagine why they would care.

“I love that film,” he says when Eddie is holding it, before he can add it to the reject pile. He doesn’t really know why he says it, maybe he’s just overwhelmed with nostalgia for a moment. But Eddie pauses anyway, looking over at him, then down at the colourful cover in his hand, then back at Steve with his nose screwed up and a smile etched onto his lips.

“I knew Steve Harrington was a musical fan, somewhere beneath that tough exterior.”

Steve finds himself blushing, even though Eddie is obviously messing with him. His exterior is probably the least tough thing about him. “When I was a kid, I mean. It was my favourite.”

Eddie beams, all bright teeth and dimpled cheeks. It looks good on him. What he’s wearing looks good on him, too, Steve decides. Tonight, his pyjamas consist of a baggy band t-shirt – Mötley Crüe – and black sweatpants, and his hair is pulled back into some kind of attempt at a half-bun. It might look silly, if he wore it out in public, but Steve thinks that only makes it so much better; that only he gets to see Eddie in this light, looking so comfortable and at-home.

What an odd thought.

“Wait, what’s this?” 

Eddie is leaning down now, his face pressed almost to the floor, and Steve focuses on that instead of where his mind is trying to take him. Eddie is reaching a hand underneath the television stand, and–

“Jackpot!”

He proudly produces a dusty copy of Back to the Future, grinning somehow wider than before. Steve laughs, genuinely surprised. He’d forgotten he owned that.

“Two different films about two different magical, flying cars? This is a tough decision.” Eddie spends about two seconds deliberating this before hurling Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at Steve’s chest. It bounces off, falling into his lap. “The decision has been made.”

Steve’s still laughing, somehow. God, he must be really tipsy. He downs the remaining contents of his glass. “What’s your obsession with that film anyway?”

“It’s not an obsession,” Eddie defends, sliding Back to the Future into the VHS player. “I just think it has a riveting plot.”

“Isn’t the entire plot just Marty’s mom trying to bang him?” Steve points out incredulously.

Eddie cackles, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes closed. Steve’s stomach lurches, and it’s not the alcohol. He decides then that he thoroughly enjoys making Eddie laugh. “I can’t believe you. You’ve got a dirty mind, Harrington.”

“That is quite literally the only thing I remember from that film.” Wanting to make Eddie laugh again, Steve thinks back to a joke Eddie had made in his trailer, when he’d wielded his own copy of the movie like it was a weapon. “You sure the plot isn’t just Michael J. Fox?”

Steve’s heart sinks at the exact moment Eddie freezes. His back goes stiff and his knuckles turn white where he’s balled his hand into a fist, still hovering over the play button. Steve feels, with a stab of dread, like he might have prodded something that he should have left alone. He wishes Eddie would turn around so he could see his face, see if he’s irrevocably fucked anything up by bringing up what may have just been a stupid, passing joke to begin with.

But Eddie doesn’t say anything, or look at him. It’s like he’s scared to. Steve thought he’d sounded playful, but maybe it came out wrong. Maybe he sounded like an asshole, like he’d been mocking him. Attacking him for something that might not even be true. Probably isn’t. God, that’s the last thing he wants Eddie thinking; that Steve’s a homophobic dickhead.

“I’m messing with you, man,” Steve manages, trying for the light-hearted approach, brushing it off as if it were nothing, and Eddie finally turns around. He looks… well, he looks frightened. Uncertain. But the corners of his lips are quirking up slightly at Steve’s unserious tone, and Steve has never felt a wave of relief so intense wash over him.

“I know, dude,” Eddie says, “It’s fine. Don’t worry, I’m just…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, sighing instead and turning back to the VHS player.

It’s a joke, but is there any truth to it?

Steve doesn’t know where that thought came from. He shouldn’t care, anyway. He shouldn’t care if Eddie is actually into Michael J. Fox, or maybe other people like him. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything, just like Robin being into chicks never changed anything for Steve, even right at the beginning when he thought he had feelings for her.

Except, it feels an awful lot like knowing Eddie’s preference might change everything.

“Look. Steve.”

Steve is surprised when Eddie starts talking again, but he keeps his stupid mouth shut and listens intently.

Eddie exhales heavily. He’s still facing away, fiddling with a loose thread on his shirt. “I don’t mean to get sappy, but I’m really grateful that you’ve let me stay here. It’s… it’s helped me more than you can imagine.” Steve wills his mouth to remain closed because he has so many things he wants to say in response, but Eddie continues, “I’ve just never really had a proper friend, I guess. Before you.”

“What about the DnD guys?” Steve blurts, then regrets it, because now Eddie is staring at him and there’s something written in those deep brown eyes, something he can’t quite read, and he hates that.

“It’s not the same, trust me,” Eddie says, shaking his mess of curls. “We didn’t really hang out outside of school and campaigns. None of them know shit about me. I can't think of anything I’d want them to know. They would never have taken me in without a second thought. None of them have gone through what we’ve gone through, Steve. And the kids – Dustin, Mike, Lucas – well, they’re just kids, you know?”

Steve knows. He knows all too well that intense feeling of loneliness, the kind of loneliness that sits heavy and cold in your gut, even when you have people surrounding you from all sides, all the time. Especially then, because Tommy and Carol and all of those assholes who had worshipped the ground that King Steve walked on never really knew him. They didn’t know that sometimes, when school was out for the day and the sun sunk below the horizon, King Steve would drive himself out to the farthest point on the outskirts of Hawkins, because he couldn’t bear to go home to where a cold and empty house waited for him. He would drive out into the darkness, where the farmland meets the woods, and he would walk into those woods and feel like he could disappear altogether. Like he could walk some more and then just keep on walking, and nobody would ever be able to find him.

Now, Eddie is sitting on Steve’s floor in Steve’s cold, empty house, and it doesn’t feel quite so cold or so empty anymore. There are tapes scattered everywhere and a blanket strewn across the arm of the couch and the living room looks… well, like a living room should. Lived in. 

Steve knows that if he craned his neck, he would just be able to see the edge of the pool out of the kitchen window. For the first time since Barb was taken, the thought doesn’t make him numb with a paralysing coldness. 

Steve can’t remember the last time he felt at home here.

Eddie keeps talking, and Steve lets him.

“Usually I’ve scared people off by now. Or they’ve ditched me for something better.” Eddie scoffs to cover the hurt, but Steve can hear it, can see it in his downcast eyes. “Harrington, I say weird shit and I do weird shit and I fuck things up. A lot. And I know you say it’s not weird, what we’ve been doing–”

“It’s not,” Steve says adamantly, and Eddie looks up at him again. His eyes are watery, face strained, like he’s holding back tears. Steve’s heart jumps. He wants to pull Eddie towards him and tell him…

He doesn’t know exactly what he’d tell him. Steve’s not that good with words.

“I just really don’t want to fuck this one up,” Eddie concludes, and his voice is breathy, heavy with unshed tears, and Steve wonders how he managed to change the mood so quickly with an offhand comment about an earlier joke. God, he’s stupid.

“I don’t think you could fuck this up if you tried, man,” he decides are the best words to say, the most honest.

Eddie smiles, small but genuine. “You’d be surprised.”

You’re full of surprises, Eddie Munson. And I haven’t gone running yet, have I?

Steve says instead, “I’m just as much of a weirdo, fuck-up as you, you know.”

Eddie regards him strangely, but doesn’t seem offended. “Wow, thanks.”

“No, seriously.” Steve rakes a hand through his hair. He’s trying to be more honest, more open. He wants to be a better person. He’s changed before, and he can change again. He’s talking about his feelings. “I mean, first of all I have parents who are never around, who have never really cared for being parents in the first place. I don’t even know where they are right now,” he laughs out, incredulous, because yeah, what the fuck? He sees Eddie’s face soften at this, but ignores it and continues, “I used to be a bully. You know that, though. I wasn’t smart, like Nance, but I was still praised for everything I did. And I did some fucked up things. I felt invincible and I took advantage of that. I hurt people, in so many different ways, and I hung around with the wrong crowd for so much longer than I ever should have, because I was a pussy and couldn’t think for myself. I only cared about what other people thought of me.” Steve stops, takes a breath, realises Eddie is still watching him, and casts his eyes down. He doesn’t think anyone has paid this close attention to what he has to say aside from Robin, and she does only when it really matters. Eddie seems like he’s listening all the time, like he wouldn’t rather be doing anything else. “And I’ve fought Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer and those fucked up dogs and Vecna, been captured and tortured by evil Russians, watched my friends suffer, watched people die. Been so close to dying that I could feel it all around me, I could smell it.”

And I don’t feel so invincible anymore, Steve thinks, but doesn’t word aloud.

Chewing on his thumbnail, Eddie considers Steve’s words for a moment. His expression is once again unreadable. Steve finds himself hoping he doesn’t feel too sorry for him. Then Eddie says, “I can one-up you still, Harrington.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve is struck with a strange sense of relief. He doesn’t know what he’d have done if Eddie had responded with sympathy. Or worse: pity.

So he urges Eddie to go on. Wants to hear everything he’s willing to tell him.

“I never really knew my mother. She died when I was six,” Eddie starts, and Steve instantly feels his heart drop into his stomach. “And my dad, well, yeah he was an asshole. A criminal and a junkie. All I ever learnt from him aside from how to hot-wire cars and deal for a living was how much I didn’t want to be like him. The day he finally got locked up was the best day of my life.” He’s looking a bit over Steve’s shoulder now, eyes glassy, lost in a memory. “My uncle, he’s cool, but he’s never home. Works his ass off. I work my ass off and still can’t fucking graduate. Oh, and I’m a metalhead and a nerd and a queer, which are all synonymous with freak in this fucking town.” If Eddie realises what he’s just admitted, he shows no sign of it. Steve hopes his face isn’t twisting with the alarm that sucker-punches him in the gut. “And then I watched Chrissy get broken into pieces on my ceiling, and everyone thought I was a murderer. Everyone thought I had done something terrible, unspeakable. They probably still do, deep down. You can make that shit go away, but does it ever really go away?” Eddie shifts his gaze to meet Steve’s now, smiling in spite of his heavy words. “Then I met this cocky pretty-boy called Steve Harrington with his ridiculous hair and ugly polo shirts, and I met his ex-girlfriend and his best friend and his little flock of children who all adore him so very much.” Eddie's smile grows fond. “And we kicked some fuckin’ inter-dimensional monster ass together.”

He’s done, Steve realises. He also realises that he’s been quite literally on the edge of his seat for the duration of Eddie’s rant. He’s sitting up on his heels, leaning forwards, probably looking like an idiot. “You got me beat, dude.” He can’t even find it in him to be mad at Eddie’s dig at him.

They don’t really say much after that. Steve doesn’t ask about Eddie’s mother or his father, or request Eddie elaborate on that word he’d used, the one that’s making Steve’s head spin – queer – though he’d really like to press him for details, but Eddie seems thankful for the calm quiet. Maybe he’ll talk more about it, eventually. They have time. Steve can wait.

Steve only says, “So are we gonna watch this film or not? Press play and come the fuck over here, Munson,” and Eddie’s ensuing chuckle is authentic, albeit a little sad, but he does as he’s told, settling down beside Steve on the floor in front of the couch. They’re close enough that their sides are pressed together. They haven’t been this close since this morning; since Steve had been the one in Eddie’s arms and he’d freaked out over nothing, and he hasn’t stopped thinking about it all day.

He remembers what he’d told Robin earlier, doesn’t have to work hard to find the memory. Maybe I bat for both. He hasn’t stopped thinking about that, either.

Maybe it hadn’t been nothing.

To halt this treacherous train of thought, Steve throws an arm over Eddie’s shoulders, a gesture that he hopes seems friendly and casual. Eddie relaxes into him, and he can finally breathe again. They watch Back to the Future in a comfortable silence

About twenty minutes in, when Doc is strapping Einstein the dog into the DeLorean, Eddie’s head lolls over, landing in the crook of Steve’s neck. Steve flinches, thinking he’s fallen asleep, and wills every muscle in his body not to move for fear of waking him. But then Eddie’s lashes flutter against his cheeks as he laughs softly at the television screen, and Steve realises it hadn’t been an accident. 

Another ten minutes, and Steve’s head is resting lightly on Eddie’s.

“Okay, I see your vision,” Steve says gently, feeling warm and content and more than a little brave. “Marty McFly is kinda cute.”

Eddie doesn’t reply, just keeps his head nuzzled into Steve’s shoulder, but Steve can feel the muscles in his cheeks contract into a smile against him and that’s all the answer he needs.

Chapter Text

The morning after Eddie lets slip to Steve something that he’s never told anyone else in his life, there’s a warmth in his chest and a lot on his mind. Because Eddie knows Steve heard every word, could tell by the way he was looking at him. And he hadn’t run away. In fact, he’d pulled Eddie closer.

The two of them had ended up in Steve’s bed after the movie – real surprise there – and this is where Eddie finds himself now, curled up to Steve’s side like an oversized cat, letting himself bask for just a few more blissful minutes before Steve inevitably wakes up and Eddie has to pretend he’s still sleeping.

“You’re thinking very loudly.”

Eddie jumps, flinches away, but the arm wrapped around his waist pulls him back in. 

“Jesus, Stevie. Warn a man.”

Steve chuckles drowsily. “That was the warning.”

Eddie peers up, allows himself to look because Steve’s eyes are closed. His face is all soft edges and high cheekbones, tinted rosy from the warmth of sleep, and his lips wear a content smile. His hair clearly lacks its usual meticulous styling, but somehow it still looks so good. Eddie wouldn’t even call it dishevelled. He briefly feels insecure about his own bedhead, pulling a hand through his curls to flatten them out. 

“Can you read my mind or something?” Eddie murmurs. In the position they’re in, Steve is angled towards him and Eddie’s face is quite close to being buried in Steve’s chest. Steve’s very bare chest. “Is that some kind of telekinetic ability you acquired from fighting monsters?”

Steve reaches down with the hand that’s not tucked underneath Eddie and pokes at his brow. His eyes are open now, lashes fluttering as he blinks. He has really fucking pretty eyelashes. “No. I can just see this.”

Eddie relaxes his face. He hadn’t realised he’d been frowning.

“What’s up?” Steve pushes himself further up the bed and his arm comes up from Eddie’s waist to rest against his upper back. He looks him right in the eyes. Eddie wants to kiss him. He bites his tongue instead.

“Just had a weird dream,” he lies, and feels guilty when Steve frowns. “Honestly, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t a nightmare. Just… unsettling. Y’know?” And that’s not even far from the truth, the unsettling part, because there’s something heavy in Eddie’s gut this morning and it isn’t sitting quite right.

Steve nods in solidarity. Doesn’t even have to say anything for Eddie to know that he gets it. The heavy thing squirms up into Eddie’s heart and gives it a tug.

To be frank, Eddie has no fucking clue what’s going on between them. He doesn’t know if Steve reciprocates his feelings, if he’s even queer, if he’s not but he’s so comfortable in his sexuality that he’s fine with this constant intimacy and it not meaning anything, if he does this with all of his friends, if it had started as merely a technique to calm Eddie down but he’s in too deep now to back out. God, there are so many ‘if’s. Eddie despises uncertainty. It makes him sick to his stomach, not knowing what other people are thinking about him. 

Eddie is sure that he’s known who he is for his whole life. It was so easy, in high school, to twist and mould people’s minds into perceiving him exactly how Eddie wanted them to. The way he presented himself was always to attain a certain reaction. He knew what he was doing. He had control over his own character and what others thought of him. Maybe he’d over-exaggerated every now and again, pretended he was bigger, bolder, braver than he was on the inside, but it was never completely false. He hasn’t had an easy life, he knows that, but he’s always prided himself in his authenticity. He’s revelled in the feeling of being different, weird, even when it’s caused him pain.

Now, Eddie is in Steve Harrington’s arms, in his bed, in his house, and that same Steve Harrington knows that he’s into dudes, and Eddie is not sure of anything.

He should probably just ask, Eddie thinks as Steve slides tender fingers against Eddie’s back like it’s become natural, rubbing out circles against his skin. Eddie shivers and tries not to lean too far into the touch. He can’t ask. He can’t risk it. If Steve isn’t thinking about this in the same light as Eddie is, if it isn’t eating him up on the inside every hour he’s awake and even sometimes in his dreams, then Eddie can’t bring himself to face that disappointment. That rejection. He can’t break the spell. He likes this. He loves it. He’s digging what they’ve got going on, even if his selfish heart wants so much more.

So Eddie lets Steve run his fingers down his back and he squeezes his eyes shut.

Yeah, the unsettling dream. That’s what’s bothering him. He can go with that.

What Eddie doesn’t tell Steve is that he hasn’t had a nightmare since that first night he’d come to Steve’s bedroom, shaking and petrified, and Steve had held him until all the bad thoughts were long gone – dust in the wind.

Chapter Text

“So, Eddie’s queer.”

Robin actually spits out some of her milkshake, all over the table, and several people turn their heads to stare. She doesn’t appear phased by this. She’s too busy visibly processing Steve’s declaration, wide-eyed in that endearing way that leaves none of her emotions or thoughts to the imagination. Her face is so expressive. Steve usually thinks it's adorable, but right now it’s freaking him the hell out.

“He told you?” Robin hisses.

“Yeah– wait, you knew?”

“Steve.” 

Robin wipes her mouth with a napkin, leans over the table so she can stare right into Steve’s eyes. There’s excitement sparkling there, as well as a kind of dumbfounded affection, like he’s miles behind and it pains her but she loves him for it regardless. They probably shouldn’t be talking about this in the middle of the diner at five in the evening because it’s packed in here and anyone could hear. Anyone could know. About Eddie, or about Steve, and for a moment, Steve isn’t sure which is worse. But Robin isn’t an idiot. She’s keeping her voice down. 

“Beautiful, wonderful Steve,” she says theatrically, resting her chin in her hands and gazing at him. “Darling. My love. Light of my life. You really are incredibly thick sometimes, you know?”

Steve opens his mouth to protest the insult but she cuts him off.

“So he told you? Or did you figure it out for yourself?”

“He…” Steve’s teeth worry at his bottom lip. He thinks back to that moment last night, when he and Eddie had spilled their guts to each other, tipsy on a shared bottle of red wine. He remembers how nice it was, how comfortable he’d been, how he’d opened up and how easy it was. That’s never come easily to Steve before, laying himself out like that, artless and transparent. He’s a closed book most of the time, because any time he has let someone close enough in the past to open that book, they’d read what was written there and decided that it was too ugly, too disconcerting, and they’d shut it right back up and left him there, alone, heart cavernous, bleeding. After some time, and too many of the same mistakes, Steve had decided to put a lock on that book and bury it deep. Apparently, Eddie has the key to it. Maybe Steve had given it to him without realising. “Well, he told me. Accidentally, I think.” 

Robin reaches across the table and steals one of his fries. “Oh my God. How did you react?”

“I dunno, Robs, does it matter?” Steve can feel himself growing frustrated, overwhelmed. He feels cornered, like an animal, but luckily Robin is too smart for her own good and she backs down, leaning back in her seat.

“Sorry,” she says. “Too much. Really, I’m sorry.”

“Did he tell you?” Steve asks, and he tries to bury the jealousy in his tone but it rears its ugly green head nonetheless.

Robin shakes her head, however. “It’s just… well, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s kinda super obvious.”

Steve swallows hard. “Obvious how?”

“You mean aside from how he’s happy and willing to share a bed with you?”

Steve shushes her and she rolls her eyes, but lowers her voice even more.

“Well, for one, he’s rented Rocky Horror, like, twelve times.” Robin sips at her shake, swirling the straw around to get at some of the whipped cream. “And for another, his music taste. And his whole style. Metal is literally, historically, super queer. Trust me on that. And then that little comment he made at his place about Michael J. Fox? Y’know? That kinda solidified it for me.” She drinks again and this time it makes a grating slurping noise as she catches air in her straw. “Also, my gaydar is usually pretty reliable.”

Steve feels light-headed. “I have so many questions.”

“Hit me, babe.”

“What is Rocky Horror? And what the hell is a gaydar? Is that, like, a sex thing?”

“Oh my.” Robin brings a hand up to her mouth to cover the shit-eating grin that has begun to spread across her face. “You have so much to learn, Steve Harrington. So much. And I, Master Buckley, am thrilled to be your mentor.”

Steve watches The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Robin in her living room because her family is out, and at the start, when Brad and Janet are singing to each other in the church, he laughs and teases her for being a musical nerd. She doesn’t say anything, just shoves his head back towards the screen. Then she sits there with a tiny smirk on her face and watches as Steve’s life is irrevocably changed.

When Tim Curry’s character emerges from the elevator in dark red lipstick, throws away his cloak, reveals the corset, the fishnet stockings, the literal underwear, Steve shuts up. For the most part.

“That’s a dude?”

“He’s hot, right?” she jokes, but he can feel her looking at him as he watches; sceptical, searching, assessing his reaction. He cracks a smile, gives a little shrug. It’s not a denial. Robin visibly relaxes, sinking back into the couch, leaning into his side, head on his shoulder.

When Eddie comes in on his motorcycle and sings a song about rock’n’roll, Steve makes a lame joke about him being the cooler version of his Eddie to bury the sense of unease that lingers, heavy and weighted, and Robin snorts, which he’s thankful for. Steve fleetingly finds himself wishing his Eddie were here watching with them, but quickly decides that it’s better like this. With just him and Robin. Perhaps Steve should sort himself and his feelings out before practically outing himself to the man he has a crush on.

Well, that’s something. That’s an admission. Even if it’s only private. Even if it only took a half-naked Tim Curry to make him brave enough to accept it.

Steve Harrington has a crush on a man. Steve Harrington has a crush on Eddie Munson. 

Steve likes Eddie’s smile and his hair and his hands, and the raucous, unapologetic way that he throws his head back and laughs. He likes how Eddie chews on his thumbnail when he’s nervous, and how he makes Steve so easily unafraid with just his presence, so brave and comfortable and light in a way that he’s never really felt before. Steve likes the colour of Eddie’s cheeks when he’s asleep, and the shape of his back against his chest, the smoothness of his skin; how lovely and warm he is all over, with light muscle in all the right places that softens when he’s relaxed. Steve likes the patchy tattoos that are inked there, over Eddie’s chest, down his arms, on his thighs, poking out from beneath his clothes like little fragments of secrets that Steve longs to uncover and explore. He likes Eddie’s voice when he opens up to Steve, the way it goes all gentle, yet remains defiant and unrelenting in that captivating way that Eddie always is. He likes when Eddie touches him, when he does it on purpose, reaching out for him, and also when he doesn’t mean to, but his skin gravitates towards Steve’s like he can’t help it. Like they’re opposing forces, planets in orbit of each other, separate gravities tugging each other closer until their atmospheres become one and the two of them meet in an astronomical collision.

It’s a lot to think about, really. Steve glances down at Robin where she’s nuzzled into him with her knees to her chest, and lets out a little breath. She’s mouthing along to the film, seems to know it by heart. His heart floods with warmth. He wonders what she’d think if she could really read his mind.

The film goes on and Frank N Furter seduces Janet, and then Brad, and Steve’s a bit lost for words. He’s never seen anything like this, not in any film. Not in real life. Nowhere. It unsettles him to know that he might never have actually realised that this is a thing – this liking both and it being okay – if it weren’t for Robin, or a movie like this. But he would never have watched it of his own accord. He would never have even known it existed. Or, if he had, he would’ve thought it was weird. It is weird. But Steve has come to learn a thing or two about himself lately, and one of them is that he’s not exactly as normal as he once assumed. 

“How’re you holding up over there?”

Steve realises his hands are clenched into fists in his lap. He’s sitting rigid, like a board, and Robin has moved away to get a good look at him.

“I’m great.”

Robin looks smug, albeit a little sympathetic. “Mhm. I’m sure you are.”

The phone rings and Steve jumps, almost leaps right out of his skin. Robin groans and gets up, pausing the film. It’s stuck on a freeze-frame of Brad and Frank N Furter’s silhouettes on the bed, through the curtain. Steve chokes a bit on something hard that’s wedged in his throat. 

“Steeeeve!” Robin calls, drawing his name out in a displeased whine. “It’s your child.”

Steve snaps out of his trance, tears his eyes away from the screen, and goes over to take the receiver from Robin.

“Steve.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Dustin?”

“I called your place, but Eddie said you were here.”

“Yeah man, what’s up?”

“What are you doing on Saturday?”

“Just working, wh–”

“Great. Your house is free, right?”

Steve’s frown deepens. “Yes, but–”

“Okay, you and Robin can come pick up me and Max and Lucas and Erica after work. The others will meet us there. We’ll bring the food, don’t worry. Just make sure the place is kinda clean. Last time I was there, there were cans and shit everywhere, like, seriously, surely you have the money to hire a regular maid or something? Anyway, I’ll see you then!”

“What– Henderson," Steve hisses as the line goes dead. “He’s such a scheming little shitbird.” He turns to scowl at Robin as she appears at his elbow. She clings to him, blunt, painted nails digging into his arm.

“What does he want?”

Steve sighs. “I guess we’re having a gathering at mine on Saturday.”

“You guess?”

“I didn’t get much of a say in it,” Steve says grimly.

Robin’s eyes light up then. “Can I invite Vickie?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? You guys been talking?”

Robin flushes crimson. It’s delightful, really. “We’re just friends. But, yeah. We’ve been talking.”

“That’s cute.”

She punches his arm.

“Ouch, Rob!”

“I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“I don’t have the authority to approve this, you’ll have to ask Dustin for permission, since it’s his gathering, not mine,” Steve mutters bitterly. “God forbid I have an opinion, it’s not like it’s at my house or anything.”

But Robin isn’t listening, already dialling in a number which Steve assumes is Vickie’s, and he wonders if it’s just a coincidence that all the queer people he knows – himself included, unfortunately – are so painfully oblivious, because Robin has Vickie’s number memorised, and the call hasn’t even gone through yet but her eyes are shining and her smile is bright, splitting her face wide open like the sun, and if that’s not the most romantic goddamn thing Steve’s ever seen, then he has no idea what is.

Eddie cooks breakfast for the two of them early on Friday morning. Bacon and eggs and sausages, toast and orange juice, the whole nine yards.

They sit down together at the dining table, Eddie at the head and Steve in the seat adjacent, right next to each other despite the masses of empty space at the other end. Steve tucks right in, starving, and also not exactly keen to be late for work. Eddie hasn’t touched his food yet. Steve has noticed that about him, the way he’ll push it around his plate, glaring at it as if it offends him. He’d said he didn’t have much of an appetite after everything, but it’s been weeks now and nothing has changed. Steve is just about to say something, bring it up gently, when Eddie speaks.

“I was thinking,” he starts.

“Don’t strain yourself, man,” Steve cuts in without missing a beat, mimicking Eddie’s tone after Steve had stumbled over his words back at the trailer. Eddie’s cheeks colour and he smiles.

“You’re a douchebag.”

“You love it.”

Eddie’s lip twitches. He coughs. “Anyway, I was thinking, if it’s all right with you, could we make a little trip back to the trailer later today? Just… I know it’s Wayne’s day off, and I haven’t seen him in a while. I told him where I was staying, obviously, but… I miss him, y’know? We used to hang out all the time.”

Steve shovels some scrambled egg into his mouth. “Your uncle, right?”

Eddie nods, lifts a piece of sausage with his fork. Doesn’t eat it, just waves it around a bit. “Yeah. You don’t have to come in or anything. I might also grab my van while I’m there, so I can actually go out without asking you to drive me around like I’m one of the kids.”

“It’s okay, man, I’m a regular chauffeur.” Steve leans in across the table, grins widely, mouth still full. Eddie grimaces, but there’s a smile caught there, shining in his eyes. “Don’t you dare tell the children, but I kinda enjoy it.”

Eddie faux-gasps, clutching at his own chest. “No. Has Steve Harrington truly just entrusted me with this top secret information? I am flattered. Shaken to my core. Gobsmacked, if you will.”

Steve laughs loudly. “Gobsmacked?”

Eddie laughs, louder. “Yeah!”

They grin at each other for a moment, then Steve notices Eddie drop his fork, sausage still speared on its prongs. Steve’s already finished half his food. He remembers what he was going to say before he’d been distracted.

“You should probably eat something.”

Eddie breaks their eye contact, looks down at his plate. His forehead gives a little twitch, like he’s trying not to frown, like the untouched meal has only just crossed his mind for the first time. “I know,” he says, meeting Steve’s eye again. He looks nervous. “It’s just… hard.”

Steve feels that familiar lump form in his throat. He swallows it down, obstinate. “Hard to eat?”

“Hard to stomach anything,” Eddie admits. “Feels like I’m just gonna throw it all up again. I dunno. It sounds stupid.”

Steve thinks it sounds far from stupid. “Can I help make it better?”

Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it, then his eyes screw up and he tugs a strand of hair over his mouth to cover what must be a smile. “Christ, you’re,” he breathes, sounding genuinely amazed, “You’re something else, Steve Harrington.”

Steve presses two fingers to his wrist under the table, feels his pulse speed up, wills it to slow back down. “I mean it. I wanna help however I can. You need to eat something, or you’ll waste away.”

That grin is still there, hidden beneath dark, tousled hair.

“I can, like, make you something. Or pick something up from the store. Anything. Something easier to eat, maybe.”

Eddie lets the hair drop away, biting down hard on his lower lip, like the smile is resisting his every effort to contain it. “Like what, Stevie?”

“Like whatever you want,” Steve says, finds that he really means it, would do just about anything right now to make Eddie happy. “What’s your favourite food?”

Eddie answers instantly. “Cereal. Cap’n Crunch. The chocolate one.”

Steve cocks his head. “That’s lame.”

“It is so not lame, oh my God,” Eddie grits out over a chuckle. It bubbles from his throat and resounds, velvety and warm, in Steve’s ears. “You’re lame. Are you kidding me? Cereal is the best. It’s, like, always been my comfort food.”

At that, something hot and treacherous simmers in Steve’s chest, molten lava. “Then I’ll pick some up. When we go to your place later. And we can eat it for dinner.”

“Steve, you don’t have to–”

“I want to.”

Eddie looks at him like he’s just hung the moon and all the stars, and Steve has to cast his eyes away, down to his lap, because nobody has ever looked at him like that before. 

“That okay?” Steve adds, mostly for something to say, something to fill the quiet.

There’s no reply for a couple of long seconds, and Steve fidgets, gets anxious, almost looks back up.

But then Eddie says, “It’s absolutely fucking perfect,” and Steve prays that by some miracle, Eddie can’t hear his heartbeat from across the table.

Well, shit. Steve is fucked.

Steve lets Eddie choose the music on their way to the trailer park. He selects a tape of his own, one that he’d evidently brought with him when he’d packed his bag. It’s loud and fast and totally not Steve’s scene, but he lets it play, because it’s Eddie, and he’s humming along to it, tapping his foot and nodding his head in that slightly unhinged way that metalheads do. It’s like he’s restraining himself, for Steve’s sake. Like he’d be thrashing and yelling and that mane of brown hair would be flying everywhere if he were alone. Steve wishes he would do it anyway.

“This is their first studio album,” Eddie explains after the first song plays all the way through, referring to Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All, the one with the red cover with the bloodstains and the hammer, the one that Steve thought looked quite violent and admittedly a little too close to home when Eddie had slid it into the cassette player. “And this, Stevie, is the best song on it.”

A distorted electric guitar picks out short notes, punctuated by perfectly timed bursts of drums, and Steve kind of gets into it for a second. It’s not just soundless rock music; it actually has rhythm and a catchy tune, and probably other genius musical shit that Steve knows fuck all about. It’s not something he’d willingly listen to, but it’s all right.

“It’s called The Four Horsemen,” Eddie raves. “Like, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. You know it’s based on a song by Megadeth? Another great band. Theirs is, like, a faster version, different lyrics, same melody, very similar instrumental. I think I like this version better, to be honest. It’s just… I dunno, cooler? But don’t get me wrong, Megadeth did it well the first time. Nothing ever really beats the original, right?”

Steve just grips the steering wheel hard, smiles so widely it hurts. He lets Eddie rant, lets him bob his head along to the beat and mimic the guitar solo in a way that suggests that he knows it back to front, could probably play it easily if given the chance. Steve doesn’t doubt that. Not after the hell of a performance he’d put on in the Upside Down, on the roof of his trailer. That was Metallica too, wasn’t it? But they’d played a different song, when Vecna had him. Dustin had put it on. Seemed to just know. Steve wonders…

“Is Metallica your favourite band?”

Eddie laughs. “God, no. They’re up there, though. You wore my vest, man, you saw the huge fuckin’ Dio patch on the back.”

Oh, yeah. Dio. That had been it.

“What song was that? The one we played. To… to bring you back.”

Eddie stiffens a little. Steve sees it out of the corner of his eye, the way he stills even though the next song in the album is playing and it’s just as energetic as the last.

“Uh, Rainbow in the Dark.”

Steve wonders if he’s ruined this car trip entirely, if this is too sensitive a subject now, if it’s something Eddie never wants to talk about again and Steve is failing spectacularly once again at reading the room. But he has an idea. It might be stupid. But he thinks of the pool, when Eddie had reassured him, hand over his thumping heart. Remembers launching himself at him, braving one of his biggest fears, all because Eddie had been there smiling and telling him it was okay. He recalls how good he’d felt afterwards, how fulfilled. For a moment, he’d almost felt invincible. 

“I think we can take a big step towards saying fuck you, don’t you think?”

So Steve swallows his doubt, says, “Do you have that song? I mean, did you bring it? With you?”

Eddie looks over at him, wide-eyed. “Y– Yeah. It’s on one of my mixtapes. Few of them, actually.”

“Can I hear it?”

Steve holds his breath. Waits for a response.

Then, finally, there comes a shaky, “Sure man, why not?”

And Eddie pops the Metallica tape out, fumbles around with the ones in his lap that he’s brought into the car with him, finding one and sliding it in with unsteady fingers. 

The stretch of road they’re on is even and flat and goes on for a while, so Steve moves his hand off the gear shift, reaches over. Takes Eddie’s hand in his. Rests their entwined fingers against Eddie’s thigh. He looks over, meets Eddie’s eye where the other man is already looking at him, and smiles. He gives a little nod of encouragement. Eddie smiles back, though it’s not especially happy, and he presses play.

Steve likes this song a whole lot better than Metallica’s fast-paced shouting and flurry of cymbals and guitar riffs. It’s a little slower, definitely more similar to the pop music that Steve usually enjoys, but the vocals are powerful, gritty, echoing through the car. The drums drive the song on, steady and pounding.

This is the first time Steve has heard this song in a regular context. The first time he hasn’t associated it with something horrifying, something bad.

Eddie doesn’t move or say anything or sing along, just sits and listens.

By the second chorus, Steve picks up on the repetitive nature of the lyrics. So, after the guitar solo, towards the end of the song, he pulls Eddie’s hand up to his mouth, holds it there like a microphone, his other hand hitting the steering wheel rhythmically, and he sings, “Like a rainbow, like a rainbow in the dark, yeah yeah!”

He exaggerates it a lot, makes his voice sound all loud and growly and dramatic, and he feels a bit stupid, but he does it anyway, puts his whole soul into it, because it’s what Eddie would do for him.

Eventually they come to an intersection and Steve has to pull his hand back to change gears. But, as much as he enjoys holding Eddie’s hand, he doesn’t mind. He doesn't mind at all, because now Eddie is laughing, his head thrown back against the headrest, eyes all scrunched up. And that just might be Steve’s favourite sound in the world.

Wayne greets Eddie like he’s his son. He pulls him in for a warm hug, beckons him inside, shoots Steve an unreadable glance as they both walk in through the door of the trailer.

“You been okay, Eddie?” Wayne goes to sit down on the couch, and Eddie takes the spot beside him. Steve hovers awkwardly, shifting his weight from foot-to-foot. Wayne keeps peering up at him. Steve hopes the cordial smile he’s fixed to his face doesn’t emanate the discomfort that he presently feels.

“Yeah, I’ve been okay,” Eddie replies. “Like, been better, in the grand scheme of things. But… y’know. I’m doin’ fine.”

They exchange a couple more words and Steve watches, entranced, by their easy dynamic. Eddie talks to Wayne like they’re best friends. Like conversation between them has always flowed effortlessly, enjoyable and relaxed.

It’s funny. Steve can’t recall ever actively wanting to converse with his own parents. The only times his father had ever spoken to him had been to let him know that he was doing something wrong. Steve could dwell on it, but it would be a waste of brainpower. Not like they talk at all these days, anyway.

Steve blinks back into the conversation when he feels eyes on him. Wayne is nodding thoughtfully at something Eddie has said to him, looking over at Steve. “So this is Harrington?”

“Shit, yeah. Sorry.” Eddie flails a hand in Steve’s direction, brushing against his thigh, fingers lingering there for a moment when they make contact. “Wayne, this is Steve. Steve, Wayne.”

Wayne continues to study Steve. Steve really doesn’t like that he can’t read his expression. He has the same eyes as Eddie; expressive, to an extent, but also frustratingly skilled at concealing things. 

“You’re stayin’ with him?” Wayne asks.

“Yep,” Eddie says, popping the ‘p’.

There’s a beat of silence. It’s not unpleasant, but Steve feels the urge to break it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Munson,” he blurts, like a moron. “I’ve heard lots about you.”

Wayne cocks his head to the side. “Have you now?”

“Good things,” Steve rushes out, to clarify. Wayne gives a light chuckle. His hard resolve softens slightly. Steve sees even more of Eddie in his smile.

“I’d damn well hope so. Eddie, you got enough rumours goin’ ‘round town ‘bout yourself, y’don’t need to be spreadin’ more ‘bout your poor old uncle.”

Eddie laughs, full and loud and evidently relieved. “If I go down, we go down together.”

Wayne’s eyes sparkle. “You’re goddamn right.”

They chat for a while. Eddie offers Steve his seat and bustles around the trailer while he talks, collecting bits of clothing, some tapes, toiletries, various bits and pieces, which he stuffs into the empty duffel bag he’d brought with him. It doesn’t take long for the room to feel significantly warmer. It’s only a couple of minutes before Steve lets himself properly relax back against the couch. He laughs along when Wayne recounts the numerous times an angsty teenage Eddie had pretended to run away from home in middle school only to return within the hour each time, and Eddie races off down the hall with an overdramatic shriek at this, his face alight with embarrassment. Steve’s cheeks hurt from smiling. There’s a softness sitting snug and happy in his chest, the kind that makes him feel like he’s at home. Which is strange, because he’s never felt like that in his own house, with his own family.

Dustin once said something to him about family not always being blood. He’d brushed it off at the time, of course, like he does with most of the nonsense that kid spouts. He remembers it vividly now, however; makes space for it behind his ribs, holds it there close to his heart.

An hour passes and Steve learns that Eddie grew his hair out from his buzzcut to spite his father, which Wayne discloses with a hint of distaste to his tone, but Eddie seems fond of the story. 

Steve isn’t blind to the tension there. He feels a pang of empathy, thinking about it. That’s something he and Eddie will always share: the knowledge that their fathers both want nothing to do with them, and that they’re better off without them, anyway. For as long as he can remember, Steve had thought that he was the only one. He wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone, especially not someone he values as much as Eddie, but it’s admittedly nice to know that he isn’t alone in it.

At some point, Eddie wanders off to use the bathroom, and Wayne turns his attention entirely to Steve.

“I need to talk to you about somethin’.”

A chill pricks at the back of Steve’s neck. He’s not sure why he’s nervous. Wayne has proven that he poses no threat. “Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

Wayne clears his throat, looks down at his lap, and it strikes Steve that they might both be just as nervous as each other. “He’s a good kid, my Eddie. Never did nothin’ wrong. Nothin’ that was through any fault of his own.”

“Of course. I know that.” More than you know, he thinks, gritting his teeth, but doesn’t say aloud.

Wayne looks at him now, properly. His eyes are glistening. Glassy. Vulnerable, like he knows he’s opened himself up, placed his trust in Steve, and now he’s silently pleading for it not to be broken. “You’ll look out for him?”

“I will always look out for him,” Steve says firmly, without missing a beat, and finds he truly means it. “I care about him, y’know? A lot.”

Wayne considers him like he’s still slightly unsure. “My Eddie. He’s… different. Sensitive. Comes across all hard-edged, but he’s soft inside.”

“Different?” Steve thinks he knows what it means, but he wants Wayne to say it. He wants it laid out for him, between them in the open, where there is no room for misinterpretation.

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with the kind of different that he is,” Wayne says defiantly, eyes still bright, but now there’s a kind of sadness to them. It’s the sadness of a man who has seen bad things happen to someone he loves, and that realisation stings. “People say awful things. The world doesn’t take kindly to different. This town has hurt him. It’s hurt him when he’s had nothin’ but love to give back to it.”

Steve’s heart throbs. “I’m different, too.”

Wayne’s eyes narrow slightly, like he’s sizing Steve up, deciding whether he’s telling the truth, or perhaps whether they’re even talking about the same thing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Steve swallows around the pressure in his throat. He isn’t brave enough to outright say it, not before he’s even said it to Eddie. But he thinks Wayne gets it. “I think we’re the same kind of different, me and Eddie.”

For a second, Wayne looks surprised, then he nods, and a kind of unspoken understanding falls between them. Like the last of the barrier has been broken down, and Steve has been let in. Wholly and permanently accepted.

“Y’know, I like you. But it's still my duty to tell you that if you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”

Steve laughs softly, a bit alarmed because of how genuine the threat seems, but still warm inside. “I’d expect nothing less.”

Wayne smiles. 

Just then, Eddie strides back into the room. Steve feels Wayne’s eyes on him as he stares; can’t help it, looking at Eddie. It’s where his gaze is naturally drawn these days.

“Wayne, do y’know where my keys are?”

“Hangin’ in the kitchen. You takin’ your van?”

Eddie disappears through the doorway, calls out, “Yeah. You don’t need it, do you? Truck still goes fine?”

“No, no. Don’t you go worryin’ about me.”

“It’s my job to worry about you.” Eddie re-emerges, keys in hand. “We worry about each other. Which is why I’m sorry. For up and leaving. Because I know you’ve been worried about me.”

“Don’t be sorry. I know you’re in good hands.”

Steve chokes a bit on his own saliva, clears his throat as discreetly as possible.

“I just can’t bear…” Eddie trails off, eyes flitting briefly to the ceiling, and Steve’s heart jumps. He wants to stand up, go over, pull Eddie into his arms, into safety. He gets the feeling that Wayne wouldn’t bat an eye if he did. He folds his arms over his chest and stays seated anyway.

“I know, Eddie. It’s all right. You do whatever y’need to do.” Wayne stands, goes over to him, rubs his back gently. “If this Harrington boy ain’t takin’ proper care of you, though, you tell me. You tell me and I’ll sort him out.”

Eddie blushes. Like, furiously. “Wayne.”

“Only jokin’.”  He cracks a smile and pulls Eddie in for a one-armed hug. “He’s a good one, your Steve. You’re lucky to have him.”

Eddie grins at Steve over Wayne’s shoulder, all bashful and genuine, leaking sunshine. “I am, aren’t I?”

Chapter Text

Steve finds that he is still assigned babysitting duty, even though there are no monsters to protect the kids from anymore. 

He also finds, however, that he doesn’t really ever mean it when he complains.

Robin rides shotgun in the Beamer while Lucas, Max, Erica and Dustin are packed into the backseat together like sardines. Steve had insisted on seat belts, but three belts shared among four gangly teenagers was never going to work. So Steve drives slower than usual.

They’re headed back to Steve’s, where the Byers and the Wheelers and Vickie will be joining them. According to Dustin, it’s the group’s mandatory post-Vecna-slaying-celebratory-get-together, or something of the sort. As pissed off as he had been after the phone call at Robin’s, Steve secretly thinks it's kind of sweet. He might make a big show of being irritated with Dustin, but he could never deny him this. Could never deny him anything, really. Dustin has also been talking about Eddie for the entire car ride; a subject of interest for both of them, it seems.

“This new campaign he’s working on is gonna be legendary,” Dustin is saying, and Steve wonders briefly if that’s what Eddie gets up to all day when Steve’s at work, catalogues it in his mind as something he needs to ask Eddie later. “Like, seriously, Steve, the guy’s a genius. I’m surprised he’s been spending so much time with you, honestly.”

“Thank you, Dustin,” Steve sighs as Robin snorts beside him. “That’s real sweet, man.”

“You know, I think you’d like it if you gave it a try,” Dustin insists.

“He absolutely would not,” Max deadpans. 

“You didn’t like it until, like, last week,” Lucas says pointedly.

“I had other things on my mind,” Max bites back.

No one argues with that, but Lucas and Max do start shoving at each other playfully.

In the rearview mirror, Steve watches Erica roll her eyes and turn to look out of the window. “Oh my God, can you two please stop having sex in front of me, I am going to throw up.”

Lucas immediately leaps on the defensive, appalled that his baby sister even knows the word sex. Steve suppresses a fond smile.

He turns around for a moment to meet Dustin’s agitated gaze. “I don’t think it’s really up my alley, Henderson, but I appreciate the invite.”

Dustin shrugs. “It was Eddie’s idea to include you, not mine.”

Steve has heard snippets of Eddie’s conversations with the kids over the radio about their next DnD campaign. He’s never heard them talking about him. It twists something in his gut, the knowledge that he’s been a recurring topic between them, so even though it’s so not Steve’s thing, that nerd shit, he’s really chuffed that Eddie thought of him. He doubts he’d ever be able to take it seriously enough to join them. He’s also admittedly kind of surprised that Eddie even still wants to play it, after the whole devil worshipper thing. Or maybe, knowing Eddie, continuing to play it is like a big fuck you to all the shitty people in this shitty town.

“Nice of him,” Steve replies absently.

They pull up to the house beside Nancy’s car, which is now parked in the drive, and the kids all pile out. Steve walks around to the passenger door and opens it for Robin, linking his arm through hers.

“Am I going to have to endure you and Eddie’s nauseating flirting all evening or do you think you can keep it to a minimum?” she says lowly. Steve blushes something awful.

“We don’t flirt, Robs.”

“Oh, c’mon,” is all she says, then she pats him on the arm, and they walk inside together.

When they enter the lounge, Eddie is drinking from a beer can and chatting animatedly to Nancy. Mike sits awkwardly on the couch beside them, but perks up when he sees the others enter. He goes over to them, and they exchange hugs. It’s been a while since everyone has properly seen each other, after Vecna. It was a longer recovery period than usual. Steve thinks they might all still be recovering; will be for a while.

“Henderson!”

“Eddie!” Dustin beams, and Eddie stands up to pull him into an embrace when he comes to greet him. “How are things? Is Steve being a good host? He looking after you?”

“Things are good, man. Yeah.” Eddie glances at Steve, who is standing behind Dustin, arm still intertwined with Robin’s. Steve is trying to make it very obvious that he’s eyeing up the beer, staring daggers. “He’s been real good to me. Don’t you worry.”

Dustin grins toothily and Eddie ruffles his hair, sends him on his way to join the conversation that has now broken out between the younger ones, and flops back down onto the couch. Steve lets go of Robin and marches over, shaking his head.

“Munson, what the hell did I say about alcohol?” Steve plucks the can – Coors Light – right from Eddie’s hands. Eddie beams at him, curls framing his face. He smells like hairspray and cigarettes. He's wearing a denim vest similar to the one that Steve had returned to him after they’d escaped the Upside Down. Steve can tell it’s different because this one doesn’t have bloodstains and black goo permanently inked into it, and it’s also devoid of patches of various metal bands that Steve has never heard of. It’s pulled on over a fitted black t-shirt that is short and tight and sits just high enough to leave a sliver of pale stomach exposed. The jut of Eddie’s hip bones is pronounced in the position he’s in, sprawled back against the couch, all spread out, lounging there like it’s his throne; like he owns the room and everything in it. 

He looks nice. Real nice. Steve wants to say so, but he’s supposed to be mad.

He quirks his hips and tilts his head, prompting Eddie to explain himself. 

“It’s fake beer. Zero alcohol.” Eddie bats his eyelashes up at Steve. Steve fights off the urge to shove his shoulder, just for the sake of touching him.

“Can I have one then?” Dustin calls, and Steve had momentarily forgotten there were other people here. 

“No, you cannot, because he’s lying.” Steve squints at the writing on the back of the beer can. “See, it’s real beer. There are children present, dude. No drinking.”

“These kids have seen horrors worse than a can of beer, don’t you think?”

Nancy laughs, and Steve looks over at her for the first time since he’s entered the room. Her eyes are flitting between them, clearly amused. She’s got a hand behind her back, and Steve might be a bit unobservant at the best of times, but she is obviously hiding something from view and not doing a very good job of it. Steve narrows his eyes, lurches for her.

“Steve!” she shrieks, laughing some more, as Steve grabs her wrist out from behind her to reveal yet another can, clutched in her slender hand.

“Both of you? I would’ve expected this from him, but never from you, Nance!”

“I’m sorry! He offered!”

“Mike is right there, too! Wow!” Steve feigns disappointment but Nancy is smiling so wide and, honestly, he can’t remember the last time he saw her so light and happy, so he can’t find it in him to be genuinely upset. There’s no sign of her usual anxious pout or the frown that all too regularly wrinkles her brow, and it’s refreshing. She deserves to finally let loose. To not have that responsibility, that fear looming over her. They all do.

Steve catches Eddie watching them. His lips are turned downwards, the prior sparkle in his eye dulled. He stands up, pushes past Steve, shouldering him more roughly than is probably necessary.

“I’ll drink it by the pool, then,” he says tightly, snatching his half-empty can back. Their hands brush together briefly. Eddie’s rings scrape over Steve’s bare skin, cold and hard. Steve watches him go, puzzled. 

Okay, what the hell was that about?

“Trouble in paradise?” Robin says quietly, into his ear, so that Nancy doesn’t hear. Nancy is frowning now, too. Great. Steve doesn’t even know what he’s done, but in the two minutes they’ve all been together, he’s managed to piss off Eddie and upset Nancy. He always does something wrong.

“Is he okay?” Nancy asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know what his issue is,” Steve sighs. “It doesn’t matter.” He hands Nancy her beer back. “Have it, it’s fine. Eddie’s right. The kids have seen worse.”

Nancy takes it from him, but her expression is still unhappy. Steve feels like a dick.

At that moment, the front door opens, and Jonathan, Will, El, and a guy with long, dark hair who Steve recognises as Jonathan’s friend, Argyle, enter. Nancy brightens and stands up from the couch. Steve gives her a little smile, letting her know it’s fine if she goes over, and Nancy returns it half-heartedly.

And, wow, Steve had really thought things weren’t awkward between them anymore. He’d thought it was getting better, easier, lighter. Maybe he’d fucked it all up again when he’d spilled his guts in the Upside Down, told Nancy he wanted goddamn kids with her. Who even admits that? Especially to a girl he’s not even in love with anymore, a girl who’s in a relationship? Maybe Vecna had possessed him after all. God, he’s an idiot.

“You’re an idiot, Steve.”

“What?” Steve turns to face Robin, who is looking at him with the air of a disappointed mother. She might actually be able to read his mind. “What the hell did I even do?”

“Wow, okay,” she says under her breath, like she’s astounded that Steve needs this spelled out for him. “You just basically canoodled with Nancy in front of Eddie. So.”

“We weren’t canoodling.” He really was just being friendly, acting on reflex, treating Nancy like he would any of his friends. He’s past that, the whole him and Nance thing. He’s accepted that it’s never going to happen, and he’s moved on. He might be a dumbass, but he’s not a homewrecker. Besides, his heart is kind of elsewhere at the moment.

“All right, well, I’m telling you, from the perspective of a mostly impartial third-party, that is what it looked like.”

“But why would he even care?” Steve murmurs, his pulse thundering in his ears.

“Steve,” Robin says softly, and Steve’s heart feels like it might burst right out of his chest, crack through his ribs and spill out onto the ground, a wet, bloody mess all over the floorboards, leaving him gaping open and vulnerable.

“Shit.”

Robin’s hand is on his shoulder, steadying, grounding. “Go talk to him, dingus.”

So, after briefly greeting the new arrivals, Steve goes.

When he walks outside, Eddie is sitting at the edge of the pool, his combat boots on the concrete beside him and his jeans rolled up. They’re too tight to pull past his calves, so the ends are damp where he’s kicking his feet in the water. In one hand, he has a lit cigarette, and in the other, he’s holding the Coors Light. The can is crinkled a little, like he’s finished it and tried to crush it in his fist. He doesn’t look up when Steve approaches.

“Hey. What’s your problem?” It sounds too aggressive, like he’s coming in on the offensive, hackles raised, and Steve instantly regrets his tone.

“I don’t have a problem.”

“You’re acting like you do.” Then, softer, because he knows he’s being too hostile, too mean, “It’s just this thing I have, man, with the kids. I don’t wanna be a bad influence on them. And I was joking around, anyway, about the beer.”

Eddie sighs, finally looks up at him. His eyebrows are knotted together tight, like he’s thinking hard, furiously. Steve wants to reach down with his thumb, smooth out the creases, like he’d done the other morning. “I know. I’m sorry, Steve. It’s not… it’s not really about the beer, to be honest.”

Steve’s sick and twisted traitor of a heart speeds up again. “What’s it about, then?”

When Eddie doesn’t respond, Steve kicks off his shoes and socks, rolls up his own jeans as high as they’ll go, and lowers himself onto the pool ledge beside Eddie. He’s careful not to touch him, not to knock their legs together like he’d naturally do any other time. There is tension, now. Steve can feel it, can smell it in the air between them, thick and heavy. The water ripples as Steve lowers his feet in. It’s easy, thoughtless, to submerge a part of himself into it now. Easy in a way it’s never been before.

He looks at Eddie. He loves looking at Eddie. He does it whenever he can. Now, however, he wants to look away, because Eddie’s shoulders are slumped and his brow is still furrowed and even his wild hair is a little more restrained than usual, less frizzy, even though it smells like he’s used an entire bottle of hairspray on it to get it to stick up at the odd angles that he loves so much. Steve feels sick with nerves.

“Did I do something?” he asks, and it comes out timid and wary, like Eddie’s a frightened animal that Steve doesn’t want to spook. Just when he thinks he’s about to be met with silence again, Eddie shakes his head slowly, hair swishing. 

“I… no. You didn’t. It’s me.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Uh, not really,” he breathes out, then lifts his cigarette to his lips and pulls.

“Okay, sure. We won’t then.” As long as you’re not mad at me. He feels pathetic. Like a teenager with a crush.

Maybe that’s not far off from the truth.

Steve feels a nudge against his arm, and he looks up to see Eddie holding out his cigarette in offering. He blinks at it, blinks at Eddie, who smiles – far out, his smile – so Steve takes it from him, brings it to his lips, because he can’t deny Eddie anything, really.

“No, but we should talk about it.” Eddie sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than Steve. His knee is jumping up and down now, disturbing the stillness of the water. He’s biting at his thumbnail. Steve wants to reach across and take his hand. “But not right now. Right now, you’ve got guests to entertain, and I’ve got two six-packs to get through.” He flinches, looks at Steve. “Unless you really don’t want me to.”

“The damage is already done,” Steve replies, laughing a little to try and add levity. “As long as I have unlimited access to your stash, go for it. Just don’t let Dustin have any.”

Eddie smiles again, small and a bit uncertain. “I’ll try my best. Kid’s persistent as all hell.”

Oh, and Steve knows.

Just then, speak of the devil, Dustin materialises in the back doorway, trailed by Mike and Will.

“Steve, are you smoking? You know how bad that is for you!”

Steve and Eddie look at him, then back at each other, then Eddie claps a hand over his mouth and Steve snorts, and they both start giggling like a couple of schoolgirls.

And when Dustin scowls, stubs out the cigarette and gives them both a lecture on lung health and the addictive nature of nicotine, everything feels right again. Everything feels easy.

They’ll talk about it later.

“Steve! I’ve been trying to catch you alone.”

Steve freezes mid-step, wiping his clean hands on the back of his jeans and watching Nancy march down the hall towards him with purpose. It’s been a couple of hours since they all arrived. Steve had finally managed to escape the warzone of a Trivial Pursuit game going on in the dining room under the guise of needing a piss, and here he is already being cornered again. By Nancy, of all people. He’d almost rather it be one of the kids, come to check he hasn’t attempted to flee out the bathroom window, because she’s looking at him like she has a lot to say. 

Steve smiles sheepishly and, like a moron, holds his arms out in front of him and mimes being handcuffed. “Well, consider me caught.”

Nancy moves swiftly and silently, grabbing his wrist and yanking him back into the bathroom from where he has just emerged. She shuts the door behind them, locks it, leans against it, and sighs. Steve’s mouth drops open, then closes, then opens again, and remains agape like that while he awaits an explanation.

“Are we…” Nancy pauses, furrows her brow. Steve’s own face twists to reflect the expression. “Are we good?”

Steve feels immediately uneasy. He clears his throat to grant the words an easier passage out.“Uh… yeah, we’re good. Why wouldn’t we be good?”

Nancy frowns. “No, like… us.”

Steve shakes his head, squeezing his eyes closed. “I don’t–”

“Jonathan and I broke up,” Nancy blurts, then brings a hand up to cover her mouth, like she can’t believe she just said it aloud. 

Steve’s heart lurches. “Nance…”

“But it’s okay! We’re okay. We’re still really good friends. It wasn’t on bad terms. It’s been a couple of weeks now, so.” She pauses, readjusts the collar of her shirt. “I got to thinking about what you said, in the RV. Months ago. About… about me. About us. I–”

“Oh, shit,” Steve says, and it comes out tender but surprised. He feels the lines in his forehead soften, eyes widening, attentive.

“I think I owe you an apology. For everything. I don’t know.” She doesn’t quite meet his gaze, her eyes glassy and distant as she stares somewhere below his face. Steve feels awful. She shouldn’t be the one apologising. It’s not like she’s led him on, or given him the wrong idea. If anything, it’s the other way around. 

Before Steve can chicken out and formulate an excuse to run away, he thinks of Eddie. He remembers how he didn’t run away, not when he faced death itself in the face. He stood his ground. If Eddie can do that in some of the most horrifying circumstances one can imagine, then Steve can surely manage to man up, talk to his ex-girlfriend, and take some goddamn accountability.

“No, I think I owe you an apology.” He steps forward, not too close, but enough so that they’re eye-to-eye and he can pinpoint the uncertainty shimmering there, all the pain and the words still unspoken. “I shouldn’t have tried to wedge myself in between you and Jonathan like that. It was wrong. I know we… well, it’s all in the past, and I knew that then, too, and I just…” Steve scoffs, despite himself. “Honestly, I was scared. I was so sure we were all going to die, and I tried to cling to what I knew to cope with the fear. Play pretend, or whatever. It was immature. I’m sorry.”

Nancy goes to shake her head, opens her mouth to likely contest the need for an apology, but then she stops herself, and nods instead. Steve watches her eyes flicker as she accepts his words instead of brushing them off, and he feels proud of her for it. “Thank you. I appreciate that, Steve.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

She smiles at him, meek and bordering on sympathetic. “You don’t still… feel that way, do you? About me?”

There are several things Steve could say to that. He doesn’t know what the right answer is. He does know which answer is truthful. The truth isn’t always the right thing to say, but it seems important now, to make that distinction. Draw that line in the sand. He takes a deep breath, and rushes out, “No. I don’t.”

Thankfully, Nancy’s shoulders slump and her relief is evident in the way she smiles, authentic this time. “Okay. That’s good. I don’t either, if that wasn’t already crystal clear.”

It’s Steve’s turn to deflate with relief. “I mean, it wasn’t crystal clear. Had me worried for a second there, with the whole I’ve been trying to catch you alone spiel.”

Nancy whacks his shoulder. There’s actually some power behind it. “Shut up,” she laughs, then buries her face in her hands to hide her blush. “Shit. I should’ve guessed how that would come across.” 

Steve chuckles lightly, runs a hand through his hair. Then, he thinks, fuck it, and adds, “Y’know, I’m super glad we’re on the same page because… uh, there’s someone else, actually.” 

It’s probably too honest. And slightly presumptuous. But he can’t help himself. There’s a part of him that thinks Nancy would be genuinely chuffed to hear it. 

“Oh, Steve, that’s…” She purses her lips in a pleased smile, clearly happy for him. “That’s really, really neat.”

Something thumps in Steve’s chest. Something he hasn’t felt in a while; a deep affection that’s oddly different from how he used to feel about Nancy, but in many ways familiar. Because he loves her. And his heart hasn’t forgotten that love, hasn’t misplaced any of it. It has simply repurposed it into something far more valuable. 

Nancy glows when she looks at him now. There’s no hesitation in her eye contact. She holds out a hand, unwavering and sure like Steve has always known her to be. 

“Friends?” she offers.

Steve takes her hand and shakes.

“Never not friends.”

When the hours roll onwards and night stretches out above the house like molten charcoal, leaks darkness in through the windows, the kids retreat, yawning, to the spare room. It’s in the calmness that follows that Eddie takes over the music. Steve isn’t sure why that surprises him.

He doesn’t play anything too loud or screamy, although Dustin had earlier urged him to, apparently having a newfound love for metal, probably instigated by Eddie’s killer Metallic cover, which did save all their asses, after all. He’s got that kid wrapped around his finger. Steve is convinced Dustin is one Dio album away from growing his hair out and shrugging on a leather jacket.

Eddie sticks to playing softer rock ballads. One in particular stands out to Steve. It’s quiet and a bit melancholy, the only instruments he can make out being some really subtle guitar and a bit of flute, actually, which Steve thinks is cool. It kind of reminds him of that one instrumental part in California Dreamin’, which has the same kind of dreary vibe to it. But the vocals in this song are rougher, more emotive. This song isn’t heavy at all. It’s gentle.

“What’s this?” he says when they’re together in the kitchen by the stereo. Eddie is perched on the counter, Steve leaning against the cupboard opposite, beer in hand. Robin and Vickie are standing a little way away, chatting. He shoots them a fond look, then turns back to Eddie.

“The song? Solitude. Black Sabbath.”

“Ah, the bat guy, yeah?” Steve says, recalling their conversation a few days ago. “Ozzy Osbourne?”

Eddie may as well be the sun with how bright he shines at this. “Holy shit. You actually remembered this time.”

Steve can’t help but return the smile. “‘Course. It’s a nice song. You’re gonna turn me into a metalhead at this rate.”

“Don’t say that because I will start blasting Slayer at full volume and it will completely ruin the serene vibe I have spent hours curating.” 

Steve shrugs, lips catching on the beginnings of a smirk. His index finger pushes into the beer can he’s holding and the metal dents in, then springs back with a soft pop. “I don’t care what you play.”

“You’d hate it,” Eddie says matter-of-factly. He folds his arms. It feels for a moment like he’s challenging Steve. He probably isn’t doing it on purpose. The air between them has been charged ever since earlier, out by the pool. Steve feels static prick at the back of his shirt, crawl up his neck, raise the hairs there. He hasn’t told Eddie about him and Nancy’s talk in the bathroom yet. Eddie had looked up when they had reentered the dining room together, then made a point to look the other way entirely.

“I’d let you do whatever you wanted,” Steve replies, perhaps too earnestly, and Eddie looks down quickly to study the creases in his lap. Steve sighs. He might be pushing it a bit. He still feels vaguely guilty and on-edge, because he knows Eddie wants to talk to him about what’s bugging him, and it kills even more knowing what it’s about but having to wait to hear it admitted aloud. 

God, Steve should have just made a move on Eddie weeks ago. Instead, they’ve managed to entangle themselves in every possible way, physically and emotionally, without ever acknowledging anything beyond friendship. They’re gonna stay stuck like this if neither of them do anything about it soon. Steve has a sinking feeling that Eddie won’t be the one to take initiative.

Steve drains the last of his beer and sets the empty can on the counter. He needs another drink. Or something stronger.

When Steve steps closer to him, Eddie looks up and flinches a little. Steve ignores the way his knee jerks when he rests his elbow there, leaning in close so that he can feel the warmth of Eddie’s body, but he’s not quite pressed against it.

“You wanna get out of here for a bit?”

Eddie looks down at him uneasily. “What?”

“Grab some beers and a jacket and meet me outside,” Steve says, and he allows himself one indulgent squeeze of Eddie’s knee before he pulls away, lingering a beat longer than he has to. Then he beelines for the front door, willing his heart out of his throat and back down into the cavern of his chest.

Chapter Text

Steve thinks he should be scared of the woods; of the dark, towering trees, the things that might lurk there. He was, once.

Back in ‘83, when he’d fought a Demogorgon for the first time, swung at it, felt its slick flesh squelch beneath his bat and it hadn’t so much as flinched, he’d known that nothing would ever be the same again. He’d learnt where it had come from and what it had done to Barb that night at his house, in his pool, and he’d felt sick with the gravity of it all. The woods bordering the once sleepy town of Hawkins had never looked the same to him, after that, so he’d done his best to stop looking. 

He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but it takes its toll, being the protector. It was never a role he minded stepping into. It happened naturally, gave him purpose, responsibility, and he was okay with that because they won the first few times, felt like they had the upper hand. For a while, he managed to keep them all safe. But it weighed heavy. Heavier when it was all over, inside the in-between bits, because when everything was quiet, Steve had more time to think about what he’d have to do when it inevitably came back.

After it returned the first time in ‘84, when he put himself unthinkingly between the kids and the demodogs in the junkyard, he learnt to never let his guard down. Never let himself relax completely. And he was right to do so, because it came back stronger and then stronger again, until it was altogether too powerful for him to face on his own. He’d felt helpless, then. Helpless, when Max had lifted up into the air, whites of her eyes almost glowing against the mid-afternoon sun. Helpless, when he’d been dragged beneath Lover’s Lake, pinned to the ground and mauled, vines squeezing tighter the more he’d struggled. Helpless, when Eddie had coughed up blood, pale in his arms, and Steve had hauled him back through the gate and he hadn’t known if he would survive it, if any of them would this time.

He used to detest these fucking woods, because they’re where it all started.

But, as Steve parks his car in the small clearing among the trees, far off the main road, he finds he’s not scared at all. 

He draws comfort now from what was once nightmarish. Maybe it’s because he is certain, for the first time in years, there are no more creatures here. Nothing unnatural. Nothing that stands like a man but moves like a monster, with a face that opens up like petals on a flower. Nothing that he can’t go up against, and win.

Eddie hasn’t spoken for the entire car ride. He stares out the window for most of it, only turning when Steve produces a poorly rolled joint from out of his back pocket. It’s a bit squashed, and Steve says as much, holding it out over the centre console and frowning at it. This draws a chuckle from Eddie. 

“That’s the ugliest spliff I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re the ugliest spliff I’ve ever seen,” Steve retorts with little to no bite.

“That’s not nice.” Eddie’s chewing on his bottom lip. Steve watches out of the corner of his eye. “I may be an ugly spliff but at least I’m a devilishly handsome man.”

Steve fights back a grin and doesn’t respond, because he doesn’t have a retort for that one. Instead, he asks, “You got a light?”

Eddie scoffs softly. “So you’ve brought a shitty ass joint but no lighter?”

“I can revoke the offer at any time and then you’ll have to watch me get baked by myself.” Steve reaches over Eddie’s lap to rummage through the glove compartment. He’s sure he’s got one in here somewhere.

“No, please,” Eddie says, deadpan. “Deny me anything but the deformed doobie.”

“Aha!” Pointedly ignoring Eddie’s dig, Steve’s palm skims cold metal and he yanks out a silver Zippo. He waves it in Eddie’s face triumphantly. “Wanna do the honours?”

Eddie forces a dramatic sigh, eyeing up the joint as if he is personally offended by it, but there’s humour etched into the creases of his eyes. “If I must.”

They pass it between them in a comfortable silence, fingers brushing every now and again, and then somewhere along the way they end up sprawled on the grass in front of the car. The stars are bright out here, away from the light pollution of the town centre. Steve would know. He used to come out here all the time, before. Now, although it’s over, he hasn’t found himself needing the escape.

Steve tips his head back and inhales the crispness of the air. The stars wink at him like they know something. He tries to trace out invisible lines between them, but his eyes blur and they twinkle and he loses his place in the sky. He wishes briefly that he was smart enough to know how to point out real constellations. He probably wouldn’t wish that if he wasn’t adequately baked. Steve’s tolerance is quite high, and he knows for a fact that Eddie’s is higher, so he can’t even ask Eddie what constellations he knows without sounding like an idiot. Can’t blame it on the weed. He should’ve brought a second joint.

He sits up, rubs at his eyes.

Immediately, Eddie rises to join him.

“You okay?”

They shuffle so their backs rest up against the front bumper of the Beamer.

“Yeah,” Steve replies. His voice is a bit croaky from the smoke lingering in his throat. He tries to muffle a cough, but Eddie notices, and passes him across a beer from the pile by his side. Steve takes it gratefully and cracks it open. “Thanks.”

“What’re you thinking about?”

Steve pauses to take a few gulps then says, “Nothing important.”

“Hm.” Eddie’s gaze remains glued to the side of Steve’s face. He can feel it burning there. There’s a couple beats of silence, then, out of nowhere, “Are you still in love with her?”

Taken aback, Steve turns to stare at Eddie. He almost plays dumb, pretends he doesn’t know what Eddie is talking about to avoid the subject altogether, but then decides against it. It feels like a night for honesty. Isn’t that why he brought Eddie out here, after all? “No, I’m not.”

Eddie releases a little breath of air. A strand of his hair flies up with it, then settles back down over his forehead.

“Is this, um. Is this because of earlier? Like, me teasing Nance about the beer and stuff?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just gives a little nod, staring off into the middle distance.  

“Okay.” Steve runs his tongue over the front of his teeth, suddenly nervous. “I didn’t realise what it looked like. But there’s really nothing there, man. I’m definitely not chasing her anymore.”

Eddie sniffs. “It’s all right if you are. I told you to. I told you to go for it.” He sounds glum about it. Like it might not be all right at all.

“That was ages ago,” Steve replies softly. He bumps their shoulders together. “I’m not into her. Not like that. And… I mean, Jonathan.” He says it as a reflex, forgetting momentarily what Nancy had confessed to him, which is probably for the best since she didn’t seem particularly keen to spread the news. “We can’t keep fighting over the same girl forever, man,” he continues, jokingly. “One of us is gonna get beat the hell up again, and I didn’t win last time so it’s not looking great for me.”

Eddie gives him a disbelieving look, but his lip twitches a little in amusement. “Oh, you’re definitely telling me the story of losing a fight to Jonathan Byers.”

“Absolutely not. You’ll never look at me the same again.”

“And that is precisely why it's so important for me to know.”

Everything feels minutely lighter now. Eddie’s tone is teasing and he’s rocking closer to Steve, his bare arm brushing Steve’s, skin cool and prickling with goosebumps. Steve can almost feel the outline of them through the fabric of his sweatshirt.

“Are you cold?” he finds himself asking before he can properly think it through. “I told you to bring a jacket, man. Here.”

Then he’s tugging off his sweatshirt against Eddie’s protests, and thrusting it into Eddie’s chest.

“Just put it on, dude. You’re freezing.”

Eddie tries to pass it back to him, so Steve takes it, finds the collar, and leans over to grab Eddie’s head in an attempt to stuff it through the hole. Eddie yells but he’s laughing, flailing, grabbing at Steve’s arms and hands and chest, each touch electric, sending little jolts right to Steve’s heart, and he definitely doesn’t need his sweatshirt anymore because he’s warm, warm, warm all over and now Eddie is sitting there, defeated, glaring at him with Steve’s blue sweatshirt half pulled on, flushed red, hair messy, his arms not yet through the arm holes. And Steve has never been more entranced by a person. Never been more besotted.

“You’re a menace, Harrington.”

“Oh, so we’re back on a last name basis are we, Munson?”

Eddie’s cheeks glow impossibly brighter. He looks away, struggles for a moment with the arms of the sweatshirt but manages to get it on properly. 

“I can go back to calling you King Steve, if that’s preferred–”

“I actually preferred Stevie.”

Eddie chews on his lip to stifle a smile, and Steve wishes he would stop doing that, hiding his smiles. “Really?” 

“Truly,” Steve replies earnestly.

Eddie looks delighted.

Then there’s a beat of silence, and his face screws up a bit, like another thought has just hit him.

“Uh. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press the same subject. But I just… like, how do you just… fall out of love with someone that quickly? With Nancy? You were obsessed with her, right? For years.” Then, quieter, “How do you just… turn it off?”

He hasn’t admitted anything, why he cares so much about Steve’s relationship with Nancy, but he also hasn’t denied that he cares. And Steve thinks that’s big. That’s real big.

“We can talk about it as much as you want,” Steve says, because he feels like talking anyway, and Eddie seems content to listen. “You can’t just turn something like that off. It happened naturally, the shift, I think. I loved her in high school, and I never really stopped loving her, because shit kept happening and she was always there, we always ended up together. We fought monsters together. She’s awesome, man. You know that.”

“Indeed, I do know that,” Eddie agrees, raising his eyebrows, and Steve doesn’t think he’s imagining the jealousy in his tone. 

“When the world is ending, it feels a lot like everything is amplified tenfold,” Steve goes on. He feels like he should explain himself, lay it all out how it is. “All your emotions and your love and your anger and your fear – they all, like, blow up, y’know? Like, my feelings were already pretty strong, but when she was right there to cling to, when I had to step up to protect her – not that she ever needed protecting – everything just felt so much stronger.” He turns fully onto his side now. Eddie doesn’t have a decipherable expression on his face. He’s got a piece of hair pulled across his mouth and he’s listening intently, in that way that makes Steve feel like he’s the only person in the world worth listening to. “I still love her now. But, like, I’m not in love. She’s an amazing girl, but I think now that it’s all officially over, Vecna’s gone… I kinda woke up a bit, y’know? I realised we weren’t meant to be at all. We had fun for a while, before all the Upside Down shit. Then we clung to each other afterwards. Or maybe I clung to her. Either way, it was never gonna last. We talked about it a little tonight, actually. Cleared the air. It was nice, for both of us, I think.”

The wind is cool but not too cold, and the air around them is buzzing, alight. Charged with energy. In this moment, this peaceful stretch of time, Steve feels invincible.

So he gazes back at the sky, says, “Besides, there’s someone else now. Someone way cooler than Nance, which is saying something, because she’s the most badass chick I know.”

“Oh,” is all Eddie says. Then he’s quiet.

“This person, they’re really awesome.” Steve cracks a small grin. “They have an awesome smile and an awesome laugh and just a generally awesome way of talking about things. They can…” He cuts himself off with an airy chuckle. “They can make any room exciting just by, like, existing in it.”

Eddie is still. Steve hasn’t looked at him in a while. Doesn’t think he’s brave enough yet.

“They’re so unapologetically themselves, and maybe I’m a little jealous of that. I… I’ve never been like that. The opposite, actually. So maybe it’s a bit of jealousy, but maybe it's mostly… well, admiration.”

Eddie sounds like he’s holding his breath. Chirping crickets fill the weighted silence, like a scene right out of some kind of cheesy movie. 

See, the thing about Eddie Munson, the thing that makes him so spectacular, fascinating, perfect, is that he’s so unmistakably all of those things and more, but he doesn’t even know it. It’s unfathomable.

“He has really nice hair, even though it's messy as hell all the time, and a heap of kickass tattoos, and questionable music taste, but…” Steve prays it’s dark enough that Eddie can’t see him blush as he goes on, “he’s really goddamn cute, and I like him a lot.” 

Eddie doesn’t reply straight away and God, Steve hopes he hasn’t made a fool of himself. Hopes he hasn’t misread this, the signals he’s been picking up.

Hopes desperately that Eddie feels the same way. 

“Steve.”

Steve looks at Eddie now, and his expression is dumbfounded, eyes wide and glittering. There’s a mixture of hope and adoration shimmering on the surface, and just underneath, something closer to anguish. Steve swallows the lump in his throat. His hand finds Eddie’s where they’re both resting between them, thumb stroking against Eddie’s open palm.

“Can I say something insane?” Eddie asks carefully, not quite relaxing into the touch.

“Shoot.”

“I love you.” 

Steve’s heart lurches. But, no, Eddie might not have meant it in that way. He might be about to follow it with, but as a friend, Steve. Just because Eddie’s queer doesn’t mean he’s entitled to feel the same way. Steve knows that. He doesn’t expect anything, he never has, but the anticipation of possibility sits there regardless, stagnant and heavy in his gut.

“I love you too, man,” Steve says, willing his voice not to tremble.

Eddie’s eyes are fierce now, a little frustrated. “No, I love you, Steve.”

“Oh,” Steve says, then something clicks in his brain, and he feels his body flood with relief, wave after wave of it, because fuck. Eddie loves him. And Steve… well, Steve doesn’t have to guess anymore. “Oh, shit.”

Eddie shakes his hand away from Steve’s, tucks it and the other up under his armpits, folding in on himself. Removing himself from Steve’s space, from his orbit. It stings a bit. “Yeah. Um. I’ve really thought about it. And even if what you’re saying is true, how you feel… about me.” Something gurgles up in his throat and he swallows thickly. “You don’t want this, Steve. You can’t want this.”

Steve frowns, because what is he talking about, and he goes to ask as much but Eddie doesn’t let him get a word out.

“No, man, you’re not thinking clearly. You don’t know what this means.”

A sudden and sharp stab of irritation rocks Steve, almost knocks the breath out of him. “I think I’m thinking fucking clearly, Eddie, I just told y–”

“No, you’re not, and that’s the problem.” Eddie stands now, starts pacing, shoes scuffing in the grass, kicking up dirt as he goes. “You have a crush on me, sure, okay. That’s fine, right? We both know it’s not exactly a fuckin’ one-way street here. But… hell, I don’t think you understand what you mean to me. What I… how much I…” He breaks off with a frustrated grunt. Anger prickles at the nape of Steve’s neck.

“No, then I guess I don’t understand,” he bites, and Eddie stops, seems to snap back a little into reality, hurt flashing briefly across his dark features. “I’ve just told you something that– fuck, I’ve been messed up for weeks over this, and as soon as I finally have the guts to say something, you shut it down, even after you say you love me, which is… wow, but… I don’t… I thought that would mean something. That we could… have something.” Steve hears his own pathetic tone, how immature and childish he sounds, heart laid out bare, but he can’t help it. Even if Eddie is going to be like that – prickly and defensive and distant – Steve is not going to let him pull away entirely. 

Eddie lets out a strangled sound. His arms are still folded tight, clutching his sides, as if he’ll fall apart without them there to hold himself together. He regards Steve almost sadly now, shoulders rounding, brow tightening.

 “We can’t… we can’t have anything.” His face twists, like it hurts to say it. “Not here, not anywhere. Not in the way you want. You don’t get it. You might think you do, but you just don’t.”

Steve sees the fear now, glinting in the black of Eddie’s pupils, and it’s the look of someone who knows what it’s like to be hurt, shunned, shamed for something that is out of their control. It makes Steve feel full enough to burst. He doesn’t know what he’s full of. He can’t pin down one emotion; there are too many of them, whirling around.

“You still have the option,” Eddie says carefully, stepping forward. Steve is still on the ground, looking up at Eddie through his lashes, legs folded, fists clenched. He feels small. He’s never felt small before, with Eddie. “You have choices, Stevie. You can choose the simple route, go build a normal life, live easily, find the kind of love that you don’t have to hide. It would be a good life. A good choice. The right choice.” He glares down at his shoes, expression grim. “I don’t have that choice. People like me… it isn’t easy. It’s never gonna be easy. And I love you and I know that it’s selfish to say but I just want your life to be easy.” Eddie sets his jaw, eyebrows drawing together tight, hardening himself like it might soften the blow of his words. It seems like saying them is wounding him just as much as it’s killing Steve to hear them. “We can try to be friends, still. We’ll set some boundaries, maybe give each other some space for a bit. I don’t want to lose you completely. But I can’t do this to you. I just can’t.”

Furiously, Eddie swipes his wrist under his eyes, smears the tears falling there. He’s trying to sound definitive, resolute, but his chest is heaving and his voice cracks at the end of the sentence. Steve feels like he’s been split right down the middle. He wonders if he’s ever actually felt heartbreak before tonight.

It’s growing increasingly evident that Eddie is panicking. His reaction to Steve’s confession is a messy build-up of terror and love and trauma, and it’s detonating, exploding out of him in all the wrong ways. It seems like a self-preservation instinct, a reflex that has him pushing people away when they get too close.

There’s a voice in Steve’s head, and it sounds like his own, and it’s whispering to him that Eddie is right. Steve does have a choice.

The first sixteen years of Steve’s life were spent vehemently working to meet the expectations that it seemed  everybody around him held him to. The first time he remembers feeling truly happy, truly free, was when he realised what – who – was really important to him, and he stopped caring what the wrong people thought of him, because it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was keeping the ones that he loved safe. Or maybe, just love. Love mattered. He’d spent those first sixteen years without it, and when he’d found it, it had changed everything. It had changed him. He’d blossomed.

That love blooms in Steve’s chest now, sure and strong, so it surprises him when his voice comes out soft, wavering when he tells Eddie, “You make my life easy.”

It’s like a dam breaks. Eddie sobs, actually sobs, deep and guttural, head falling into his hands. Reflexively, Steve stands and goes to him, wraps his arms around him, presses his lips to Eddie’s temple. Eddie buries his face in Steve’s neck and cries. Steve hopes this is him giving in.

“You said it yourself, it’s my choice. I’ve made the choice. I think I made it a while ago. I want you.”

Eddie splutters, tries feebly to pull away for a moment, but Steve only holds him closer.

“I spent so many years making the right choices, the acceptable ones. And for some reason, they never felt right. They never felt, y’know, easy.” When Steve feels Eddie’s sobs begin to subside, he grasps him gently by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s length, studying him – the dip of his cheekbones, the fan of his lashes, the delicate curve of his nose. Even with tear tracks under his eyes, skin blotchy and red, he looks beautiful. Steve’s heart swells. “I chose you and it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.”

Eddie finally looks at him. Regards him with frustration and pain and that intrinsic warmth and, most prominently, adoration. And Steve can’t help it. His eyes dart down to Eddie’s lips, linger there. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone more than he does right now. He doesn’t know if it’s inappropriate, after Eddie’s just been crying, or if it’s going to shatter the moment completely, so he looks away, holds back. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

But then Eddie’s gaze drops to Steve’s mouth, back up to his eyes, and there’s a question there, twinkling behind deep brown. It’s a twinkle that Steve hasn’t seen in a while; defiant, like Eddie’s testing him, challenging him, maybe even asking a little, if Steve is reading it right.

The look says, are you gonna do it? 

Steve has never backed down from a challenge. So he kisses Eddie, and it feels more natural than breathing.

It’s only a tentative press of lips, soft and sweet, but Eddie makes a little sound against Steve’s mouth and something erupts in Steve’s stomach. His hands come up to touch at Eddie’s waist, slide around his lower back, pull him in as close as he can, and when their chests are pressed together it’s still not close enough. Eddie melts against him, melts into his touch. He grabs at Steve’s shirt instinctively, like it hurts to not be holding him.

They break apart. Eddie is trembling, eyes wet and wide.

“Steve…”

“Can I keep kissing you?” Steve cradles his face in both hands like it’s something precious, cranes his neck, lets their noses brush together.

Eddie has barely started nodding before Steve dives in again, this time with more fervour, more urgency, because it feels like he’s been waiting to do this forever and there’s something deep down that’s terrified that it will be the only time he’s allowed to, even though the logical part of his brain knows that can’t be true. It can’t be true because Eddie is parting his lips, sliding his tongue across Steve’s bottom lip, and his hands are tangling in Steve’s hair like he also can’t get enough of it all. Steve’s stomach flips over entirely. He digs his fingers into Eddie’s waist, pushes up the fabric there and splays his palm across the skin of his ribs. Eddie groans and kisses him harder. It’s past the point of timidity, toeing the line of desperation, because it feels simultaneously like a long time coming and the most familiar thing in the world. 

They have to pull away for air eventually, and Eddie asks him, breathless, “Are you sure?”

It hurts to hear his tone, so hopeful, yet ridden with guilt, like he’s distantly mad at himself for giving in so easy.

“I’m very sure,” Steve says, and means it.

Eddie still looks hesitant. He’s staring at Steve like he hung the stars. Steve might implode, collapse in on himself like a supernova. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers, and Steve’s heart cracks. “I didn’t mean to… I dunno, freak out like that. I got scared, and I… uh.” He laughs, but there isn’t much humour to it. “You know how I get when I’m scared. I run.”

Steve thinks of all the times Eddie ran, back when he was confused and alone and terrified and didn't have any other option. He thinks of Eddie jumping into Lover’s Lake after him, hoisting himself through the gate in the roof of the trailer with his guitar strapped to him, helping Dustin back through and then turning foot and running out, head-on into danger, just to create a distraction to buy them all more time. Just to help his new friends as best he knew how. And it hadn’t just helped; it had saved them. It had saved the world. 

Eddie has done a lot of running since Steve’s known him, but Steve has never known him to run away. 

For a self-proclaimed coward, Steve reckons Eddie’s incredibly brave.

“You don’t have to run from me,” he says tenderly, thumbing Eddie’s jaw. “This is right where I want to be. Don’t run from me, Ed.”

“Okay.” Eddie licks his lips, eyes flicking to Steve’s mouth again, yielding to his words and his touch. He looks like he trusts him, wholly. “Okay, yeah. I won’t.”

Steve grabs him by the collar, eyes half-lidded, pulls him in for the third time, and Eddie goes more than willingly.

Steve thinks he could make out with Eddie all night. There’s nothing much stopping him, he realises, as he walks Eddie up against the hood of the Beamer, caging him there, their bodies hot and close. The kids are safe at home, the others are there to watch them, and even if they weren’t, Steve doesn’t think he’d have much to worry about, which is a nice feeling, honestly, to not be crushed beneath the burden of knowing they’re all in active danger, being hunted, preyed upon–

Eddie slots a leg in between Steve’s thighs and he is absolutely not thinking about the kids anymore.

He muffles a groan into Eddie’s mouth, kisses his way across his jaw, feels Eddie’s hips drive into his and he can’t tell if it’s an accident, because of the position they’re in now, but he’d like for it not to be.

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes out on a whine against Steve’s cheek. It only urges Steve on, coils something tight and hot in his gut, and his hands find Eddie’s ass, pulling him forward. Their hips grind together, with purpose this time. 

He can… he can feel Eddie through his jeans and the arousal it elicits is like nothing he’s ever felt before. His dick responds immediately. Even through their clothes, the outline of Eddie is solid, hard against him, hips kicking forward in a tentative rhythm, like he can’t help it, like he barely notices himself doing it. It’s hot. Steve winds fingers into Eddie’s hair, tilting his head up so he has better access to his throat. He licks, bites lightly at the skin there, testing the waters. All of this only makes Eddie huff out a moan and grind into him hard, chasing more pleasure.

Then, abruptly, he appears to catch himself, and he stills, angling his hips away a little, moving his head back so Steve’s hand slides out of his hair and onto his shoulder. Steve almost whines. 

“Sorry,” Eddie gasps, flushed red all down his neck. “You okay?”

“I’m good, feels good,” Steve murmurs without missing a beat, and he’s surprised that it comes out borderline slurred, because the only thing he feels high on currently is the scent of Eddie – the hairspray and the cigarettes and the weed, and the cheap cologne he wears which smells of sandalwood and artificial sweetness, and it’s not even a nice cologne, but it has easily become Steve’s favourite smell. Eddie has become his favourite person. Steve wants to kiss him forever. He wants to lick down his neck again and make him feel good, hear more of those sounds he was making. He wants to get him off, get them both off, fuck him right here against the Beamer in the middle of the woods where nobody but the stars can see them.

“We can stop if you want, if it’s too much,” Eddie adds, cringing a bit like he hates the suggestion. His lips are pink and swollen and his hair is sticking up in odd places where Steve raked his hands through it, messed it up. He wants to pull on it, hard. He wonders if Eddie would like that.

Steve’s chuckle rumbles out of his chest, guttural. “I want you.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide, dark, pupils dilated almost all the way. His tongue darts out to wet the corner of his mouth. Impatiently, Steve draws him in by the chin, kisses him wet and messy like he really wants to, gets him whimpering into his mouth again, hips twitching in reflex. Feeling victorious, Steve slides his hands under Eddie’s shirt, dips his fingers into the waistband of his jeans to tug him in close so they’re flush together again. He grinds against him urgently, feeling their cocks drag together, and Steve honestly could come if they keep this up. It’s like he’s a teenager again, the friction setting him alight, turning his stomach inside out, getting him real close far too soon. Judging by Eddie’s own reactions, he might not be the only one.

“Fuck, Stevie.” Eddie says it into his mouth, trails off mid-sentence to bite down hard on Steve’s bottom lip. His bitten fingernails are digging into Steve’s side, scrambling for purchase there like he’s falling and needs something to hold on to, to keep him upright. He’s breathing heavily, sweat beading on his forehead. “Can I touch you?”

Steve nods faster than his brain can process it and then Eddie has a hand on his belt, unbuckling, then his fly, unzipping, and Steve looks down in a daze, watches as Eddie reaches into his briefs and wraps a metal-adorned hand around him. He hisses and bucks his hips up, feels the heat in his stomach boil over. He has to actually hold his breath for a second to pull himself together so he doesn’t come instantly. Eddie, noticing the way he gasps and writhes as he touches him, gets this sparkle in his eye. 

“So fucking hot, Steve,” he says, sounding incredulous, and he swipes a thumb over the head of Steve’s cock, collecting the slick there, spreading it around with large, calloused fingers. A bit of it smears across the silver of his rings. It’s obscene. “You’re so hot, it’s fucking unbelievable.”

Steve moans, outright. He’s never been noisy during sex, but he moans while Eddie is touching him and telling him he’s hot and it’s loud. Desperate. He rubs a hand over his face and grips Eddie’s – Steve’s – sweatshirt with the other. He wants to tear it off. Doesn’t think he’d last long enough for it to be worth it.

All of the anxiety and the fear from earlier seem to have dissipated from Eddie’s being entirely. Now, there’s a fire burning in their place.

Steve chokes on a whine, mortified. “Eddie, you–” Some of the air hisses out of him. “You’re gonna make me come.”

“That’s the goal, yeah.” When Eddie grins, it’s bordering on predatory. Steve swallows.

“Let me…” Steve reaches for Eddie’s fly now and Eddie’s hips roll into his hand as he cups him through his jeans. Steve’s gut swirls. He’s wracked with sudden nerves, amplified when Eddie halts his movement on Steve, sensing his hesitance. 

“You all right, sweetheart?”

Steve flushes under the pet name. He meets Eddie’s sultry gaze. “I don’t… I’ve never done this,” he admits, vulnerable. Then, because he’s clearly killing the mood, adds, “Sorry.”

Steve has never floundered like this before, never been the one to fumble and blush his way through a heated exchange. He’s always taken the lead with confidence, pleased to be the one to draw pleasure, to know how to, expertly, even lazily, sometimes. He’s always been good at it. It’s part of the Harrington charm. King Steve might have been a total jerk, but to his credit, he knew how to lay it on thick, get all the girls swooning. Often, he hadn’t even had to do anything; they’d puddled under a glance. Even at fifteen when Steve had lost his virginity, he’d just faked experience, and she’d been none the wiser. 

With Eddie, Steve feels like a virgin all over again. He supposes in a lot of ways, he is. There’s a certain thrill to it, an arousing quality, having no choice but to let someone else take control, for once.

Eddie threads his hand into Steve’s, brings it up to his lips, presses it there. He gives Steve these seductive doe-eyes, warm brown pooling beneath soft lashes, and purrs, “Let me take care of you.”

Then Eddie is flipping them so that Steve’s back hits the hood of the Beamer, his shirt riding up as he’s borderline manhandled. The burgundy metal is cool against his skin. He shivers, body twitching forwards, watching Eddie with his mouth hanging ajar as he pushes Steve’s shirt the rest of the way up and runs teasing fingers down his sides. The hands trail lower, circle his waist, graze his thighs, and Steve’s eyes go wide as Eddie’s mouth follows in their wake, pressing warm, wet, open-mouthed kisses to Steve’s reddening skin. The sounds that threaten to spill out are humiliating, so he swallows them down with difficulty, panting hard. 

He’s so caught up in the feeling of Eddie’s hot breath fanning out across his stomach that he almost forgets about the scars. That is, until Eddie stops in his tracks, pads of his fingers skimming feather-light over the raised pink skin. The sensitive place where talons and teeth had dug in, tearing Steve open.

It’s nothing Eddie hasn’t seen before. The intimacy of it now, though, means everything is amplified tenfold. Steve looks down at Eddie and sees, fleetingly, a flash of dark red – blood smeared across gaunt white skin, hollow eyes, pained and terrified – and he flinches, hard.

“Stevie?”

Steve tries to get a hold of himself, shake it off, because he’s ruining it after he just talked Eddie down from the precipice of self-destruction, and now he’s gonna make Eddie freak out again, pull away, run like he ran right into the storm–

Eddie cradles Steve’s head in his arms, curls fingers into his hair, and Steve isn’t exactly crying, but he can hear himself heaving for breath and he feels pathetic, even when Eddie whispers into his ear that it’s okay, they’re okay, and he’s sorry for drawing attention to it, he didn’t mean to upset him–

“It isn’t your fault,” Steve finds himself blurting. He pulls back, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The regret seeping into Eddie’s features sets Steve’s chest ablaze with guilt. “You didn’t… I don’t know why I… I’m okay, it’s just…” Steve sucks in a breath, runs a clammy palm down the side of his face. The weight of the love he has for Eddie strikes him then, out of nowhere. That haunting image – Eddie soaked in blood and black gunk, just barely clinging to life – flashes across his vision. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Just gimme a second.”

Thankfully, Eddie doesn’t say anything more. He lets Steve gather himself, fingers carding through his hair in calming, rhythmic motions. When Steve has finally calmed himself down enough to open his eyes, Eddie is gazing right at him, wearing a look of silent understanding. He cocks his head and his hair bounces in that adorable way that it does, and Steve laughs, despite himself.

“This is so stupid,” he says wetly, swiping at his dry cheeks as if to fend off invisible tears.

“Not stupid,” Eddie finally says, firm. He takes Steve’s hands gently in his own and brings them away from his face. “Did you think it was stupid when I flipped out about a blown lightbulb and practically moved into your house because of it?”

“No, ‘course not, but..” Steve struggles to formulate the right words. “But it’s different–”

“Different how? They’re all scars, sweetheart. Some of them are just more… well, visible than others.” Eddie pulls Steve’s hand to his own chest, right over his heart, holds it there tight. “‘Sides, we got all of the same ones.” Then their entwined fingers move to Eddie’s chest, slipping under the hem of his shirt, rucking it up. Steve stares, even though he’s already seen. They’re angry and red, the scars; healed but not yet fading. They’re worse than Steve’s by a mile but all around the same area. Most of the smaller ones are the same shape, too. Jagged lines where fangs sunk in, small but deep into flesh. A gruesome permanency etched into the delicacy of human skin. An echo of some of the worst memories of Steve’s life.

“Gnarly,” Eddie breathes out, looking down at both their stomachs, and Steve realises the wince he thought he was wearing isn’t a wince at all, but a wild grin.

And Steve smiles, too.

“Metal,” he agrees, and his voice doesn’t shake.

Eddie beams. He regards Steve with so much adoration that it glances off him in rays, glares in Steve’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. “I could just kiss you right now, Harrington.”

Steve feels delirious. Somehow, in spite of everything, there’s heat swirling and boiling low in his stomach. His crotch is still pressed up against Eddie’s thigh, he notes. It might be fucked up, the way his dick stirs like he hadn’t just had a near breakdown over some monster-inflicted wounds. But they both still have their shirts pushed up and Eddie’s skin is hot and smooth and inviting, so Steve supposes it’s only natural that his body begins to respond accordingly. 

“Then why don’t you, Munson?” he flirts, leaning forward.

Eddie wraps a gentle hand around the base of Steve’s throat. Something in his eyes proposes a silent question, and Steve gives a resolute nod in response. I’m okay, it says. I still want this.

Grinning, Eddie crashes them together.

It doesn’t take long for Steve to be reduced to a moaning, panting puddle atop the hood of his own car. Eddie’s hand works over him torturously, the slide of it slick and wonderful. Then, Eddie undoes his own jeans, yanks them down and out of the way like he’s impatient. The tips of their cocks bump together. Steve stares, entranced. He tries to shut his gaping mouth but it only closes around another moan, morphs it into a whine, high and needy in his throat.

“Eddie, I’m so serious, fuck, you have to slow down.”

“Feels that good, baby?”

Baby. It’s a new one. More possessive than sweetheart, but slightly less saccharine. Steve wants to try it out for size, but his tongue doesn’t seem to be functioning past its newfound inclination to form embarrassing sounds and pleas. It might just be a heat of the moment thing, the pet names, but Steve’s love drunk brain decides for him that he likes them a lot.

As Eddie spits into his hand, takes them both in the tight, wet circle of his fingers, Steve actually has to grab at Eddie’s wrist to slow him.

“Ohhh, Eddie, okay, holy shit.”

Steve would be offended by the way Eddie laughs in response and shakes him off if he wasn’t wholly preoccupied with trying not to come instantly. Also, Eddie is pink in the face, tongue clamped between his teeth, and his eyes are darker than Steve has ever seen them, fixated on him like he doesn’t know how to look anywhere else, so Steve can be pretty confident he’s not the only one getting off on this.

Eddie’s deep moan is reassuring, his ensuing words even more so. “Fuck, you drive me crazy, Stevie. It’s okay, I’m not gonna last either.”

It tips Steve over the edge, hearing the low, aroused tone of Eddie’s voice. He squeezes his eyes shut as his mouth drops open, fingers tangling in Eddie’s hair and pulling, pulling him close so he can muffle his groan in Eddie’s neck.

“Fuck. You gonna come for me, sweetheart?”

Steve’s already there. He jolts and whines, fists Eddie’s hair hard, and comes in hot spurts between them. It coats Eddie’s stomach, his dick, his jeans. Eddie doesn’t seem to care. In fact, it only urges him on. Reflexively, Eddie leans into Steve’s hand where his hair is still caught in a vice-like grip. Through the haze of orgasm, Steve processes this, and pulls harder. 

“Shit,” Eddie gasps, then he’s finishing, too.

They stay there like that, Eddie slumped over Steve’s chest, hand running absentmindedly up and down his ribcage like he’s counting the bumps of his ribs, or the rate of his lungs expanding and contracting beneath them. Steve just closes his eyes and relishes in the warmth of the moment, how content he feels. How he desperately wants to do it all over again.

When both their breathing evens out, Eddie rolls off Steve to lean on the hood beside him. He keeps their arms pressed together, fingers threaded, resting on Steve’s chest.

“I didn’t know it could feel like that,” Steve mutters mindlessly, boneless. He ponders bringing up the hair thing out of genuine intrigue, but decides swiftly against it. He might never bring it up. He’ll just whip it out like a party trick one day. Use it against Eddie, maybe, to get his way. Get him to melt, submit. Like kryptonite, or something.

He makes himself giggle with the thought. He feels Eddie’s gaze on him, watching his shoulders shake with quiet laughter, until it peters off and he can still feel him looking.

Silence settles over them like a weighted blanket; comforting, mellow. Steve turns his head and Eddie’s eyes might be the softest they’ve ever been, trained on him.

“You are a wonder of fucking nature, Steve Harrington,” he utters, dead serious. Then, under his breath, all starry-eyed with unbridled awe, “Fuck me.”

Steve grins with all his teeth. His heart feels full. His body feels pleasantly tingly, from his ears all the way down to his toes.

“Oh, I’ll get to that,” he says dopily, and Eddie blushes something furious.

Eddie stares as Robin reaches out to tuck a strand of Vickie’s auburn hair behind her ear, for the seventh time in less than ten minutes – Steve is keeping count. Eddie’s lips twist like he’s bursting at the seams to say something, and he gets this pinch in his brow which Steve finds incredibly endearing. He sticks the end of his thumb in his mouth, gnaws at the nail, then removes it and presses a balled-up hand there instead.

“Okay, there is no way they’re not banging, right?” he hisses at Steve behind the fist, side-eyeing him from where he’s perched on the countertop. Steve snorts, continuing to sort through the box of new releases in front of him. He thumbs over Labyrinth, flips it to skim the back, then puts it aside to smuggle home later. Eddie’s a musical fan. He’d never admit it aloud, but Steve knows. He’d caught him bopping his head along at one point when Steve had finally held him down against his will and forced him to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His film rental history also speaks for itself. Steve’s no stranger to the theatrics of the The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“No, I think you’re going crazy,” he deadpans.

In strict, unwavering solidarity with his best friend and soulmate, Steve had refrained from telling even Eddie about her sexual preferences, or by extension her newly-formed relationship with Vickie. But, as the four of them are the only people currently in the store, and Robin doesn’t seem to be making any effort to mask her flirting, Steve imagines she doesn’t mind Eddie being in on the secret.

After all, Steve had told her about himself and Eddie the moment he caught her alone when they’d returned to the house, the same night they’d confessed and cried and fallen apart together against the hood of Steve’s car.

“We banged, Rob. In the woods.” Then, quietly and in as solemn a manner as he could muster, he had added, “He touched my weenie.”

“Oh my God, that’s disgusting,” Robin had hollered, but her eyes lit up brighter than Steve had seen them in a while. She had clutched at Steve’s arm, gaze intense. “Tell me everything.” Then she winced and recoiled. “Or, wait, no, not everything everything, I meant more like holy shit you guys hooked up in the woods, that’s insane for so many more reasons than one, please do elaborate on the events leading up to it. Y’know, because I’d rather stick plating tweezers in both ears, pinch my eardrums and twist than hear the gory details of that.”

Steve had only looked fondly at her, heart alight, unable to fend off his ensuing sappy grin. And he’d launched into the story.

Now, Eddie is staring at Steve instead of Robin and Vickie, and he’s got his own fond smile painted on, still half-hidden behind his hand.

“What?” Steve says, blinking.

Eddie visibly brightens under his attention. Shrugs. Doesn’t reply. Doesn’t look away, either

“Do I have something on my face?” Steve swipes at himself, smears the back of his hand across his chin and looks at it, confused, when it comes away clean.

“Can I not just admire my smokin’ hot boyfriend?”

Steve, to his horror, feels heat bleed over his face, down his neck, and up to the tips of his ears. “You’re not funny.”

“You love me.”

Steve turns back to his box of films, heart racing. “Not at all.”

“You’re smiling.” 

Then Eddie is all up in his personal space, poking at the side of his mouth with a persistent finger, and Steve purses his lips, glares at him with all the resentment he can muster, which is admittedly not a whole lot. Eddie’s lips are shiny, wet with spit where he’s licked and nibbled at them. Naturally, Steve’s gaze locks onto them. It takes every ounce of willpower within him not to kiss Eddie right there.

“Excuse me, but making eyes at paying customers like you want to suck the soul out through their mouth is wildly unprofessional and, frankly, a little revolting.”

Steve flinches. Robin is regarding them both, arms folded, one eyebrow raised. She’s trying to look unimpressed, but her smirk gives her away. Beside her, Vickie is stifling a laugh. At least she has the courtesy to try and hide her amusement, Steve thinks faintly. 

“He’s not paying,” is all he says, then he reaches across and shoves Eddie off the countertop. He topples, with a yelp, right into Robin, who doesn’t make any attempt to catch him, but rather sidesteps his flailing limbs entirely. For an uncoordinated band kid, the movement is deceivingly smooth. Steve almost barks a laugh, but has the dignity to repress it. Vickie, this time, is not so polite with her amusement.

“Physically assaulting the customers is also unprofessional, Harrington,” Eddie seethes from where he has come to accept defeat on the floor. He turns to Vickie, pointing up at her. “And what are you laughing at, Red? I saw her grab your ass–” Eddie directs his finger towards Robin, who looks affronted at the accusation, “–in the psychological thriller aisle, like, twenty minutes ago. Could’ve at least waited for poor Mrs. Hayes to clear out. She was watching from over by the rom-coms. She looked scandalised. I don’t think she’ll ever recover.”

Vickie chimes in now, “She rented 9 ½ Weeks. I’m sure she’ll live to see another day.”

Eddie shrugs, not understanding the reference, as raunchy romance films are evidently not his media forté. But it doesn’t matter because Vickie is already moving on, speaking fast, and Eddie pulls a strand of hair across his mouth, furrows his brow to show that he’s listening intently. He moves his hair to the side to reply, then drapes it back over his bottom lip, thoughtful, as Vickie rambles on about God knows what – Steve isn’t tuned in. 

In the midst of it, he meets Robin’s eye, gets this little flutter in his chest when she raises her eyebrows at him as if to say, hey, what the hell, I guess they’ve figured it out for themselves.

“I’m just sayin’, public ass grabbing is objectively a step too far. Procreate with your girlfriend in private.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Eddie,” Vickie replies with an eye roll. “You can’t keep your hands off him!”

Neither of them look at Steve, but it is evident that he is the ‘him’ in question. Eddie pillows his arms across his knees and turns his nose up. He still hasn’t gotten up off the floor. He looks quite at home there, actually. “Steve and I make our babies in the backroom, thank you very much.”

Robin actually gags, horrified. At the same time, Steve slams a hand down on the counter, and it lands heavily beside Labyrinth. Already balanced precariously, the tape tips and clatters to the ground, no mercy shown to Eddie’s temple on the way down. He yelps again and swats it away. Steve would have time to feel bad if he wasn’t so busy blushing at Eddie’s declaration. He just prays it sounds insane enough to brush off as a joke, even though he knows, unfortunately, it isn’t.

“All right, playtime’s over,” he announces. “Out, Buckley.” When she doesn’t budge, Steve plants his hands on the counter, sways back, then swings both legs over in one clean, graceful leap. If it’s just to showboat a bit, then sue him. “I have actual, important work to get done.”

“Right, of course,” Robin muses, letting Steve grab her shoulders and steer her towards the door. “Those shelves won’t stack themselves, Steven.”

“You’re not even on the clock so I don’t know why you’re still here,” Steve grumbles. There’s not much force behind it. He knows why she’s here, despite her shift having ended almost two hours ago. Vickie had come in sometime in the late morning to “peruse” – her words – and she’d never left. Her and Robin are attached at the hip these days. Steve supposes it’s pot kettle black or whatever, if he were to call them out on it. It’s a bit cute, anyway, so he wouldn’t. Not that he’d admit that. 

Robin shakes off his grip, turning around to face him. “Y’know, I’m really hoping Munson’s joking about the backroom, because if he’s not, that would be some serious blackmail.” Robin whistles lowly for emphasis. Steve’s skin prickles. “Like, for your sake, I mean. Because that would royally suck if someone were to hold that against you in the future, by threatening to tell your employer what you get up to on company time, on company property. Unless, of course, you decided you were willing to cover any and all of the shifts this person didn’t want for the rest of eternity. Hypothetically." She looks him up and down, pouting. He doesn’t even bother responding. “That would suck, Steve.”

Glumly, Steve glances back at Eddie for help, who is watching the interaction with delight, chewing on a hangnail. Still settled on the floor. Useless. Vickie is following behind Steve and Robin, grinning slyly.

Steve makes a grab for Robin but she dodges and keeps walking backwards away from him until her back is pressed against the glass window. Vickie opens the door beside her and slips outside, avoiding her own beratement. Steve probably wouldn’t berate her, anyway. He loves her more than Robin. She’s miles less irritating. Maybe that’s just because they don’t know each other all that well yet. Robin did say she talked a lot. Steve can barely tolerate Robin as it is.

“Well, would you look at the time,” Steve says flatly. “We’re closed.” The small hand on the clock above the counter points halfway between two and three.

Mischief glints in Robin’s eyes, but she still shoots him a slightly apologetic smile before she says, “Someone should probably prepare Dustin for the arrival of his half-sibling nine months from now.”

“Goodbye, Robin!” Steve has to physically shove her out of the door, slamming it in her face. In a final show of rebellion, her face contorts into the ugliest expression Steve has ever seen her pull, poking her tongue out to really seal the deal. Steve swears he sees her drool a little. Vickie is in a fit of giggles beside her. Good for them, he supposes, because Robin is a handful, but one that Vickie seems entirely capable of holding close to her heart and cherishing.

He loves her so much. He’s so happy for her.

Just then, Eddie materialises beside him.

“She’s brilliant,” he declares, arm creeping around Steve’s waist, edging under his shirt, smoothing over the skin there. 

Steve softens under his touch, his intended prickly tone falling flat when he replies, “She’s the worst and I’m going to strangle her within an inch of her life tomorrow.”

Steve feels Eddie move to trace the ridges of his scars, feather-light. It only sends a pleasant shiver down Steve’s spine, rather than a wince, or the streak of an ugly memory. Steve looks at Eddie, smiles. Eddie grins back, hair flouncing, cheeks reddening. He grins like a freak with all of his teeth and an untamed wildness in his eyes. Steve loves that grin. He loves Eddie.

He tells him as much, on the breath of a whisper, and Eddie glows, curling further into his side. It never gets old. Eddie glows just as brightly every time he hears it.

Steve is really, thoroughly happy. It’s the kind of happiness that seeps into his bones and settles there in a way it never has before. It makes a home inside his chest, curled up right beside the spot reserved for Eddie Munson, the two of them intertwining. At some point, Steve guesses they might have leaked into each other and merged to form one. Symbiotic.

Steve thinks, throat tight, that he wouldn’t have it any other way.