Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve stared down at Will’s schedule with a rock in his gut. He swallowed nervously and put it down, off to the side, as he picked through the others. He hadn't really given much thought to the boys’ schedules, but they had been laying on the coffee table while the boys played DnD with Eddie in the Wheeler’s basement. He flipped through the rest and let out a relieved sigh. When the game finally ended, he stood up and stretched. "Hey, Will, need your help with something," he said, gesturing up the stairs.

Will looked up, a very bewildered expression on his face, but he stood up and followed Steve up the stairs and outside. Steve wasn't nearly as close to Will as he was to Dustin and Max, or even Lucas, but that didn't mean he didn't care about him, or want to protect him. Steve stood next to his car, Will standing across from him, and they could feel the stares of the others through the window. Steve turned his back to them. "I uh, I saw that you have Mrs. Jenkins…"

Will nodded. "Yeah?"

Steve scratched the back of his neck nervously, "She hasn't... done anything to you... right?" He asked, "Like, touched you?"

Will cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "No..."

Steve nodded. "Good. Good. Uh, don't let her keep you after class."

Will's face squeezed like he'd eaten something sour. "Steve, did she... touch you ?" he asked, stepping just a hair closer. He was 14, he only recently came to the conclusion that liking boys was a thing that happened to people and he really didn't know the mechanics of how that would work for him, sexually, in the future. He did, however, know that Mrs. Jenkins only taught freshmen and that if she did something to Steve, that was a bad thing. It dawned on him that Steve was trying to protect him and he surged forward to hug him.

Steve sucked in a breath as Will hugged him tight and he let it out slowly, his arms wrapping around the younger boy and holding him there. "Yeah," he admitted, "we had a bit of an... affair, I guess."

Will wished he knew what to say, because even if he didn't know much about sex, he did know that they preached that it was for consenting adults and being 14, Will did not feel like an adult. Plus, Steve mustn't have liked it, since he was worried about Will. He pulled back after a moment and looked up at Steve again. "Thank you. For caring, but also, for trusting me to know that."

Steve shrugged, it was old news. He was pretty sure a decent amount of his fellow classmates knew. Shit, they'd even both been brought in by the principle, though they'd both denied any wrong-doing. Their relationship had been secret, she had told him it had to be.

Steve let Will get back to his friends and he stayed out by the car a few minutes longer. He smoked a cigarette and stared up at the starry sky.

Steve remembered the first time he and Beth hooked up. He remembered how he'd been caught kissing a boy behind the bleachers at just 14, a few months after starting high school. It had been an awkward press of mouths that hadn't progressed into an actual kiss by the time Ronnie had pulled back and run off in the opposite direction. It wasn't until he heard the voice behind him that he'd realized why Ronnie had run off. He drew up his shoulders, ready to get smacked for kissing a boy, but he was surprised when no pain came.

He peeked at his teacher and saw that she was standing there, arms crossed, lips pursed. "Harrington, tomorrow come to my office after classes are done."

Steve had basketball practice, but he'd just have to tell his coach he'd be a few minutes late. Hopefully it would only be a few minutes. Steve had gone home after that, walking on eggshells all night as he waited for his dad to get the call about what his teacher had seen. Waiting for the yelling and the pain accompanying a slap across his face.

When bedtime came around without any word from his dad about it, he concluded that his teacher must not have ratted him out. That must have been why she wanted to talk to him the next day. 

He tucked himself into bed and wished he could go back in time and get his first kiss back.

The next day, Steve went through his classes until school was finally dismissed. During gym class, he’d made sure to tell his coach that he would be late. He knocked on his teacher’s door and pushed it open. “Mrs. Jenkins?” he called, stepping into the darkened office before realizing that she mustn’t be there yet.

“Steve.”

Steve jumped at the sudden presence behind him and spun on his heels. “Mrs. Jenkins,” he greeted nervously.

“Take a seat, Steve,” she said, turning the light on and shutting the door.

“Steve?”

He was snapped out of his memories by Eddie’s voice. The memories of his teacher lecturing him about how liking boys was wrong and that she would teach him how to love a woman, he hadn’t realized what that meant until she was on her knees and his pants were around his ankles. An affair that would continue until Steve graduated.

“You okay?”

Steve dropped the butt of his cigarette and stomped it out before turning to Eddie. “Yeah, man, I’m good,” he said, “Ready to bring the kids home?”

Eddie didn’t look like he fully believed Steve, but he shrugged it off and nodded. “The lost little lambs need to go home to pasture.”

Steve snorted and gently shoved Eddie’s shoulder to turn him around so they could start walking towards the Wheeler’s house. “Sure, whatever you say.”

“Wanna come over after? Your parents are home, right?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Steve said, loading half the kids into his car while the other half jumped into Eddie’s van. “Wheeler, what are you doing?” Steve asked, looking as the young man jumped into his car.

“I’m staying at Will’s tonight. We called Joyce earlier,” he said.

“You should call her Ms. Byers.” Steve frowned, but he ducked into his own seat and cranked over the engine, pulling out with Eddie hot on his heels. They split ways at the end of the cul-de-sac. Steve dropped all the kids off before making his way home to grab an overnight bag, ignoring the sounds of his parents fighting in his dad’s office. It was so common now that he simply drowned it out. He was back out the front door without seeing either of them, just the spilled bottle of pills on the counter where Steve left his note.

He drove to the Munson’s trailer, his mind still on his conversation with Will. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about Mrs. Jenkins, how could he? He just didn’t remember feeling so… icky… about it until he saw her name on Will’s schedule. Maybe it was because he saw the way Will looked at Mike, the way Steve used to look at Ronnie. Maybe it was because he genuinely believed her when she said that liking boys was bad, up until he met Robin, but by then he’d been cured. He didn’t want that to happen to Will though. He remembered how powerless he’d felt to stop it all.

Steve didn’t bother knocking when he got to Eddie’s home, he was over enough that he didn’t need to. Wayne worked nights and Eddie told him that if he wanted to wait for Eddie to answer the door he’d be waiting all night. So, he stepped in, unsurprised to hear music bellowing from Eddie’s room. He pushed open the door and stared.

Eddie was playing his guitar, something that Steve’s only managed to catch a few glimpses of in their friendship. He was a little clunkier now, Eddie’s words not his, because the bats had done some damage to his hands. He was working with a physical therapist to regain fine motor control, but he knew it frustrated Eddie to no end that he couldn’t play quite as well as he used to. Couldn’t play anything that required him to switch notes as fast as Master of Puppets had.

He leaned against the doorway, watching Eddie’s back until he got frustrated enough to rip the guitar strap over his head and toss the thing down on his bed. He looked like he wanted to smash it into the wall, but he settled for an option that he wouldn’t regret later.

“Sounds good.”

“Sounds like dog-shit,” Eddie grumbled, reaching for a towel and wiping his face and hands. “My therapist keeps telling me it’s getting better, but I can’t tell,” he admitted, turning towards Steve. “Corroded Coffin is gonna stay a shitty garage band if I can’t get my hands back to normal,” he said, putting his hands palm-up between them. Steve could see the minute tremors running through his fingers. He reached out and grabbed one of Eddie’s hands, pressing his thumb into the center of his palm and examining the fingers.

For his part, Eddie stood there silently, just watching Steve as he flipped Eddie’s hands over like he was somehow going to find the cure to his fucked-up fingers that the doctors couldn’t.  “They’re sure it’s nerve damage?” He asked.

Eddie cocked his head and shrugged, “That’s what they have me in therapy trying to fix, why?”

Steve let go of Eddie’s hands and held his own the same way Eddie had, but just above Eddie’s. “Mine shake from repeated head trauma. At least, that’s the thought,” he said.

“Oh,” Eddie said, bringing his hands up and grabbing Steve’s hands in much the same way that Steve had done to him, watching his fingers tremble. “Well, I don’t have any head trauma,” he said. “At least, not that I remember.”

“Well, forgetfulness is a symptom,” Steve chuckled, pulling his hands back and tucking them into his pockets. “You play acoustic too, right?” he asked, jutting his chin towards the guitar. He’d helped Eddie move his shit from the old, destroyed trailer into the new one and he knew he moved at least one acoustic guitar.

“Yeah.”

“Play me something,” he demanded, stepping further into the room and around Eddie so he could sit on the bed.

Eddie huffed out a soft ‘bossy,’ but he didn’t argue. Instead, he picked up the electric guitar and hung it back up where it belonged before grabbing his ‘this machine slays dragons’ guitar. He sat cross-legged on the bed next to Steve and asked, “What do you wanna hear?”

“Whatever you know.”

Eddie hummed thoughtfully as he went through the motions of ensuring his guitar was tuned properly before jumping straight into a Dolly Parton song, “Jolene.” The tune was slow and it was easy for Eddie to move his fingers where he needed to. What surprised Steve most was his singing though.

He’d heard Eddie sing before, of course he had, but him screaming along with lyrics in the van or shouting while he jumped around singing along to whatever metal he was playing was super different than hearing his low timbre playing a country song. It gave Steve goosebumps. “Didn’t peg you as a country boy,” Steve said, leaning back on his hands and watching Eddie.

“Well, Wayne taught me to play and he likes country,” he said, a small smile on his face.

That made sense. A lot of sense actually. It made Steve smile back at him. He wasn’t sure he shared any hobbies with his parents, except maybe the lady-killer ways, unfortunately. He seemed to inherit that from his dad. Steve reached behind himself and grabbed Eddie’s pillow, tucking it into his lap and wrapping his arms around it, looking at Eddie again, “Another?”

Eddie could tell that something was bothering Steve, but if he didn’t want to talk about it yet, then Eddie wasn’t going to pry. Maybe he would have a few months ago, but he learned that there are secrets out there that he was better off not knowing about. So instead, he simply nodded and plucked the strings a few times until he thought of another song to play. He stuck with slower simple songs, but he played for longer than he played since he came out of the hospital. He played until Steve had slumped against the wall and fallen asleep. Then he played a little more just in case.

By the time he finished, his fingers hurt from playing and his chest hurt from the melancholy of playing sad-ish songs for well over two hours. He felt oddly pensive as he stood and put his guitar back, covering Steve with a blanket and gently nudging him to lay down without waking him up. He grabbed himself a spare blanket and moved to the living room to sleep on the couch.

The conversation Will had with Steve had been nagging at him, more as he sat in class and watched his teacher interact with her students. She was weird around the boys. Almost… leering? Will shifted uncomfortably as he came to a harsh conclusion he wasn’t sure he was ready to face. He needed to consult an adult before he said anything to Steve. He almost went to his mom, but she was always a little too protective of him and he feared that if he asked her a question ‘about a friend’ that she would automatically assume that was code for him needing advice for himself. So, he went to his brother. Jonathan wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but he would listen, actually listen, and not jump to wild conclusions. So, he waited until his mom was at work and his brother was home.

“Jonathan?” He called, knocking on his door and hoping his brother wasn’t high. He knew that it was his brother’s way of coping with the trauma of everything they’d gone through, but it made having conversations with him nigh on impossible. Also, it stank.

Jonathan turned away from his desk where he’d been putting together a portfolio to send out, trying to get another job in photography. “Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, twisting his hands together nervously.

His posture spoke volumes about how serious this matter was and Jonathan pushed himself away from the desk, turning fully and gesturing to the edge of the bed so they could sit next to one another. “What’s up?” he asked, keeping his tone casual even though he was desperate to know what was eating at his brother.

Will was silent for another couple seconds, sorting his thoughts as he traced the lines in Jonathan’s corduroy pants with his eyes like they held the secrets to the universe. “It’s…” He licked his lips, “I should start by saying this isn’t about me,” he said, looking his brother in his face. “I just heard something and I’m worried about a friend of mine.” When Johnathan nodded, Will continued. “It’s not right for a teacher to… touch a student, right?” he asked. “Like uh, sexually?”

Jonathan was so pale already, that watching the blood drain out of his face was disconcerting. He’d seen the pallor of dead people and Jonathan looked enough like that to scare Will. “No, Will, that’s definitely not okay.”

Will nodded, because he knew that. It was just the way Steve had said that it happened to him that had Will thinking that maybe Steve didn’t know that. Then again, he had to know, right? Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked Will if it happened to him. It was so confusing.

“Will?” Jonathan prodded, nudging him, “Can you tell me what’s happening? Or to who?”

Will waffled for a moment before sighing and looking at his palms, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s not happening anymore,” he said, “I just… it happened before . But I can’t tell you who or when or why because it’s not my place.” 

Jonathan tapped his fingers against his knee and took a deep breath. “Is… it is a guy ?” 

Will glanced at his brother before looking back to his hands, nodding. 

“Was… was the teacher… female?” 

Another nod. 

Jonathan closed his eyes and shifted his weight a little, nervously. The very rumors that got Steve his ‘King’ status were probably the rumors that Will was talking about. He remembered his sophomore year that Steve had been caught with a teacher by another student. He remembered the rumors flying and the gossip about how Steve must have been so good in bed to snag a teacher. At the time Jonathan had dismissed it, rumors didn’t always have merit after all. Even if he hadn’t though, Jonathan back then wouldn’t have done anything. He wouldn’t have understood what happened to Steve. Besides, Steve seemed to bloom under the attention, he started going out with tons of girls, flitting from one to another like a bee in a field of flowers. “I won’t tell him that you’ve said anything to me,” Jonathan said slowly, “but I think you should talk to him more.” He looked at his brother, it was a lot to burden Will with, especially after everything that he’d been through. “Not about that, at least not right away, but he probably doesn’t even realize he’s been victimized.”

Was it really a good idea to make Steve understand then? Will wasn’t sure. Steve seemed to be doing okay for himself now. He was… happy. He thought he looked happy at least. “Maybe,” Will said, shifting to stand. He’d have to think it over. He still felt like he needed to know more about the situation before he jumped to any conclusions.

Chapter Text

Steve’s first hint that something about his relationship with Beth was wrong, was when he started seeing Nancy; when he tried to have sex with her and she pushed him away, when she scolded him. It was the first time he really found out that when Beth pulled down his pants, that he could have said no too. But guys… they were supposed to want sex. Before Nancy, he’d mostly gone out with girls that had previous experience or that wanted to have sex with him, not necessarily people who he asked out. Turned out that girls in small, conservative, Christian towns knew what sex was and were very, very curious about it.

He was laying in his bed, tossing and catching a basketball and staring at the ceiling as he replayed his conversation with Will. He had never had to dive into his own feelings on the matter, they hadn’t been important. They never really seemed to be, sometimes they still seemed pretty unimportant.

The ball fell and he caught it as the door to his room squeaked open. He turned his head, “Hey, did mom let you in?” he asked, sitting up and making room for Robin on the bed.

“Yeah,” she said, tossing a condom at his face. “She also gave me that, so I’m pretty sure she still thinks we’re dating.”

Steve huffed and rolled his eyes, picking the condom up and tossing it in his nightstand for potential use later. It had been awhile since he’d been on a date, but maybe it would happen again soon. “How’d you get here?”

Robin flopped down on the bed, stealing his pillow and burying her face in it. “Asked my dad for a ride.” 

Steve nodded and laid back down, resuming his ball tossing despite feeling like he was laying way too flat on the bed. Lately it seemed like a lot of their recent hangouts had been spent just sitting close to each other, sometimes in silence. He jumped a little when he felt Robin shift and wrap an arm around his bicep, but she didn’t inhibit his movements or make any move to talk, so Steve let himself get lost in his thoughts again.

If he had to pinpoint a time in his life when his grades started slipping, it was probably shortly after his first time in Mrs. Jenkins’ office. He, in an effort to avoid her, pushed himself harder into sports. He didn’t want to think about what was happening, so he made himself not think about it. It was impossible to think too hard when you were pushing yourself to the absolute brink of exhaustion every day. When he was 16, he lied to get out of going on a field trip because she was one of the chaperones. Sure, what they had was special, but it was also confusing and scary.

“What are you thinking about?” Robin asked, squeezing his arm.

Steve turned his head to look at her, noticing her red-rimmed eyes. She’d been crying. “Nothing important,” he said, “What’s wrong?” He dropped the ball on the floor and turned over onto his side so he was facing Robin, grabbing a tissue out of the box on his nightstand to clean up her smudged makeup.

“Ew,” she whined, “using your jerking off tissues on my face .”

Steve chuckled and tossed the tissue smeared with black smears in the trash bin. “Robin, what happened?”

She was silent another minute before tears welled up in her eyes again and she pushed herself forward, pressing her face into Steve’s chest and letting out a sob from so deep in her chest it pained Steve. He pulled her and the pillow closer and rubbed her back, letting her cry it out.

It was a long time before she calmed back down and let Steve clear her face of tears and snot, not even worrying about how his shirt stuck to his chest uncomfortably. “Vickie got back with her boyfriend,” she said, pulling at Steve’s shirt’s hem and twisting the plain material in her fingers. “I… you know, I thought we were gonna… I’m stupid ,” she hissed, yanking on the material in her hands.

“You’re not stupid,” Steve said, a gut-reaction more than anything. He’d kill, just once, for someone to say that about him. This wasn’t about him though. “I thought Vickie was the one.” He said, honestly too. He really was so sure that Vickie liked Robin too.

Robin let out a wet laugh. “I don’t think people like me find the one , Steve,” she said, sitting up and wiping her eyes again. She shivered and Steve got up to fetch her a sweater from his closet, tugging it over her head. She smiled at him. “Really not trying too hard to dispel the rumors we’re dating, huh?” She laughed, but she pulled the sweater around her tight like a hug.

“You’ll find the one,” he said seriously, sitting next to her again. “I just hope you don’t have to go on as many dates as I do to do it.”

“I don’t think there are enough lesbians in the world for me to go on that many dates,” she teased. Steve knew she was joking, but it hit a nerve in him. A cord that until his talk with Will, had previously been unhurt. A joke that two weeks ago wouldn’t have given him pause, but now… he sucked in a breath and let it out, forcing himself to think about anything other than the amount of lackluster sex he’d had in his life.

“How about some ice cream and Michelle Pfeiffer?” he asked, standing up and holding his hand out for her to take.

When they got downstairs, his mom was sitting in the kitchen, her long fake nails tapping against the counter as she sorted through some mail. “Hey mom,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek before grabbing the ice cream out of the fridge to get him and Robin some. “Want some ice cream?”

She didn’t really acknowledge Steve beyond a glance at first, sighing when he offered her ice cream. “You know I’m on a diet, Steve,” she said.

Steve frowned and scooped the two bowls of ice cream before heading into the living room. He shoved the Scarface VHS rental, which he’d just never returned before Family Video got split in half, into the VHS player. He joined Robin on the couch and held up his arm, letting Robin fit herself snuggly against his side.

He knew how it looked from the outside, how his parents saw his relationship with Robin, but Steve didn’t care. They knew they were platonic soulmates, who gave a shit what anyone else thought. It was beyond nice to have a relationship with a girl where sex wasn’t the main goal.

After getting away from Family Video on account of the Earthquake splitting it in half, Steve had to look hard to find another job. He’d thought about trying to get into Tech again, but there was nothing he really wanted to do. He thought, once upon a time, that he wanted to be a mechanic, but he didn’t really want that anymore, wasn’t entirely sure he ever wanted it. He had nothing more than a passing curiosity about cars and a desire to drive nice ones. He was pretty sure that wasn’t enough to really propel him into a career.

“My uncle could probably get you hired at the plant,” Eddie said, peeking over the edge of his bed to where Steve was sprawled out on the floor. He’d been bitching about how his parents were up his ass about getting a job again, how they didn’t want him freeloading. “It’s too bad they don’t realize that the reason they still have a house at all is because of you.” He snorted.

“They would have just hired a housekeeper if I didn’t live there.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and stretched down to flick Steve in the forehead. “I meant because you flambéed Vecna, not because you like, make sure the pipes don’t freeze.”

Steve snorted and swatted at Eddie’s hand before putting his hands behind his head. “You really think Wayne’d get me a job? The dude barely knows me.”

“Wayne likes you well enough,” he said. “He’s just a grumpy old man that doesn’t know how to show how he’s feeling.”

Steve felt like he was on a fast track to being there himself. “I hope I still have my hair when I’m a grumpy old man.”

Eddie huffed and flopped back on the bed, the stretching to reach Steve had pulled at the still sensitive skin on his ribs. “Me too.”

A week later, Steve started his job at the plant. It was hard work, and dirty work, but it paid well. Paid well enough to make Steve wonder why Eddie and Wayne were struggling so much even before Vecna. He remembered one night, he’d made a casual comment about just throwing something out and buying a new one. He couldn’t even remember what the thing was that he’d said it about. Eddie had snapped at him with a vengeance, lecturing Steve on how he just didn’t understand. He lived in Loch Nora , his house had five garages and three guest bedrooms and a heated swimming pool ; how could he possibly understand what it was like to live in poverty?

Not just any poverty though, the kind of poverty where most people can’t comprehend it. The kind of poverty where Wayne had to choose between hot water or electricity some weeks. How Wayne had to carefully think about what order to pay the bills in so that they hit in an order that wouldn’t cause his bank to charge him overdraft fees. The kind of poor that left Eddie in occasionally smelly clothes and Wayne in a fold-out futon in his own house.

Eddie had been right though, it was a poverty that Steve didn’t understand. He had seen the sheer number of things in Eddie trailer and just assumed that they had the money to buy that stuff, only finding out later that most of it was just stuff that they’d had collected over the years and kept because, well, you never know when you might need it. He learned that most of the mugs and hats had been found in the trash and rescued, or found in the thrift shops or in yard sales. Even Eddie’s first guitar had been a hand-me-down from Wayne, something that he’d used to teach Eddie how to play, a hand-me-down from Wayne’s dad.

Steve had no idea how Wayne afforded the amps and the electric guitar, but he had to assume that maybe Eddie had bought those for himself with the money from dealing.

He wanted to ask, but it had been drilled into his head as a kid that it wasn’t polite to talk about money with others. So, he didn’t. 

“You settlin’ okay, boy?”

Steve looked up from his cuppa joe, “Yeah. Thanks for the recommendation,” he said, smiling at Wayne.

“Oh, don’t thank me. Eddie really sold ya. Said that you’re strong and willin’,” Wayne leaned against the counter next to Steve and looked over at the other employees. It was the middle of the night, a skeleton crew to keep the place up and running.

Steve nodded. “Got no choice, you know? Need the job.”

Wayne huffed a little laugh, more a harsh breath than anything. “Don’t I know it.”

“Five minutes!” the foreman called, announcing the near end of their break before they had to get back to work.

Steve moved to dump the rest of his coffee out when Wayne spoke, “I’d finish that if I were you,” he said, “The night gets long after this.”

He hadn’t been there long, was still learning the ropes, and was definitely still getting used to working in the middle of the night. Even though he really didn’t want the subpar coffee, Steve swallowed the rest of it down, knowing that he should heed all the advice he got.

Steve was grateful to have Wayne working with him at the plant, showing him the ropes. He was endlessly patient, far more patient than one would assume looking at him, but he supposed anyone who raised Eddie had to be pretty patient in order to not let the rambling and clinginess and drug dealing get to them. He knew for a fact that Hopper had caught Eddie plenty of times while they were still in highschool. Any man that could deal with Hopper knocking on the door any given number of times could deal with Steve occasionally pressing the wrong button. 

Steve’s own parents had never been patient with him. They had always expected the best, but they never lifted a finger to help him be the best. “Sorry,” Steve said, exasperated with himself as he messed up again. 

“Nothin’ to ‘pologize for, kid, yer learnin’,” Wayne said, even as he switched up the levers Steve had been using, getting the conveyor belt moving again. 

“I just feel like I’ve messed up so much,” Steve complained, feeling helpless. 

Wayne turned and looked at Steve. “Steve, everyone messes up sometimes. Some of us more than others, but yer doin’ just fine.” He placed a hand gently on Steve’s shoulder. “It’s not an easy job, cut yourself some slack.

Steve couldn’t help but look up to Wayne then, like the very few interactions they’d had up to that point were suddenly flipped in his mind. Wayne was gruff, but he wasn’t uncaring. Like Eddie had said, he was a grumpy old man that didn’t know how to show how he was feeling. Steve could see that now though, he could see that the older man cared even when he had no skin in the game, no real reason to care. But, like his nephew, he cared so much, about everything, and he played it off like he didn’t. “You and Eddie are pretty similar,” Steve pointed out.

Wayne huffed, “I dunno whether that’s a compliment or an insult.” 

“Yes you do.” Steve grinned, getting back to letting Wayne show him the differences, once again, between the levers and buttons in front of him.

The worst part about getting the job at the plant was that no one seemed to understand he needed to sleep in the evenings, he couldn’t be around to hang out. After the fourth phone call from Dustin in a row, and his dad snapping at him to do something about the boy who kept calling, Steve got up and got dressed. He was dead tired, but he drove to Dustin’s house to find a very annoyed freshman standing on the stoop. “You’re late!”

“I said you had to get another ride,” he bitched, throwing the car into drive and making his way towards the Wheeler house. Dustin hit Steve’s shoulder, “You gotta get Will too! Jonathan’s in Indianapolis this week!”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Steve yelled, yanking the wheel in an illegal u-turn and making his way towards the Byers house. He only felt a little satisfaction when Dustin bumped his head on the window and threw a bitch fit.

Will slid into his backseat with considerably less bitching than Dustin, just a mild-mannered ‘Hello’ tossed his way as Steve turned back onto the road towards the Wheeler residence. Normally he’d give Dustin shit, but maybe the look on Steve’s face was enough to keep Will from making too much noise.

Steve dropped the kids off and was going to just leave, but he supposed he should make sure they had a ride home, so he followed them into the house. He found the gaggle of kids in the basement, but no sign of Eddie. “Where’s Eddie?” He asked one of the band members.

“Kitchen. Mrs. Wheeler needed his help with something.”

Steve nodded and made his way up the stairs, finding Eddie exactly where Jeff had said he would be. He hung back and watched with amusement as Eddie knelt on the counter, stretching his arm high above his head in a move that Steve knew hurt because of the scars. He was trying to reach a vase that Mrs. Wheeler had stored way up on top of the cabinets. He was going to announce his presence, but he knew that Eddie had a bad habit of flailing when he got surprised, and he didn’t really want to see Eddie fall off the counter.

Once the vase had been reached and pulled down, Eddie hopped off the counter, catching Steve’s eye and smiling. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Yes, but Dustin is a butthead,” Steve replied. “You mind giving him a lift home?”

“I can have Ted drive him home, if it’s too much trouble,” Mrs. Wheeler said, smiling as she placed the flowers Eddie had brought into the vase.

“Thanks Mrs. Wheeler,” Steve said, walking with Eddie back out to his car. “Flowers, really?”

Eddie snorted. “Well, Wayne had bought them because he was gonna ask his someone special on a date, then he found out they were allergic to flowers. So he was both dejected and he had flowers. Rather than tossing them, I figured I’d bring ‘em here and give them to Mrs. Wheeler. She is being nice enough to let us use her basement every week,” he pointed out.

The mental image of a guy like Wayne Munson buying flowers for a date threw Steve for a loop, but he supposed even old people deserved to feel loved. He still remembered the rampage his mother had gone on back when his father had brought home flowers one night, leaving them in his office where they were apparently not supposed to be found. She found them anyway and was so elated, until he told her that they weren’t for her, that he would be dropping them off at the hospital because his secretary had been in an accident. Considering the rumors about the affair, it was not all that surprising that his dad had to buy new flowers the next morning. And a bunch of new plates. And a new vacuum.

Eddie leaned up against the door of the Beemer even after Steve had gotten in, the window rolled down. “Make sure everyone gets home, okay?” Steve requested.

Eddie nodded and slapped the roof of the car twice. “After work ends you should come over,” he said, “I’ll make breakfast.”

“You can cook?” Steve asked, skeptical at best. Steve had never eaten Eddie’s cooking, to his knowledge at least. Usually if they ate at the trailer it was take out or leftovers. But Steve was still pretty sure the leftovers were also from take out. 

“Sometimes,” Eddie joked, “Got a few recipes for the good shit. Have a good night, Steve.” He straightened up, smacking the roof of the car twice more before turning to head inside.

Chapter Text

That night at the plant was grueling, though mostly it was because he had been unable to fall back to sleep after Dustin had woken him up. He rolled up on the trailer park and parked right next to Wayne, yawning as he kicked open the door to his car. Realistically, he knew that Eddie wouldn’t have said boo if he canceled, but Steve carried through on his plans 99% of the time. Maybe Eddie would suggest smoking and he could nap in his bed though, that’d be nice.

When Wayne unlocked the door and let them both in, the smell inside the house was divine. Steve kicked off his heavy work boots and shrugged off his coat before making his way towards the kitchen to see what Eddie was in the midst of making. Wayne went towards the bathroom to wash off the night’s grime and Steve couldn’t blame him. “What are these?” He asked, picking up one of the balls on the plate.

“Not finished,” Eddie said, smacking the back of Steve’s hand with a spatula. “Go change, you can just borrow something. I gotta fry the rest of these.”

Steve shrugged and did as he was told, making his way towards the bedroom and rifling around in Eddie’s drawers until he found some clothes to pull on. He stepped back to avoid getting hit in the foot when something fell out of a sweater he’d pulled off the bottom of the drawer, one of the only pieces of not-black clothing in his drawers. When he saw what it was, it suddenly felt like all the oxygen in the room had been removed. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes scanned the oiled-up chest of a man, his hands barely visible where they were clearly unbuttoning his pants:

BLUEDREAM a sexual fantasy

THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF NUDES a sneak preview

LOVERS HOROSCOPE

A GUIDE TO GAY FLORIDA

SUMMER FASHION FORECAST

A TRUCKDRIVER LETS IT ALL HANG OUT

Steve’s fingers shook as he reached to pick up the magazine, casting a glance over his shoulder towards the still mostly-closed door as he flipped through the pages, the arousal simmering in his gut making him feel nauseous and guilty. His eyes widened as he traced the pages with his eyes, traced the forms of the men in them, the tight lid he’d been keeping on his feelings about men loosening somewhat.

He thought he was cured .

Steve haphazardly shoved the magazine back into the sweater and back into the drawer, pulling out a black sweater and pulling that over his head. He suddenly felt jittery and nervous, something he wasn’t all that used to feeling.

When he opened the door, he came face to face with Eddie, his fist raised and poised to knock. “Thought you got lost,” he joked before simply turning back to the kitchen.

Steve had tried so many times not to think too hard about Eddie and how he looked, but suddenly, with the magazine fresh in his mind, Steve couldn’t help but let his eyes wander. Usually, Eddie wore black jeans that kind of hung off his frame and a baseball tee with the Hellfire logo, but in the early morning hours, cooking breakfast for Steve and Wayne, he was wearing just boxers and a rumbled ACCEPT t-shirt. It was then that he realized that the t-shirt was… not explicit but definitely leaning there. The thick thigh of a man, the utility belt, and the ball clenched in a fist. Eddie’s hair was up too, something Steve had never seen despite the amount of time they’d spent together in the time since Vecna.

When Steve hadn’t answered, Eddie had turned to look at Steve again, noticing his roaming eyes but checked-out look. “Something wrong?” he asked, genuinely concerned. Steve had been more spacey in the past couple weeks and he was starting to worry Eddie, like ‘maybe he should go to a neurologist’ worry.

Steve forced himself to step forward, shaking his head. “Just tired from work,” He lied, sitting at the small island counter and watching Eddie’s movements as he filled the little fried dough balls with something. “How’d you learn to make those?”

Eddie hummed and plopped three finished products on a plate. “My mom,” he said, sliding the plate towards Steve and smiling. “And Wayne. Mostly Wayne,” he admitted, grabbing his own plate with donuts on it.

“You don’t talk about your mom much,” Steve pointed out. He knew that she wasn’t around anymore, but he didn’t know why or how or if that meant she was dead or just abandoned him. “I know you said your dad’s in prison, though.”

Eddie huffed. “Yeah, fucked up family Munson,” he said, no real heat behind his words, more like he was resigned to the fact. “I didn’t come to live with Wayne until I was nine though, so the first half of my life I lived with my mom and dad. Mom was hooked on cocaine and my dad was a criminal. I wasn’t lying when I said when the other kids were learning to fish or play ball, I was learning to hotwire.”

Steve took a bite of his donut, making a noise of happy surprise. “This shit is good,” he said, “Usually not a big jelly donut person, but shit man, this is delicious,” he mumbled, shoving another bite in his mouth and barely swallowing before responding to Eddie’s comments about his family. “I didn’t not believe you, about the hotwiring thing, I mean, shit, I saw you do it.”

Eddie chuckled and nodded, shoving his own donut in his mouth. “Yeah, luckily you were the driver though, I’d have driven us right into a ditch.”

“Well, I’m kind of surprised that I pulled it off to be honest. I’d never driven an RV, always kind of wanted to though.”

Eddie smirked. “Yeah, with your gaggle of kids and your pregnant wife?” he teased, shoving another donut in his mouth even as Steve choked on his.

“You heard that?!”

“Dude,” Eddie deadpanned once his donut was gone, “I was sitting with my back against your seat, you thought that was gonna be a private conversation?” He snorted, “Too bad Nancy didn’t seem to want you back. Kind of thought she was gonna.”

“You made that pretty obvious,” Steve finished off his plate and stood, rinsing it off in the sink and leaning against it. “I don’t know if I would have bothered saying anything to her if you hadn’t mentioned her jumping into the lake without any hesitation…” He admitted, “I think I had… I’d given up on her, you know? Like, I loved her. She’ll always be special, first love and all that shit, but we want very different things in life.”

Eddie nodded in understanding even if he couldn’t empathize completely. Eddie had never been in love, he didn’t know the feelings that Steve talked about. At most, he’d had a bunch of crushes that were mostly never allowed to see the light of day. Eddie hated Hawkins, but he didn’t want to get run out of it for being queer either. He thought maybe he and Chrissy could have been something, if she hadn’t died, if she hadn’t been dating Jason, who knows. She also could have just been feigning her interest in him. Or maybe Eddie got swept up in making Chrissy comfortable and his feelings took liberties with that information. “Can’t say I really get it, but you’re a catch, I’m sure someone will want you and your six kids and white picket fence.”

Steve shrugged. “I mean.” He tapped his foot, thinking about the magazine in Eddie’s room. “Is that even your scene?”

Eddie looked at him, eyebrows raised but eyes hooded, like he was appraising Steve, trying to puzzle out what the comment meant before standing with his own plate, “You’re right, Steve, definitely not my scene,” he commented, dropping his plate in his sink and leaning against the counter next to him. “That doesn’t bother you?”

He wasn’t going to come right out and say that he’d seen the magazine, he wasn’t going to out Eddie, especially when he couldn’t be sure that Eddie understood his comment, but he shrugged. “Nah. Different strokes for different folks, right?” he chuckled.

Eddie huffed a little and pushed off the counter. “Come on, you must be exhausted. And I’m pretty tired too. The campaign ended up running really late.” Steve trailed behind Eddie into his room just as Wayne emerged from the bathroom. Eddie shut the door behind him, though it creaked back open a couple inches since it was broken. It stayed shut but only if you jiggled it just right so it latched. Eddie didn’t bother most of the time unless he was jerking off or smoking a joint.

Steve helped himself to a seat on Eddie’s bed, scooting back to lean against the wall. “We smoking?” he asked.

Eddie hummed. “If you wanna,” he said, making his way back to the door to jiggle it closed. He opened the window and grabbed a pre-rolled spliff from on top of his dresser. He lit it and climbed onto the bed next to Steve, sitting close enough to feel the heat of his leg where their thighs pressed together. He handed it to Steve. “So what’s eating you?”

“Hmm?” He took the spliff, breathing in deep before slowly letting the air out of his nose, relishing a bit in the taste of tobacco mixed in. “What do you mean?”

Eddie’s eyes tracked the smoke that curled up out of Steve’s mouth when he spoke, taking the spliff back. He took a long drag before handing it back to Steve. “I mean , that you’ve been acting… off,” he said, his head lolling on his neck until he was looking at Steve, “Like… sometimes you just space out and it’s like you’re totally checked out. If it’s… you know, trauma or whatever from the Upside Down, we can talk about it.”

Steve snorted, choking a little on the smoke though he recovered quickly. “Nah, I mean, shit, I’m sure you don’t wanna talk about that,” he said dismissively. 

Eddie furrowed his brow and stared at Steve’s profile for a long few seconds before sitting forward and leaning over, getting his face in Steve’s view. “About what? Nearly dying? You think I ain’t got issues from that? Steve, if I couldn’t talk to Wayne about it I think I’d go crazy. It’s bad enough I can’t tell Jeff or Gareth or Paul, you know? But fuck if an NDA is gonna stop me from talking about it, at least to the people who can help.” He thumped back into his previous position, waving his hand with the spliff and accidently knocking hot ash onto his leg. “Uncle Wayne couldn’t stomach the thought of me having nightmares all the time without any idea what was causing them .”

Steve looked contemplative for a moment as he snagged the spliff back for his turn, but he didn’t say anything for a few passes. “I’ll think about it,” he finally said.

Eddie nodded. They finished the spliff in relative silence, the only noise the tap-tap-tapping of Eddie’s fingers against his thigh and the slight squeak in the springs in Eddie’s bed from his foot bouncing up and down with pent up energy.

“Take a nap,” Eddie huffed, the spliff gone and Steve zoning in and out. When he felt Steve’s head knock against his shoulder for the third time, he knew he needed to say something.

“But we’re hangin,” Steve said stubbornly.

“We can still hang,” Eddie said, nudging Steve to lay down, watching as he wrapped his arms around Eddie’s pillow and breathing deep before letting a long breath out of his mouth.

“Just a little one,” Steve promised, already half-way to unconsciousness.

It was about a month after his talk with Steve that Will decided that he needed to talk with someone else. His brother had responded with tact, but the only information that Will could find on rape had been perpetrated against women. Will had almost fooled himself into thinking that men couldn’t be raped, though his critical thinking skills told him that any unwanted sexual act, whether acted upon a man or a woman, was sexual assault or rape. Further, he was pretty sure it didn’t matter if the assailant was male or female. Still, if Steve had let it go on so long…

Will shook his head, leaned his bike against the trailer and knocked. It took a long time for Eddie to come to the door, looking rumpled by sleep despite it being late afternoon. He squinted at Will, like he was debating even letting him into the trailer or just going back to sleep, but eventually he gave a little lift of his shoulders like ‘might as well’ and let him inside. “Your mom know you’re here?” He asked, turning towards the kitchen and getting himself a drink.

“Yeah,” Will lied. She was at work and thought he was biking towards Mike’s house. She thinks the trailer park is too far away to bike to. He loved his mother, but since everything with the Upside Down started she’d been keeping him on a short leash. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“About the campaign? Because I already told you I wasn’t spilling shit,” he said, leading the way into the trailer and heading straight to the kitchen to pour himself a mug of cold coffee sitting in the coffee pot. He didn’t even bother heating it up, just taking a swig of the dark, cold liquid.

Will shuddered and shook his head. “No, it’s not about DnD. It’s actually…” He leaned against the counter opposite Eddie and folded his hands in front of him. “It’s a… sensitive matter. Secret.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow as he took another long drink of coffee. “Alright,” he said with a shrug, “I can keep a secret.” Honestly, Eddie kind of thought Will was just going to tell him he was gay, which would be surprising if only because Eddie didn’t think the kid seemed ready to tell anyone, that, and he and Eddie weren’t that close. It probably wasn’t the safest option in their town, but Eddie would keep it quiet.

Will seemed to struggle a little. “So, I guess my question is like, uh, can a guy be raped? Or, uh, sexually assaulted?” Will quickly continued before Eddie could interrupt to ask if it was about him. “I was doing some research, for school, and it seems like all the articles and research and stuff only mention that women can be raped. Or assaulted.”

Eddie slowly placed his cup down and leaned his hands on the small kitchen island, leaning forward and looking at Will like he could somehow see into his soul. “You do realize that I’ve been in that shithole of a high school for seven years, right? I know that we don’t cover sexual assault or rape in any curriculum. People like to pretend that it simply doesn’t happen, especially to men.” Will didn’t have an immediate comeback and Eddie sighed. “Come on. We don’t wanna wake Wayne up.” He picked his cup back up and waved Will towards his tornado of a bedroom.

He’d never been in Eddie’s bedroom and he looked around, taking in the chaos, the posters, the unopened box of condoms on the nightstand. Will flushed and looked at Eddie, who was patting the bed. Eddie sat across from Will on one of his amps.

“You don’t have to tell me why you want to know if you don’t want to, but yes, guys can be raped. There’s this… stigma I guess, that guys always want sex, so they can’t be raped. That’s not true and it shouldn’t be believed. I wish the world was less scared to talk about it, because it makes being queer extra hard.”

“You’re queer?”

“You didn’t know?” Eddie asked, cocking his head towards Will with an incredulous laugh, raising an eyebrow. “They don’t call me ‘The Freak’ just because I like heavy metal and dress kind of funny.”

Will was quiet for a second before whispering, “Me too.”

Eddie smiled and reached over to ruffle Will’s hair. He was a good kid, just the right amount of sass and respect in his little body. “Don’t go telling everyone, okay? About either of us. It’s not really… safe.”

“No… I kind of had that feeling.” He twiddled his thumbs before sighing again. “I can’t tell you who, but I think someone was assaulted when they were younger. Taken advantage of by an adult. I don’t know if he knows. And I don’t know if I should, like, talk to him about it? Ask if he’s okay? Apparently, it went on for a long time and while he acts like it was a consensual relationship and stuff, he also acts… traumatized,” he blurted out, tucking his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “If they don’t know though, is it cruel to tell them that they were?”

Eddie had to think about that, had to think on Will’s words for a while before opening his mouth again. Generally, he was the kind of person who spoke before he thought, but this was a sensitive matter and it required him to take it slow, think it through. He didn’t want to steer the kid wrong when he was clearly in distress about this. “I think he should know. I can’t say I know a lot about it, but…” He rubbed his chin. “I was abused as a kid, neglected, smacked around, you know, and I thought that was totally normal. You know, I thought all kids had their heads forcibly shaved and went to school with bruises hiding under their clothes. I thought most kids got nothing more than toast to eat unless they were very, very , well behaved.” Eddie sighed hard, rubbing his eyes. “But then I came to live with Wayne and while he hasn’t always had the money to support a kid, never wanted a kid, uh, he’s always made sure there was food on the table for me and if money was sparse, he’d go hungry so I could eat. It… wasn’t until living with Wayne and feeling his unconditional love, feeling him put me first above everything that I realized that what I went through wasn’t normal.”

Will stared at Eddie, unblinking and surprised. He knew there had to be some reason why Eddie lived with his uncle, but he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting the reason to be. He knew first-hand what it was like to grow up in a family where his mom struggled to put food on the table, but never had any of them had to actually go hungry. Between his mom working as many hours as she could at the shop and then Jonathan contributing later, Will had grown up poor, but not hungry . He couldn’t imagine being in Wayne’s position, or Eddie’s. It was different in his household, if only because his mom had left Lonnie when Will was still young. He knew Johnathan and his mom suffered at his hand, but Will himself had never had to bear witness to it. He got the neglect, but not the physical abuse.

“It wasn’t smooth either. I was an angry kid, as kids from abusive homes tend to be. Um, I would lash out at Wayne, get in fights, run away. I can’t say Wayne never got mad,” Eddie laughed a little, a smile on his face. “But he never yelled at me, never raised a hand against me… He’s got all these… um, like parenting books, I guess.” He looked at Will. “That’s why I even know any of this, Wayne’s kind of explained it. I was all traumatized and shit and I was lashing out because, I guess,  I didn’t know how to process emotions properly. Honestly, I probably still don’t. I’m in no way, shape, or form, perfect, but I would be in a way worse place without Wayne. So, I think that you should tell him. Or I could, if you don’t want to.”

“You know who I’m talking about then?” Will asked, a bit surprised. Though maybe he shouldn’t be. He didn’t have that many friends and the ones that were older than him numbered only five. Two of which were girls and one was his brother.

“I’ve got a fairly good idea, I think. He’s a good guy, he could really benefit from working through the trauma he doesn’t know he has. Unless you know, him working his way through the female population of Hawkins is him ‘working on it’.” Eddie muttered. He didn’t want to admit that he was jealous, but well, Steve being able to go out and get a date while Eddie just couldn’t sucked. 

Will winced a bit at the dig at his friend. “Steve-”

Eddie held up a hand and sighed, loud and put-out sounding, “No, you don’t have to defend him, I’m just being a petty asshole because… well, you know, because I can’t just go out with a guy whenever I please.”

Will hummed, if nothing else, it was probably just proof that Eddie was still working on being less of an asshole. “But… it’s not gonna hurt him? Knowing, that is.”

“I’m sure it will,” Eddie said. Eddie licked his lips before standing up and pacing across the dirty floor. “So, in my case, it hurt finding out that I was abused, you know? I was… I didn’t know why . I didn’t get it. Why didn’t my dad love me? Why did my mom never stop him? Why didn’t any adults step in when I showed up at school with no lunch and no money to buy one? Why didn’t my PE teachers say anything about the bruises? Right?” He stopped and turned towards Will, holding his hands out.

“Right,” Will said slowly, figuring the hands out meant he wanted a response. Just like that, Eddie was pacing again, his hands flailing about him.

“It hurt, it sucked, and I had to put in a lot of effort to learn to deal with my shitty childhood. But , I’m not that angry kid anymore. I’ve learned to channel that aggression into my music, I’ve learned that not every adult is going to hurt me. I stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop with Wayne and to accept that he’s not his brother. I couldn’t have done that without healing. Steve’s got issues dating, I bet he struggles to form romantic relationships because of this abuse, and he doesn’t know that.

“I can’t speak for him, and I know that his situation and mine are very different, but I think it would be good for him to know that there is a reason why he feels whatever way he does.”

Eddie finally stopped his frantic movements, stopping to look at Will.

“Sure, but… who’s gonna help him? He’d turned down the counseling from Hawkins Lab.”

Eddie shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said honestly, “but he could start with research? He could probably ask his parents.”

Will had never met Steve’s parents, hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them during any of the cataclysmic events that rocked their small town. Sure, he knew of the Harrington’s. He knew that Mrs. Harrington was a socialite, very well respected if you were in those sorts of circles. Will Byers and his mother were not in those circles. Mr. Harrington was a big-name business man, another person that his family would have no business actually knowing. Beyond his parents probably going to school with them.

“Steve doesn’t really talk about his parents. I don’t even know if he likes them.”

Eddie shrugged. “Whether he likes them or not isn’t really the question though, it’s whether or not they’d get him help if he asked.”

“Alright. I’ll, uh, I think I should be the one to talk to him. You know? He didn’t tell you and I don’t want him to think I’m out here spreading rumors.”

“Good choice, kid.”

Chapter Text

Will left Eddie’s trailer feeling a little less conflicted about whether or not Steve was assaulted, though he still had to think about how to approach the topic with Steve. He knew that realistically, Will was just a kid. He could drop it. Steve was living a relatively good life now, maybe he wasn’t as traumatized as he thought he was. He was lost in his own thoughts when a horn nearly startled him right off his bike. He came to a shaky stop after accidently diving for a gutter at the sound of a horn. “Sorry!” Steve yelled through the window, coming to a stop right next to Will. “Does your mom know you’re all the way out here?”

“Yes!” Will shouted back, then, after a long look from Steve, he sighed, “No.”

“Get in,” Steve huffed, stepping out and grabbing the bike to throw it in the back of the car. Will had learned that they weren’t allowed to put their own bikes in the back because Steve had a moving blanket back there to avoid getting dirt everywhere and he didn’t trust the kids not to make a mess. When Steve plopped back down in the front seat, Will stared at him, “What? I got something on my face?”

“No,” Will answered, looking forward again. “I was uh…” He started as Steve steered the car back onto the road. “I…” He furrowed his brow. “You think boys can be assaulted?”

“Sure, technically I was assaulted by Jonathan and Billy, right? Though Jonathan’s was admittedly deserved.”

It took Will an embarrassingly long time to realize that he’d forgotten a key word in that question and that Steve was not telling him his brother had done some horrible unwanted sexual act to Steve. “No, I meant sexually. Like, uh, you see in the news when a woman is raped. That kind.”

Steve was quiet, his grip tightening ever so slightly on the steering wheel. “I don’t know Will, why?”

Will shifted uncomfortably. “What if I said that I think boys can be sexually assaulted?”

“I’d say you’re a smart kid. You probably know what you’re talking about.”

Will knew the drive wasn’t that long to get to his house, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to drop the bomb while Steve was driving either. “Steve, can you come inside for a few minutes?”

Steve glanced at Will before turning his attention back on the road. “Sure. Did something happen?”

“Yeah, but not to me.” Will looked back out the window, watching the mailboxes pass until they reached his front lawn. Steve pulled up to the house and cut the engine.

“Who to?”

Will looked at Steve, nerves twisting his guts. He swallowed and stepped out of the car without answering, pulling his bike out of the back even as Steve told him to wait, that he’d get it. He led Steve inside and forced him to sit down at the table. Steve went. Willing but confused.

“Will, come on man, what’s going on?”

Will finally sat across from Steve and folded his hands on the table, looking at Steve, “You.”

“Me?” Steve questioned, “What about me? What’d I do?”

“Mrs. Jenkins,” Will clarified, though it only seemed to bring more confusion to Steve’s features. He licked his lips before unfolding his hands and splaying them out on the table. “I think that Mrs. Jenkins assaulted you, and… I’m worried that you don’t fully… know that,” he said slowly, unsure.

Steve recoiled, slamming his hands down on the table and shooting up, the chair under him hitting the counter from the strength of Steve standing up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve said, his face closed-off.

Will flinched a little from the sudden movement and loud noise, but he held his ground. “Steve-”

“No,” Steve said forcefully, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. Beth and I… it wasn’t that .” He turned away from Will, clearly gearing up to just leave.

In a moment, Will was out of his chair and grabbing the back of Steve’s sweater. He knew that Steve didn’t want to talk about this, that it was embarrassing to think about. “Steve,” Will said again, quieter this time, imploring Steve to just hear him out.

Steve took another step forward, pulling the sweater free and leaving.

Will sighed and sank back down into his chair.

Steve fumed as he drove, turning more aggressively and braking hard. He couldn’t believe the nerve of that kid. He knew Will had gotten a lot sassier as he grew up, meeting him back in 1984 versus seeing him now was completely different. Clearly the same kid, but the attitude . Steve sucked in a deep breath and stopped his car in his driveway.

He could feel his heartbeat in his neck and the pulsing behind his eyes. His jaw hurt from clenching. He needed to hit something. With a deep breath, he stepped out of the car, though only long enough to grab a bat and some balls before getting back in his car and driving to the batting range.

Baseball had never been Steve’s sport of choice, but not because he was bad. Steve just had to pick two sports and he’d picked swimming and basketball. He enjoyed them a little more. Hawkins didn’t have a lot of kids for baseball anyway, so it mostly came down to playing in class. Now though, he was at least glad he knew how to hit.

And he did. For hours .

Steve refilled the automatic pitcher a few times before he’d sweat through all his clothes and his arms felt like jelly from swinging. He did feel a little less frustrated; though he still felt an odd sense of rage thinking back on what Will said. Steve wasn’t usually one who was quick to anger, even though he was quick to annoy. It took a lot for him to yell or lash out usually, but for some reason, Will even suggesting that Steve might have been sexually assaulted had Steve flying off the handlebars.

He’d wanted to hit Will.

It was a brief passing flash of anger so intense that it had been hard for Steve to repress it, but he did. He hadn’t hit Will, hadn’t even really yelled at him. But now he was left thinking about why he’d reacted so viscerally to it.

It just made him feel worse about all his other thoughts surrounding Mrs. Jenkins in the past few weeks.

The next few days he’d spent mostly avoiding people, he kept his head down and went to work. He didn’t put forth the effort to see Eddie or Robin. He didn’t drive the kids around either, though they wouldn’t stop asking. 

“Okay spill,” Robin said, standing in Steve’s doorway in the middle of the afternoon. She’d just woken him up from a particularly confusing dream, and he was equally as confused as to why Robin was standing on his doorstep. 

“What?” He looked past Robin and saw her bike laying in the driveway, “Did you bike here?”

“Yeah, because my dear old Dingus wasn’t answering the phone this morning and he’s been avoiding me for days. So, spill. What’s eating you?”

Steve sighed and opened the door wider to let Robin in. “My dad had someone over this morning to upgrade the phone lines. I wasn’t not answering the phones so much as they weren’t ringing.”

“Hmm,” Robin said, “I guess that explains the first part, but what about avoiding everyone.”

She followed behind him as Steve made his way towards the kitchen to dig up something to eat. “I’ve been really tired lately,” Steve said, mostly honest. Yeah, it wasn’t really the whole reason why he was avoiding people, but it wasn’t not true. He was exhausted since switching to the overnight shift. He pulled a container of watermelon cubes out of the fridge and they sat down to munch on them as they chatted. 

“That can’t be all,” Robin persisted. 

Steve snorted, “You try switching your sleep cycle from waking up at 7am to going to sleep at 8am.” He said, “It’s hard. I was taking a nap when you rang the doorbell actually.”

“Oh.” Robin probably had never put much stock into how hard it was on the body to change something so concrete as a sleep schedule. Then again, Steve was probably one of the only people she knew who actually went to sleep at a set time and woke up at a set time, everyday of the year. 

“And I’ve been having more migraines, which I think are probably because of the lack of sleep.”

“Yeah, probably. How’s that going? With your parents home?” She asked, knowing that his parents weren’t the easiest to deal with. Steve had a complicated relationship with them, he loved them, but they were less than stellar. 

Steve shrugged and grabbed a napkin to wipe his chin when watermelon juice escaped from an extra juicy bite. “I mean, it’s fine I guess.” He said, “Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I think they’re planning another trip, this one for leisure. They actually invited me to go with them, but I can’t ask for time off this early into starting at the plant.” 

“Are you still planning to come to Chicago with me to check out that school this weekend?” 

“Yeah, of course. How else would you get there?” He joked.

Despite living in a small town, Steve didn’t run into people he didn’t want to see that often. He’d only seen Tommy and Carol a few times at the stores and such since graduating, so it hit him like a ton of bricks when he saw Mrs. Jenkins out with her husband one day. Steve was doing his grocery shopping for the week, stocking up on after-run snacks since he’d recently gotten back into running, his parents had left for their two-week stay in Panama and he was back to fending for himself. 

It was just a normal day when he caught her eye over the aisle of granola bars. He’d argued with Will about whether or not he’d been abused and sexually assaulted by her, but standing there… he knew Will was right. The way his chest squeezed, how breathing got harder. Steve had seen panic attacks before, though few and far between. He accidently dropped his handbasket and rather than try and pick it up, he simply left it and headed for the exit. He needed fresh air.

Steve stumbled outside, hand grabbing the railing on the glass door for support as he gulped in air and found no relief in it. Steve tried to look around him, but he felt like he could barely see, he wasn’t absorbing any new information about his surroundings.

“Steve?” He jerked, ripping his arm out of the grip he suddenly felt on his elbow.

“Just me, son.”

Steve blinked a few times like he was trying to see through the sun, except he was trying to see through black spots clouding his vision. Wayne carefully laid a hand on his elbow again, steering him out of the way of passersby. He didn’t say anything as Steve got his breathing back under control, as his vision cleared and his hearing went from the roaring of blood in his ears to the sounds of foot traffic on the street. He swallowed and bobbed his head a few times, not really nodding, but just coming to grips with what happened.

“You alright?” Wayne asked.

“Uh, I think so,” Steve said. He’d heard of people having panic attacks, knew what they were since he’d seen Will have one, he’d just never experienced one himself.

Wayne nodded slowly, letting go of Steve’s elbow once he looked more stable on his feet. “Should I ask what happened?” Wayne had also seen panic attacks he’d fought in wars with people who came home with panic disorders. He knew that it was a relatively new understanding of the human brain, but it was in no way a new phenomenon.

Steve took a breath and looked over Wayne’s shoulder, back towards the store. “Just… saw someone that brought up some bad memories.”

Wayne nodded. “You look like you could use some company.”

Company probably wouldn’t solve his problem, and he hated to put Wayne out, but he did need to do his shopping. “Alright,” he said softly. They walked into the store side-by-side. Steve kept his gaze trained on the floor even as he walked over to his dropped handbasket and retrieved it, then, like a lost dog, he trailed behind Wayne as Wayne did his own shopping. He didn’t buy much, no longer in the mood to stock up, but Steve snuck a couple snacks for Eddie into his own handbasket, tossing them in Wayne’s bag once they checked out. He knew Wayne noticed, but he didn’t say anything.

When they finally parted ways in the parking lot, Steve felt a little lighter. He still felt a bit off-kilter from his panic episode, but there was no denying that Wayne was a comfortable presence.

Two days later, Steve drove his ass over to the Byers’ residence to apologize to Will. “Hey, your brother home?”

Jonathan looked stoned, but he shrugged and opened the door wider to let Steve in. He supposed that after saving the world half a dozen times together, Steve doesn’t really need to explain to Jonathan why he wants to talk to his freshman brother. He wasn’t Billy, he understood that he wasn’t just a creep. “Room?” Steve asked, already stepping down the hall.

“Think so. Just knock first or he’ll yell.”

Steve snorted, he knew what he was getting up to at 14, so there was no surprise that unexpected interruptions were not welcome. He knocked on the door and only a moment later Will was pulling it open. “Steve?” he asked, surprised.

“Hey kid, you mind letting me in? I think we need to talk.”

Will looked surprised and taken aback, but he opened the door wider to let Steve in.

Having grown up with relatively few things, it was nice to see Will’s room decorated with his personality. No god-awful plaid wallpaper with matching curtains, but he had art supplies all over his desk, books stacked on his nightstand, unkempt bed. Clearly Will wasn’t a kid that was forced to never make a mess. He sat down on the edge of the bed and Will wheeled his chair over and sat in front of him.

“I’m sorry, for the way I reacted the other night,” Steve said. Will nodded. “It doesn’t matter whether what you said happened or not, I reacted far too violently. You didn’t deserve that.”

Will nodded again and twisted his fingers in his lap. “So, did you think about what I said?”

Steve huffed and rolled his eyes a little. “I did, but that’s not a conversation I’m gonna have with a kid.” He stood and ruffled Will’s hair affectionately.

“Steve?” He turned back and looked at Will, already halfway to the door. “For what it’s worth, if you decide you were assaulted, you didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

It gave Steve pause, but he nodded, smiled, and thanked Will before ducking out of his room and heading to his own house.

The short drive home didn’t give Steve much time to think about everything that had happened in the past few hours, but he knew the time he spent cooking dinner and preparing for bed would give him time to ruminate on it. He went through the motions of tossing a premade lasagna in the oven and, while that heated, taking a long, hot shower.

Once Steve was more or less ready for bed, he checked the time, almost 2pm, and headed to grab his lasagna from the oven. He ate his dinner in silence, ruminating on his and Beth’s relationship. As he ate, Steve tried to puzzle out his feelings, writing down what could have made it assault and what maybe made it consensual. Though, he was coming to the frustrating conclusion that he simply didn’t know. He certainly didn’t want to admit that he was sexually assaulted, not just that, but manipulated into believing that it was a real relationship in spite of his age and the age of his teacher. He should probably get a second opinion, but who could he ask?

In the end, Steve went to sleep feeling unresolved about the whole situation and like he had no one to turn to. He certainly wasn’t going to trauma dump on a 14-year-old kid or any of the kids, Robin was busy nursing a broken heart and studying to get into college, he and Nancy weren’t that close anymore…

He looked like shit when he pulled up to the plant that evening, though luckily Wayne didn’t say anything. It was weird, forming a friendship with his friend’s parent outside of Eddie’s trailer, but it was nice. Wayne wasn’t talkative, but he got his point across without many words, unlike his nephew who could talk for hours and still not reach the point.

Chapter Text

Nights at the plant were long and the work wasn’t easy, but Steve enjoyed it. He could see why Wayne stayed. The few men they worked with were gruff with the sense of humor that hard-working fellas always seemed to have, but they were good people . Steve found himself laughing and joking right along with them, even if they teased him for his hair or for being so much younger than them. He didn’t mind, their jokes were still far kinder than the ones the freshmen threw his direction. Especially now that he was getting the hang of the job and making fewer mistakes. 

Wayne had been right though, the nights sometimes seemed to last forever, especially on the nights where things went wrong. Still, nothing beat walking out of the plant to see the sun rising over the cornfields, most of Hawkins was still asleep and the tranquility was nice. “Kid, you want breakfast?”

Steve jumped a little, lost in his thoughts as he stared into the sky. He looked over at Wayne, standing there with another man, Ennis. “Sure,” he agreed, casting one last look at the rising sun before getting in his Beemer and following Wayne.

“Can we smoke?”

Eddie blinked a few times, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. “Yeah,” Eddie chuckled, pulling the door open and letting Steve enter the trailer. After someone a few days ago had graffitied the side of their new trailer with the word ‘murderer,’ Wayne reiterated to Eddie how important it was to keep the door locked. “Wayne’s napping.”

Steve nodded and silently followed Eddie into his bedroom, jimmying the door shut behind them. While Eddie went to the window to prop it open, Steve went to Eddie’s dresser and dug around to pull out a clean shirt, changing out of his oil stained work shirt. After breakfast with Wayne and Ennis, Steve had just driven around aimlessly, not wanting to head back to his big, empty house, though he wasn’t sure his parents being home would actually help him here. Once he’d changed, he flopped down on Eddie’s bed, star fishing like he owned it.

“You looking to get high or take the edge off?” Eddie asked, grabbing his rolling papers, grinder, and weed out of his nightstand.

“High. High as a fucking kite .”

Eddie glanced at Steve before rolling a few joints. “Alright, but you, like, good, man? You don’t usually want to get high. Not since the Russians, you said.”

Steve huffed, hugging Eddie’s pillow to his chest and rolling onto his side, curled towards where Eddie was perched on the edge of the bed. “Just got a lot on my mind lately.”

After what Will came to Eddie with, he doesn’t doubt that. “Well, you don’t gotta talk, but if you wanna , I’m all ears.”

Steve nodded and sat up so he could actually smoke. “Thanks.”

They sat in silence as they smoked the first joint, some rock station playing music in the corner quiet enough to not disturb Wayne. As Eddie was lighting up the second joint, Steve broke the silence. “You ever sleep with someone you maybe shouldn’t have?”

Eddie raised an eyebrow and handed Steve the joint before leaning back on his hands, “Steve, I’ve never slept with anyone. Ever.”

“Really?” That wasn’t the answer Steve was expecting, though maybe he should have, considering the magazine he’d seen. “Why?”

Eddie shrugged, “Guess no one wanted to fuck the freak.” That was maybe not wholly true, but Steve didn’t need to know that. Eddie had made out with a couple people, though it never went beyond the wet slide of lips, Eddie just hadn’t been ready for all that. He’d even had a girlfriend for a few short weeks when he was 16, just to see what the hype was about, but he hadn’t liked the way she wanted him to pay so much attention to her. He had his own shit going on.

“Surely you must have had offers,” Steve protested, handing the joint back and watching Eddie’s lips with an unsteady focus as they pressed into the damp paper. “Girls are crazy curious about sex.”

“Maybe with you ,” Eddie chuckled, “You had the whole, rich-guy, nice hair, pretty face, athletic look going on. Not to mention you dress in what’s considered ‘stylish’.” As Eddie spoke he waved his hand up and down in a gesture of Steve’s body. “I, however,” he pressed his hand into his own chest, “live in a trailer park with my uncle, and while I like the way I dress, it is most definitely not for everyone.”

Steve couldn’t help but think back to the other day, with Eddie standing in the kitchen in boxers and a t-shirt. He looked good . Despite the fact that he had probably been as exhausted as Steve. He’d cooked for him, and sure, Eddie lived in a trailer, but it was clean and cozy. Eddie’s room wasn’t clean, but who gave a shit, they didn’t have vermin. His eyes traced up Eddie’s body, his neck was scarred pretty viciously from the attack, but the redness had faded into a light pink now. When his eyes finally landed back on Eddie’s face, he found that he was being watched.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Steve sighed, shrugged, and leaned back to stare at the stack of books on Eddie’s desk rather than at the man himself, who was causing too much confusion for just sitting there looking at him.

Eddie didn’t usually do that well sitting in silence, but he also wanted to give Steve the opportunity to speak if he decided he wanted to, rather than his usual schtick of railroading conversations. So, he lit up their last joint and handed it over to Steve, watching his eyes slowly turn red-rimmed.

Steve zoned out after a while, just thinking about how fucked up his life was before even finding out about Eleven and the Upside Down, he just hadn’t known it. “Eddie…”

“Yeah, Steve?” Eddie asked, turning his head slightly to look at his high friend, his hands itching to do something, the sitting still in silence finally getting to him.

Steve took a steadying breath as he gathered his courage. “I think I was sexually assaulted… but like, I don’t know…” He trailed off, looking so unsure of himself it pained Eddie to look at him that way.

Eddie scooted closer on the bed and reached a hand out to touch Steve’s knee. “If you think you were, you were. Period. If you hadn’t been, you wouldn’t feel the conflicted emotions. Do you… want to talk about it?”

Did he? Steve wasn’t sure. He wanted to understand though, and while Eddie hadn’t exactly been on his list for people to tell, he was there and he was listening. Steve fidgeted. “Do you think you’re too high to play some music?”

“Never,” Eddie grinned, shuffling off the bed and grabbing his acoustic and shutting off the radio. He sat back down on the bed, closer to Steve though not close enough to accidently jab him with the neck. “What am I playing, Stevie-boy?”

“That sad-ass folk music you were playing last time.”

Eddie huffed a laugh, but he complied, humming along as he started playing some soft country music, really setting the mood for Steve to talk about his assault if he felt like it.

He played for a long time before he felt Steve relax next to him, his shoulders slumping as he shifted back against the wall, bringing his legs up to his chest. Still, Eddie didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to pressure Steve.

Surprisingly, just being in Eddie’s presence made things feel a little more bearable, he didn’t feel quite so hopeless, though he was definitely still coming to grips with some hard-hitting truths about his life. “I just don’t know how to suddenly see myself as a victim.”

Eddie continued to pluck at his guitar. “I don’t think you have to suddenly see yourself that way.” He lowered his guitar and looked at Steve. “And even if you are a victim, it doesn’t diminish your value as a person, okay?”

“Sure fucking feels like it... I mean, fuck, I’ve never felt more gross about anything in my entire life.” Steve sucked in a breath and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes like he was fighting back tears.

“You know, you mentioned not all that long ago that I don’t talk about my family and how I ended up with Wayne… would you like to know?”

Steve blinked at Eddie before nodding, curious as to what that had to do with what they were talking about.

Eddie sniffed and set the guitar on the floor, scooting so that he and Steve were shoulder to shoulder. “My daddy used to beat on me and my mama,” he said, playing up a southern accent like his uncle had. He took a breath, ditching the joking tone, the conversation didn’t really call for it, he was supposed to be connecting to Steve, not making fun of him. “Uh, no jokes though, my dad wasn’t just teaching me to hotwire, he was also hitting me, starving me, forcing me to shave my head. It wasn’t until I came to live with Wayne that I realized that wasn’t normal , it was in fact, very fucked up. I imagine that you’re also kind of… reevaluating what is normal in life.”

Steve hadn’t thought about it that way, but he was. He had to reinvent a new normal from his already perceived idea. “But… I went willingly.”

“You were manipulated, Steve.”

“But it went on for so long!” Steve snapped, “How could I just not know?” He looked so frustrated and scared that Eddie wanted to wrap him in his arms, but he had a distinct feeling that it wouldn’t be a welcome gesture. “I slept with her for years ! At some point, isn’t that just fucking voluntary?”

Truthfully, as bad as Eddie wished he had the answers, he simply didn’t. His abuse was a totally different type, it was committed by family, not by a stranger, and while it had left him feeling helpless for a long time, he had Wayne to help. He couldn’t understand why Steve’s teacher had targeted him, or why the “affair” had lasted as long as it did, and he certainly didn’t understand the shame and guilt that accompanied sexual abuse. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I don’t have all the answers that you need, Steve, but I can listen without judging you. God knows I’m not perfect, but I’m more than willing to be there for you.”

Steve nodded against Eddie’s shoulder, curling into him like a child asking for comfort. It was hard for Eddie to watch Steve like this, knowing that this man had been through so much in the past few years and now there was more… How long until Steve hit his breaking point? Eddie didn’t want to push Steve, he already knew more than Steve had told him, “Do you wanna take a nap?” Steve didn’t respond right away, but Eddie didn’t bother asking again, he just picked his guitar up and started playing music again. If his shoulder felt a little wetter than normal, he wasn’t going to say anything.

After his small breakdown in Eddie’s trailer, which thankfully Eddie had not yet brought back up, Steve decided it was time to do some research. He was probably not the best to be doing his own research, he had better grades than Eddie, though he wasn’t entirely sure how. Still, it wasn’t like he was going to ask any of the kids to research this topic for him, or Nancy , he’d die of shame if she asked why he wanted to know.

Steve waited until his next day off before heading to the library armed with a notebook, a pen, and his glasses. He kind of doubted their local library would have any resources on sexual assault, but he had to at least try.

He didn’t know where to start his search, but he took a look around looking for self-help resources which seemed like a smart place. Eventually, he had to cave and ask for help finding materials on sexual health, which was as close to the reason he was there as he was going to admit to. The librarian looked at him skeptically, but pointed him towards the section marked Social Sciences and told him what numbers on the Dewey classification to look for. Steve… didn’t know much about libraries since he’d always coasted in high school, but he figured reading the spines would get him close too. It took a lot of searching before he stumbled upon materials that might actually be helpful to him, which he pulled down and stacked up in his arms.

He got back to the table he’d left his notebook at and dropped his stack of books, which he was surprised to find, books such as: “Rape and Sexual Assault” or “Sexual Assault on Children and Adolescents”.

“Okay…” Steve slides the book away from him and stares down at his page full of scribbled notes. Even after a full day of reading, Steve couldn’t say with certainty that he had been raped, or sexually assaulted, or whatever. With the library near closing, Steve put all the books back where he pulled them from before gathering up his small smattering of study materials and making his way towards the parking lot. After a brief internal debate, Steve got in his car and drove towards the trailer park, though he did have the common decency to stop and pick up some burgers for him, Eddie, and Wayne.

“Oh, wasn’t expecting you,” Wayne said when he answered the door, “Ed’s in the shower.”

“I brought food,” Steve said as he stepped into the trailer, “I hope that will make up for me imposing.”

“You’re no bother, you know that.”

Steve smiled and set the bag down on the counter, digging out the three meals and setting them on plates like he lived there. Lately, it seemed like he did.

When Eddie emerged from the bathroom, a cloud of steam wafting out after him, he was in just a towel with his hair tied up in a messy approximation of a bun, the water sliding down his neck and shoulders, “Oh,” Eddie tightened his grip on his towel, “I take it Wayne let you in?”

“Yeah,” Steve answered, trying and failing to not trace the path of water down Eddie’s spine where it disappeared into the quickly dampening towel. “Brought burgers.”

Eddie nodded once before disappearing into his room to change into his pajamas, Steve busied himself with boiling a pot of water to make a new batch of iced tea for the Munson’s, rather than be a creep and stare through the slight crack where Eddie’s door didn’t shut all the way.

By the time Eddie emerged from his room, with his hair tied up in a complicated looking towel knot on his head, the water for tea was boiling and Steve was having a conversation consisting mostly of sports scores with Wayne. “Ew, sports,” Eddie chuckled, reaching over Steve to grab the unopened bottle of barbeque sauce out of the cabinet.

Steve and Wayne both rolled their eyes, but turned towards the quickly cooling food and dug in now that Eddie was there to enjoy it with them.

After their dinner was eaten and Steve had finished making the iced tea, Wayne went to work while Eddie and Steve retired to Eddie’s bedroom. “So, what brings you to my humble abode, Sir Stephan?”

“Not my name,” Steve started, though once he sat down on Eddie’s bed he looked up at him, “You remember what we were talking about the other day?”

All of a sudden Eddie got a little more serious looking, even going so far as to pull the ridiculous looking towel off his head. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, so, I did a little bit of research.”

Eddie settled on the bed beside Steve, holding his hand out palm up between them if Steve wanted it for comfort, he wasn’t ashamed of the slight tremor in his fingers anymore, not when he knew Steve’s fingers trembled too.

Steve stared at the outstretched hand for just a second before slotting their fingers together and dropping them to the bed between them. “I didn’t find a lot of info… but what I did find really only talked about female victims.” He went silent for a moment before looking at Eddie, “What if Will is just wrong?”

“Do you think Will is ‘just wrong’? Or do you want to believe Will is ‘just wrong’?” Either way, Eddie couldn’t blame him.

Steve was silent for a moment before he squeezed Eddie’s hand tighter. “I want him to be wrong,” he whispered, “because if he’s right… then that means I have years of letting someone abuse and manipulate me without even knowing. I have years of being an active participant of my own abuse. I… I know that I didn’t know it was wrong, but, Jesus, she’s just been getting away with it, just because I kissed a boy?”

Eddie knew that the last bit of the sentence was not what he was supposed to be focused on, but he couldn’t help it. “You kissed a boy?” He watched in fascination as Steve’s eyes widened and he ducked his head, a flush crawling up his neck. “Whoa, hey, nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“It’s shameful.”

It took everything in Eddie to not pull his hand back, to not feel hurt by that statement. “Why?” he asked, softer than he felt.

Steve shuffled his feet, looking more like a kid than Eddie had ever seen him. “I thought I was cured.”

“Oh, Stevie, there ain’t a cure ,” he said softly, “It’s just who you are, and you’re not alone.”

Steve nodded, wiping his nose with his free hand, like he was trying not to cry. “Ronnie Harland… Beth saw me kissing Ronnie Harland under the bleachers my freshman year.” Steve sucked in a shuddering breath. “And she… she had me meet her in her office the next day and she…”

When Steve trailed off, Eddie squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to tell me everything, not if you don’t want to.”

Steve’s eyes cut to his for a brief moment before staring at the floor again, “I was hoping that maybe you’d understand what I don’t.”

“Steve… You were definitely assaulted. She took advantage of your age and her power, as well as society's stigma against men like us, and she used it to pressure you into a sexual relationship she had no right to have with you.” He reached out carefully to turn Steve’s face towards him, seeing the unshed tears in his eyes. “You were a kid and you didn’t deserve it.”

Steve sucked in a shuddering breath as the reality of everything dropped on him and he crumpled against Eddie’s chest, letting out years of pent up anger, fear, sadness, and disgust as he clung to Eddie.

Eddie, for his part, just held Steve through it. He was glad that Steve had opened up, even if it hurt. The guy had been keeping so much bottled up, so much held back. Eddie wasn’t sure he’d ever broken down like this. After a while, Eddie gently maneuvered them to laying down and eventually Steve fell asleep, right there curled up in Eddie’s bed.

When Steve woke up the next morning, he had a pounding headache and a kink in his neck from the hard pillow he’d been laying on. He blinked his eyes open and realized pretty quickly that he was in Eddie’s room. And that Eddie was his pillow.

He shot up out of bed, practically falling out of it in his haste. He definitely woke Eddie up, but he was out of the trailer before Eddie could get out a ‘good morning’ or a ‘get out’ or whatever he’d been about to say that Steve didn’t want to hang around and find out. He knew that Eddie was gay, or at least liked men, was he taking advantage of Steve’s vulnerability last night? Usually if Steve fell asleep in his bed, Eddie would go to the couch. They had a pattern.

They had a pattern .

Steve was almost all the way back to his house before he calmed down enough to realize that he was probably overreacting, but that didn’t mean that the fear wasn’t there. He trusted Eddie… but he had trusted Beth too. He shuddered as he pulled his car in next to his fathers and got out. Unsurprisingly, he could hear arguing the second he opened the car door. He faltered for only a moment before shutting his door again and backing out, heading towards Robin’s house. Maybe she was the person he should have confided in, but she had a tendency to ramble and talk in circles and while Eddie could definitely have a flourish to his sentence, he had also grown up with Wayne , meaning when he needed to, he could have a no bullshit demeaner.

“Hey, is Robin home?”

Robin’s mother looked surprised to see him, and one glance at his watch told him why. “She’s not awake yet, but I can get her if you need me to.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t even look at the time,” Steve said honestly. “I can come back later.”

Something on his face must have betrayed him though, because she opened the door a little wider. “No, it’s alright, I’ll wake her up. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, stepping into the house and waiting awkwardly in the foyer while Robin’s mom went to fetch a very disgruntled Robin. She looked hilarious with her hair half standing up on one side and her pajamas in disarray. “Hey Robbie.”

Unlike in his own home, Robin’s parents had decided to believe them when they said they weren’t dating, though the door still had to stay open when he was in her room. That was fine though. Robin curled back up in her bed and Steve settled himself into her desk chair, spinning around and looking at her posters. Everyone’s room said something about them.

What did his say?

He didn’t even decorate it himself. He wasn’t allowed .

“What brings you here at the ass-crack of dawn?” Robin asked, shuffling deeper into her bed and peering at Steve over the edge of the blanket.

“Couldn’t go home.” It was a lame answer that didn’t even begin to scratch the surface. “I… I think I fucked up. Maybe I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.”

Robin furrowed her brows. “Who? About what?”

Steve cast a glance at the open door before wheeling the chair right up to the edge of Robin’s bed and leaning into her space. “Eddie… I, uh, confided in him about something and… I don’t know.”

Robin shuffled back away from Steve’s terrible morning breath and reached into her nightstand for a bag of mints, handing a few to Steve before chomping on a couple herself. “I don’t know, Steve, Eddie doesn’t really strike me as that kind of guy, but if you’re sure I believe you.”

“Just… we were talking last night and I fell asleep in his bed and he was there with me when I woke up.”

Robin 100% didn’t see the problem, but she was patient with Steve, not always, but she tried to be when it mattered. “That’s a problem, why?”

“He’s gay , Robin.” His voice was low, but Robin still cast a glance at the door.

“Not cool to out someone, Steve.”

Steve ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know , okay, I know that and I normally wouldn’t but he’s always moved to the couch and yesterday I told him that I kissed a boy once and he stayed in the bed?”

“You what?!”

Steve recoiled at the sudden noise, looking towards the door before glaring at Robin.

“Sorry,” she whispered, “you what?”

“When I was a freshman, I kissed Ronnie Harland.”

“You’re gay?” Robin asked.

“No, no, I’m cured, Robin.” He saw the flash of hurt on her face before it morphed into anger.

“What do you mean ? There’s no cure .” Robin sat up finally and scooted closer. “Don’t you think that if there was really a cure, those of us who are also gay wouldn’t try it!” She was whisper-yelling, clearly not wanting to be overheard but trying to get her point across. “I know you can be an idiot sometimes but this is a step too far.”

A hurt for a hurt he supposed. He clenched his jaw as Robin called him an idiot, but he didn’t respond for a few seconds. “I don’t like boys anymore,” he insisted.

“Bull shit ,” Robin snapped, ripping herself free of her sheets and stomping towards the door, slamming in shut before getting in Steve’s space, “You don’t get to say that to me, Steve. Next you’re gonna offer to cure me? No thanks. There is nothing wrong with liking the same gender. People like you are just ignorant and dumb and you hurt others without even thinking of whether or not they want to change. I don’t want to marry some businessman and live at the end of a cul-de-sac pumping out kids and you don’t get to come in here and act like you know better because you learned to have sex with women the way I can’t force myself to have sex with men.” By the time Robin had finished her rant she was breathing heavily with tears clinging to her lashes.

Steve stared up at Robin in shock, feeling just as hurt and attacked as he’d apparently made Robin feel, though he hadn’t meant it. “I think I should go,” Steve said, standing up and blinking against the suddenly glossy-eyed feeling he had. He was too wound up and hurt from the heavy conversation the night before to deal with this. He had just wanted to see his best friend and tell her about what happened. He didn’t expect this.

Robin didn’t try to stop him, didn’t apologize, just watched him go with wide eyes, like she was just as surprised by her outburst as Steve had been. Steve let himself out of the Buckley house and resigned himself to going home. Maybe he could sneak in the back door.

Chapter Text

“What did you do?”

Eddie jolted in surprise, cursing as he hit his head against the underside of the hood of his van. “What are you talking about, old man?”

Wayne took a long drag from his cigarette before dropping the butt on the ground and stomping it out. “Your boy’s called out three nights in a row,” he said. “Since it happened after he left here in a tizzy, I assume you did something.”

Eddie grimaced and busied himself with reattaching the valve cover to avoid making eye contact. “I didn’t do anything. He’s having a crisis.”

“He’s having a crisis and you’re here? Working on this piece of junk instead of helping your friend? Thought I raised you better than that.”

Eddie gritted his teeth and slammed down his ratchet. “I can’t help someone who doesn’t want me to help, Wayne. He thinks… I don’t know what he thinks, but he isn’t answering my calls. He’s shut Robin out.” He looked at his uncle. “I went to his house and he had some pretty choice words for me, so clearly he thinks I’m just like my dad.”

Wayne wasn’t a perfect human, he’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, but the one thing that he did know was that he didn’t raise his boy to turn his back on the people who needed him. “Eddie, hurt people lash out. You and I know that better than most.”

He knew Wayne was right, that Eddie had been a hurt kid and had tried to hurt those around him before they could hurt him. He sighed, tipping his head back as he let his own anger melt into understanding. It wasn’t easy and he was definitely still pissed at the names Steve had spit at him, but he had to understand. He’d gone through his own sexuality crisis, but he’d had Wayne who made everything a little more bearable. Who did Steve have?

Eddie borrowed Wayne’s truck to head over to the Harrington household, which seemed to be unoccupied. He knocked a few times before rounding the back of the house. Steve’s car was there, so he had to be there. He found him sitting by the edge of the pool despite the cool air outside. Steve’s legs were submerged in the water and he had a plethora of empty beer bottles next to him. “I thought you didn’t like swimming anymore.”

Steve barely startled, nothing more than a pause as he was lifting his bottle to his lips to indicate that he’d heard Eddie at all. Eddie let himself into the backyard and sat down next to Steve, though he didn’t stick his legs in the pool. Steve’s eyes were glossy and he looked almost checked out.

“Are you high?”

“What’s it matter to you?” Steve sneered, tossing his now empty bottle across the pool where it shattered on the concrete.

Eddie closed his eyes and tried to keep his temper down, he knew patience was needed. “Because I care. You’re hurting and I care, Steve. And Robin cares. And the kids care. And Wayne cares. When you disappear like this, it worries us.”

Steve reached up and wiped a tear from his face. “ Jesus, ” he gritted, “ can’t fucking stop. ”

He wasn’t meant to hear it, it was Steve muttering to himself, but it broke Eddie’s heart. Steve needed him and he turned away from him because of his own hurt pride. “Steve, it’s fucking freezing out, can we head inside?”

Steve shook his head and Eddie nodded, “Okay, but I’m gonna get you a blanket, okay?” He stood up and made his way into the Harrington house, shocked by the mess. He picked up a spilled bottle of prescription medication. That was probably what Steve was high on. He filed that away for later talk before grabbing a throw blanket and heading back outside. He was gentle as he draped the blanket around Steve’s shoulders, careful not to touch him.

Then he just sat.

They sat in silence for a long, long time before Steve’s chattering teeth became too much to ignore. “We have to go inside, please?”

“Wouldn’t everyone be better off without me?”

Eddie paused, hands on Steve’s shoulders. “No, not ever,” he said sincerely. “Besides the fact that everyone would be dead without you, we like you, Steve. We enjoy your company. Is that what this is about? Are you suicidal?”

Steve furrowed his brows, but he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It was just a thought I had.”

Eddie wanted to snap at him not to think that, but Steve was high off his ass and mixing booze with prescription pills, so arguing with him was probably pointless. “Come on, big guy, let's get you back inside.” He had to use some serious strength while trying to get Steve to his feet. He wasn’t a whole lot of help. His sweatpants were drenched and Eddie regretted the fact that he had to choose between helping Steve out of them or letting him in the house with them. “You’re gonna have to take your pants off, man.”

Steve looked down at his sopping wet pants before looking at Eddie and wrapping the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “No.”

“What if I… grab you clean pants and then turn around so you can change privately?”

Steve was silent for a minute as he thought through his options, “okay.”

Eddie nodded and headed inside to grab Steve a clean pair of sweatpants before coming back outside so that Steve could change into them without fear that Eddie was perving on him. Once Steve was dried off, Eddie steered him into the house and up to his bedroom. “There you go, get some rest. I’ll be downstairs when you wake up.” He hoped; he couldn’t remember exactly when the Harrington’s were supposed to be back, or if they’d already come and gone.

When Eddie woke up the next morning, he was relieved to find the house was still absent of Steve’s parents. He made his way into the kitchen and brewed some coffee before bringing a fresh hot mug of it upstairs to Steve.

Only… waking Steve up was a mistake. He flailed out and knocked the mug right out of Eddie’s hand, drenching his shirt and pants with scalding hot liquid, “What the fuck ?” He yelled, more out of surprise. He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting it out, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, Steve.”

Steve sat up, a little more awake now just from the shouting. “What are you doing here?”

Eddie sighed, pulling his shirt away from his chest to try and cool the overheated skin. “I was checking on you. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have just left you alone to deal with this shit.”

“Why’d you sleep with me?”

Eddie startled a little at the phrasing, but he knew what Steve was talking about. “I didn’t want you to wake up alone. You fell asleep on me and I just… laid us down. I didn’t want you to feel like I didn’t care because I left. And I wanted you to know that I was there for you.”

Steve pushed himself into a sitting position and looked up at Eddie, surprised with the genuine care in Eddie’s tone. “I thought…”

“It’s fine, I get it. But what I am isn’t catching.”

“No! No, I mean, I just… I feel lost .” His eyes were misty again, despite holding it together for so long, this topic seemed to be the straw that broke Steve’s back. He felt his throat clog up as years of repressed emotions tried to make themselves known all at once. He felt like he was drowning with no way to find his way to the surface. “I don’t know what’s normal and what’s wrong and everything feels fucked up.”

Eddie swallowed and nodded. “Is it okay if I sit?” he asked, waiting for Steve to nod before sitting down with his knees facing Steve. “You don’t have to know the answers right away, but don’t shut us out. I don’t know what the fight with Robin was about, but you isolating yourself and getting high and drinking… that’s not going to help you heal.”

“What if I can’t heal? What if I’m fucked in the head forever?”

Eddie offered Steve a small smile. “I thought that once too. When I was a kid grappling with my own sexuality, because you’re right, I am a faggot and a queer . But so is Wayne.” Eddie shrugged as he spoke, like the word hadn’t hurt him so much the other day. “I thought I was messed up and wrong because society tells us that, shoves it down our throat. I’m a freak for liking dudes, for liking heavy metal and leather and jerking off to kinky magazines, but I had the opportunity to learn that it’s all fine . If you stop here and isolate yourself, you’re not going to give yourself the opportunity. I’m still learning to not be a total asshole all the time. It’s just shit we gotta learn growing up.””

Steve bit his lip and pulled his knees to his chest. “My parents would never be that accepting.” He rested his chin on his knees and looked at Eddie like he had all the answers. “My dad would see what happened with Beth as… shameful and disgusting… And it is .”

Eddie was having a hard time keeping up with Steve flip flopping between subjects, but he knew how hard it could be to focus on one problem at a time. “Sure, but it’s not shameful and disgusting on your part. It was a shameful and disgusting thing for her to do, you however, were a victim. There’s no shame in that. Do you think I’m less of a person because my dad beat me?”

Steve was silent for a moment before shaking his head. “No, of course not.”

“Do you think Jonathan and Will are lesser people because of their dad?”

“No…”

“So why do you think you’re less of a person because you are a victim? Even if your parents don’t understand, you’ve got a whole group of outcasts who accept you. And my uncle too. He loves you,” Eddie snorted, “He might like you more than me at this point.”

It had the desired effect and Steve let out a little chuckle. “I’d really rather not tell everyone.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Eddie assured Steve. “You have the right to not tell anyone ever. What I am saying is that if you decide to, about anything, these kids have forged their bond with you in blood , they’re not that easy to scare away.”

Later, after helping Steve clean up the mess in the kitchen, which mostly consisted of Eddie cleaning and Steve leaning against either him or the counter trying not to fall asleep. Steve brought the whole subject back up again. Eddie couldn’t be surprised though, the man was going through it.

Steve kicked his legs out in a stretch, hunching his shoulders up before letting out a long sigh. “How did you learn it was fine?” he asked, “I mean, sure, you said Wayne’s… queer…”

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with Steve at the current moment, if he was having a sexuality crisis or a ‘ I’ve been assaulted’ crisis. Maybe both. “He is.”

Steve bit his lip and nodded, “I told Robin I was cured and she kicked me out. That’s… that’s why she isn’t talking to me.”

“Ah.” Eddie sighed and tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling for a few brief seconds. “I had my suspicions about Buckley.”

“You can’t tell her I told you,” Steve said, wide-eyed as he grabbed Eddie’s hand and squeezed. “It’s not cool to out someone and I didn’t realize it, but that’s what I just did.”

Eddie patted Steve’s hand. “I won’t tell her. But maybe you should apologize? Maybe you’ve learned to enjoy having sex with women, hell, maybe you’re even actually attracted to them, but that’s not something that we can all do. Buckley probably can’t imagine trying to force herself to have sex with a man.”

Steve winced, thinking about her biting comments. “She asked if I was gonna offer to cure her…”

Eddie winced in sympathy. “Yeah, I’d say she was a little offended.”

“Are you that way?”

Eddie hummed questioningly, “Which way?”

“Could you, you know, have sex with a woman?” Steve asked, picking at his nails.

Eddie leaned back and sighed, “I mean, yeah, probably. I think… I…. I like women I guess. I just don’t really wanna fuck them. I’ve never had sex but I don’t know for sure one way or the other. I jerk off pretty much exclusively to men though.” He felt like it was maybe too much information for Steve, but he asked and he wanted to be as honest as possible.

After a few long moments of silent contemplation, Steve nodded. “Can you drive me to Robin’s house?”

“You want me to drive you?”

“Is that… okay? I just… last time when I left her house I was… a mess. If things don’t go well, I don’t trust myself to be behind the wheel again.”

“Yeah, Steve-O, I’ll drive you. I’ll wait downstairs for you.”

Chapter Text

After getting showered and dressed, Steve headed back downstairs. He’d cleaned his face and, while his eyes were still a little puffy from crying, he looked more human. “Ready?” Eddie asked, looking up from where he was picking the grime out from under his nails. When he looked at Steve, he could see that he was masking his pain. “Are you sure you wanna go to Robin right now? It might be better to wait until you’re feeling better.”

Steve shrugged on a light jacket and sighed. “I already waited too long to apologize.”

“Fair enough.” Eddie stood up and led the way out to Wayne’s truck. The drive to Robin’s house was silent save for the country music playing from the radio, Eddie didn’t bother changing the tape from what Wayne had been listening to. When he pulled into Robin’s driveway he peered over at Steve. “So, I’ll just wait here,” he said slowly.

Steve nodded and swung the door open, jumping out of the truck and onto the gravel. “I’ll be back.” He promised. He made his way up to the front door and knocked.

Robin grumbled as she curled back up in her bed, “What’s with you coming here at the ass-crack of dawn?” she asked, even though the sun was well and truly in the sky, her parents were already off to work, and she would be up and at work if they still worked at Family Video.

“Sorry,” Steve said, pulling her desk chair over and sitting on it. “And not just for getting here early. Sorry for… everything. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know…” Steve paused, scratching the back of his head. It seemed like no matter how many times he practiced his apology in his head, it didn’t want to come out right. “I didn’t… mean to imply that you could be cured… or that there was anything to be cured of .”

Robin sat up a little in her bed, sensing that this was going to be a bit serious of a conversation. This wasn’t Steve coming over to shoot the shit and ignore that he’d casually said he’d been cured of gayness . “What’s really going on with you?”

Steve took a deep breath in and before he could open his mouth Robin scooted back in her bed, lifting the covers and making room for him. He didn’t even hesitate to take the invitation, practically diving into the bed. Robin fixed the blankets back over the top of them and sighed. “You know… Dustin always talks about how cool you are; how badass you are… before we worked together I didn’t believe it. Shit, even working together it wasn’t until the Russian bunker when I really saw what he meant. You beat the shit out of the Russian guard, you drew fire away from the kids, making sure they got out even if it meant we got captured…”

“You were part of that… I wish you could have gotten out too.”

Robin huffed a laugh. “That’s what I mean. Even once we were tied up and being tortured… You goaded them, fucked with them. Because you didn’t want them to hurt me.” She rested her chin on top of Steve’s head. “You offered to swim to the bottom of the lake to check out the gate, you’re either the first in line to protect us or the last in line, protecting our backs. You’re never just… coasting in the middle. You listen to me bitch about Vicky, you listen to Nance complain about Jonathan even though I know that hurts you. You always, always , put yourself last.”

Robin pulled back and looked at him. “But you don’t have to. You can tell me stuff. I’m a big girl, I can handle my own issues while you sort your shit out.”

Steve sniffled, ready to start crying again despite him trying to hold it together. Clearly Robin had been feeling just as guilty about their argument. Steve was pretty sure Eddie had said something about no one being able to contact him, maybe that meant Robin had tried. He rolled his face against Robin’s pillow and sucked in a shuddering breath. “I like being helpful.”

“There’s… there’s a fine line between helpful and self-destruction,” Robin said softly, scratching her fingers through Steve’s hair. “So, what’s going on?”

“I was raped.”

It was the first time he’d said it point blank like that. The first time he was really coming to terms with what had happened to him. Robin had gone rigid next to him and Steve couldn’t blame her, surely it was a shock.

“When?” she asked softly, her fingers resuming their gentle movements.

Steve sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “When I was in high school. Mrs. Jenkins… I, uh, you know, didn’t know that’s what it was at the time, but… now it’s fucking with my head a little.”

Robin nodded and continued scratching his scalp lightly, it felt good enough he could fall asleep. He knew he couldn’t though, if only because Eddie was waiting for him. “So like… what happened for you to come to this conclusion?”

Tucking himself a tad closer to his best friend, Steve hummed thoughtfully. “Well… a few months ago…” He paused and looked up at Robin. “You know, I actually have Eddie waiting in the car… he uh, he knows this already, can we invite him in?”

“I feel like I should make a joke about you putting other people’s comfort first again… but I’ll let it pass this time.” She smiled. “I’ll make some cocoa, you go get your man.”

Steve grimaced. “He’s not… Robin…”

“Sorry, too soon?” She head-butted him gently and sighed. “Go get Eddie, I’ll make cocoa.”

Eddie was laying back in the driver’s seat, listening to his uncle’s tapes when Steve came out and tapped on the glass. He blinked his tired eyes opened and rolled the window down. “What’s up, Steve?”

“You wanna come inside?”

Eddie hummed. “You sure? I can always leave and you can call the trailer when you-“

“No, you should come in. You’re like… part of this, I guess.”

Eddie furrowed his brow but nodded. “I guess you’re telling her everything?” When Steve nodded, Eddie cut the engine and rolled the window back up. He followed Steve into the house.

By the time Steve and Eddie came back inside, Robin had the water boiling and was pouring it into three mugs. “Whipped cream?”

“Please,” Steve said at the same time Eddie said, “No.” They looked at each other and Eddie shrugged, “I don’t like it when it melts into my drink.”

“You gotta eat it before it melts into the drink.”

Eddie lifted his lip in a grimace and Robin interrupted them by loudly clearing her throat. “Mini marshmallows?”

“Yes please!” They both exclaimed, taking their mugs in hand and settling down at the dining room table together.

Once they were seated, it dawned on Steve that now it was time for him to talk about this shit. To tell Robin, and Eddie too, what really happened in high school. Eddie didn’t know anything beyond what little Steve had told him. He shuddered and licked up his whipped cream before settling in. “Okay, so… you both know Mrs. Jenkins…”

Both Eddie and Robin nodded, trying not to stare too intently at Steve, they didn’t want to freak him out after all.

“Well… when I was a freshman, she caught me kissing Ronnie Harland under the bleachers… It was my first kiss and I had been nervous as hell. She, uh, told me to meet her in her office the next day. That’s where it started, I guess.”

Robin looked like she was doing mental math, getting confused. “You were… fourteen?”

Steve licked his lips. “Yeah.”

Robin took a breath. She knew Steve had told her he’d been having sex since he was fourteen, she just hadn’t realized the circumstances.  She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Needing a moment, Steve pulled his hand out from Robin’s and turned away from them, wiping his eyes and clearing his throat. “I mean, at the time, you know, I didn’t think it was bad. I was at that age where I was horny and I guess I talked myself into thinking it was okay. I… I didn’t really know that I was allowed to say ‘no’ and…” Steve paused, taking a breath and tipping his head back towards the ceiling. “I think…”

“You don’t have to explain why…” Robin said, looking to Eddie for back-up.

“Yeah, it happened, man, regardless of whether you think you let it happen or not.”

Steve turned back to his friends with a tight-lipped smile. “I think… I don’t really understand it myself.” He wrapped his hands back around his mug and took a sip of his cocoa. “I’m kind of explaining it and trying to puzzle out my feelings at the same time. It’s a lot harder sober.”

Eddie huffed.“It’s a hell of a lot healthier.”

Steve squeezed the mug and nodded. “Yeah, can’t argue that.” He chuckled and took another sip, leaving whipped cream residue on his upper lip, though he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He took a deep breath and hung his head a little, thinking through his multitude of thoughts on the matter.

For their part, Robin and Eddie stayed silent, despite neither one of them having a particularly easy time doing that.

After Steve seemed to struggle with his words for a few moments, he dropped his head on the table with a defeated sigh. He was not used to being the vulnerable one. “Can we do this at Eddie’s trailer?”

Eddie looked at Robin, surprised. “I mean, I don’t care. Wayne’s home though, so we gotta be a little quiet.”

Steve nodded against the table. “It’s easier to do this with your sappy ass country music playing.”

Robin’s eyes widened and she grinned. “You play country ?”

After loading everyone into Eddie’s (Wayne’s) truck, they made the drive across town to the trailer, arguing with Robin the entire way about how listening and playing country doesn’t make him any less of a metalhead. Eddie parked his truck out front and was surprised when he opened the trailer door to see Wayne standing in the kitchen in just boxers, socks, and a flannel cooking something. “Oh, I figured you’d be sleeping by now.”

Wayne looked over his shoulder at his nephew and company, “Well… I got hungry.”

Eddie shrugged, it was as good a reason as any to be cooking food.

“Are you coming to work tonight, kid?” Wayne asked, looking at Steve.

Steve nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’ll be there, sorry about calling out.”

“Ain’t no skin off my back, I was just worried you’d get fired. You’re a good worker Steve, would have hated to see that happen.”

“Thanks Wayne,” Steve said, softening his tight posture. He knew that Wayne was a nice guy, but sometimes seeing past his gruff exterior took practice. Steve genuinely thought that Wayne would be more upset about him skipping out on work, but he should have known better. Wayne wasn’t that kind of guy, he just wanted to make sure he was okay.

“Alright.” Eddie clapped his hands. “Robbie, this is my uncle, Wayne, this is Robin. We’re gonna go chill in my room for a bit,” he said, ushering his two friends into his disaster zone.

“You kids want anything to eat?” he asked, pointing at the pan of soup. “I’m heating up Chowder.”

“No, thank you,” Robin said, echoed by Steve and Eddie.

Eddie closed the door behind his friends, jerking up on the knob so the door would catch properly and stay closed.

“Oh my God, I forgot how messy your room was.” Robin laughed, jumping up on the bed. She hadn’t seen the place since Venca tore a hole in the living room ceiling.

Steve turned to look at Robin with a raised eyebrow, “ You’re saying that?”

“Hey!” Robin squawked, “My room isn’t this bad!”

Eddie laughed along with them and sat down in his desk chair, leaving the bed for the other two. “I can’t rebut, I thrive in chaos. Pass me my guitar Stevie-boy!” He cheered, grinning as Steve handed him the acoustic guitar. “Any requests?”

Robin hummed thoughtfully, “John Denver.”

“Not a song, but okay, can do.” Eddie plucked a few chords on the guitar, getting into it before he started to pluck out the first few notes of one of the only John Denver songs he knew.

The three of them hung out, listening to Eddie pluck away slowly at different songs; Steve’s stress slowly unwinding as he calmed down, like he always did listening to Eddie play. It was different when he played metal, probably because Eddie’s frustration with his own hands bled into the tone of the music, whereas the slower melody wasn’t hard for Eddie’s fucked up dexterity.

Without either Robin or Eddie pressuring him, Steve slowly started to talk about what happened to him again. It was just as stilted as before, but both of them could tell that Steve was having an easier time processing his emotions with the soothing sound of Eddie’s playing in the background. “I guess I still don’t understand why I acted the way I did… but Beth kind of made it seem like I should be dating girls my age even though, you know, she still wanted me. It was super confusing and, I guess I’m still confused, but I just… I can’t even fathom wanting to sleep with a fourteen-year-old, and I’m only nineteen. She was what, twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

“Steve, it’s a good thing you don’t understand,” Robin said, placing her hand on his knee, “She’s fucked up and wrong. You’re an adult. You shouldn’t want to sleep with a kid .”

Steve nodded slowly, knowing that she was right. The Party was fourteen. They were kids . Even if the kids he was friends with had saved the world five times over, they were still kids . They were goofy dorks with no concept of personal space or time. The more Steve thought about it, the more it sunk in that he was just a kid too. Beth Jenkins was a predator.

Steve took a deep breath and leaned into Robin’s shoulder. “I guess…. After that first day she kept calling on me, you know? My grades weren’t the best and she’d always tell me to meet her in her office. I didn’t know at first that it was always going to be like that. I thought eventually, maybe, she’d help me with actually passing . She never did though, and rather than getting beat for kissing a boy, I got hit for getting a D. Pretty sure she only passed me because I was sleeping with her.

“Then things just… continued. We were almost caught when I was 15, but we lied and the principal believed us, but it was around that time that Beth told me I should start seeing other girls. And well, once the rumor that I bagged a teacher got out there I didn’t exactly have trouble getting dates. I’ve had a lot of sex, but I don’t know if I can even say I wanted it. Like, it was just expected of me. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened with Ronnie if Beth hadn’t caught us.”

Robin squeezed his hand and looked at Eddie from where her and Steve were curled up. She couldn’t quite read his features, but she had a feeling she understood. Now wasn’t the time to admit to liking Steve and he knew it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t tearing Eddie up inside to hear this and know that Steve still believes he’s been cured. Robin had been so pissed when Steve had said he was cured, so pissed, in fact, that she hadn’t stopped to think about why he had thought that. She felt guilty for it now, but this wasn’t a Robin pity-party. “You’re allowed to wonder that kind of thing, even if it doesn’t feel right, now that Mrs. Jenkins has told you it wasn’t okay. You have friends who care about you, no matter which conclusion you come to.”

Steve got really quiet for a while after that. Eddie eventually graduated from John Denver, though he refused to stop playing even once his fingers started to ache. It wasn’t until their whispered conversation was interrupted by soft snoring from Steve that Eddie finally put his guitar down and flexed his fingers, wincing as they cramped slightly. Mostly it was his fingertips that hurt though.

“Don’t pity me, okay?” Eddie said softly, leaning back on his sore hands.

Robin raised an eyebrow. “For your hands? Why would I? You’re the idiot who didn’t follow the plan.”

Eddie chuckled, but shook his head, “No, I mean, when he eventually decides that liking girls is easier. He’s gotten this far, I doubt he’s going to easily abandon the path of least resistance. And even if he did , you know, then, there’s still no guarantee.”

Robin hummed and tipped her head back against the wall, “I think he’ll come around. I think it might just take a long time. He’s hurting. He’s been hurting since he was fourteen and no one even noticed. Nancy dated him. She was with him for like, ten months or something. I think. Depending on the math and if they broke u-“

“The point?”

“Right,” Robin checked to make sure her rambling hadn’t woken Steve up, “Nancy dated him and didn’t notice anything was wrong. And… as shitty as this makes me sound, he’s always been the tough one. The, uh, tank. Even after Starcourt, I’m not sure I ever called to ask if he was okay, I only called when I had nightmares. Some soulmate, huh?”

Eddie shrugged. “Pretty normal to think of just yourself in those circumstances.”

“Normal, sure, but it’s not okay. I should have asked. He… he taunted the Russians so they wouldn’t touch me. We were terrified, I know he was too, and I didn’t… after it was all over I didn’t ask if he was fucked up from it. I knew he’d dealt with it before and I assumed he was fine. That wasn’t fair.”

“Robin, you can’t beat yourself up for that.”

Realistically, Robin knew that. It was probably normal to be selfish after something traumatic happened, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel bad now. She had no idea how good Steve was at masking his hurt. Her and Eddie got quiet and Robin was just on the precipice of falling back to sleep when Eddie spoke up again.

“You think this is the reason he’s striking out so much?” His voice was louder than he meant it to be and when Robin blinked her bleary eyes back open he had a hand over his mouth.

“What do you mean?”

Eddie cleared his throat and continued at a softer level, “I mean that you said before that Steve’s striking out a lot, dating wise.”

Robin hummed, she felt Steve move but didn’t bother saying anything;, if he was awake, Eddie might be stumbling towards something helpful anyway. “I did, but it’s not entirely true. He does strike out a lot, though he still gets a lot of dates. He struck out a lot more at Scoops.”

Eddie bobbed his head a few times, almost like he was nodding, but the movement wasn’t quite a nod. “But his dates don’t lead to relationships? What if he’s like… looking for something he can’t find with the women he’s dating? Like, uh, in the RV, with Nancy. The guy wants a huge family and road trips and shit. He’s looking for forever and the majority of nineteen-year-olds here are just looking for a good time.”

“Yeah, but I think he knows that. That’s his problem. Before the whole… Vecna thing… he was complaining about how all his relationships boil down to sex and he wasn’t sure he wanted to… start another relationship… where the only point was sex...” Robin trailed off as she realized that the signs were right there . She had been so in her head about Vickie and believing that Steve was just doing Steve things that she didn’t pay attention to the odd tone of his voice or the desperation in his tone. He’s been struggling with this, in front of her, and she hadn’t even realized.

Eddie watched the realization wash over Robin, but he didn’t say anything at first. Wasn’t sure if he could say anything.

Eventually Robin had to wiggle out from under Steve’s weight on her shoulder and Eddie tucked him into the bed before driving Robin home and promising that he wouldn’t let Steve disappear again.

Steve woke up comfortable and surrounded by blankets. He blinked his eyes open and was met with the sight of Eddie, it took him a few seconds of processing where he was before he processed the fact that Eddie wasn’t wearing a shirt. By the time Steve made a strangled noise, fabric was once again covering Eddie’s skin.

“Hey, you’re awake!” Eddie grinned, he grabbed the shirt he’d just changed out of off the floor, it was clearly filthy, “I just finished fixing the van. You still planning on going to work?”

It took Steve a moment to wrap his head around the words coming from Eddie’s mouth, his eyes dropping to the shirt bunched in his hands. He had been shirtless because he was changing out of the oil stained shirt into something clean… okay. He could deal with that. “Uh, yeah, shit, I don’t have my work boots.” He pushed himself up, “I don’t have anything I need for work.”

“I’ll drive you home,” he offered.

Steve scrubbed a hand over his tired face and winced, “Shit, and I need a shave.”

“I mean, stubble’s a good look on you,” Eddie said, tossing a black cable knit sweater at Steve. It was a little big on Eddie, so it was a little big on Steve, but it looked good once he’d wormed his way into it. “Plus, I’ve seen my uncle go into work looking way worse.”

It pulled a chuckle out of Steve as he followed Eddie outside so he could get that ride home. He needed a shower before he went to work, and looking at the clock, it would have to be a fast one. “I can’t believe you guys let me sleep so long.”

Eddie put his hand on the back of Steve’s seat, twisting his body in a way Steve knew hurt in order to reverse the van out of the parking spot. “You needed the rest.” As he returned to face forward, he looked at Steve, “You gonna be okay by yourself? Not gonna go digging for those pills again, are you?”

“No,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t. He did feel a bit lighter now that he’d told Eddie and Robin the full story. Now that it was out there and the misunderstanding between Eddie and himself had been cleared up. But he was still scared. “I don’t think so.”

Sighing, Eddie glanced at Steve, “Look man, whatever time, literally when ever , if you gotta talk, just call. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but I can’t find you like that again man. Too much like… like finding my mom.”

Steve sucked a breath in through his teeth and felt his eyes get misty without entirely knowing why, maybe it was the emotional stress of the day. Maybe it was the knowledge of what Eddie had told him about his mom and her drug habit. Maybe it was the fear of what the habit led to. “Okay, I’ll call,” he agreed softly, turning his body and staring out the window as they drove.

Chapter Text

Wayne Munson was a simple man. He always had been. He came from a rough household, but as soon as he could get out, he did. As soon as he could get Eddie out of his brother’s house, he did that too, even if Eddie made his life a whole lot less simple. He settled down in Hawkins, giving up trucking and getting a job at the plant. He needed the pay, especially since his nephew insisted on taking care of all the strays in the park. At first, Wayne had assumed Steve was just another variation of Eddie taking in a stray. Not unlike that club he had at school and that band he was a part of. Taking in the outcasts and the freaks. The strays with no place to go.

Even after taking a few days off and clearly not being back to 100%, Wayne could see Steve working harder than he ought to. Still, Wayne couldn’t exactly call him out on it, not with the foreman breathing down his back for missing so many days in a row.

He didn’t know what Steve was going through, he didn’t tend to get involved in other people’s affairs, he wasn’t his nephew after all, but he’d worried about Steve since he’d seen him have a panic attack in the grocery store parking lot. Wayne didn’t see those in people who hadn’t gone to war too often, though he supposed other traumatic experiences could cause them. Probably.

Wayne didn’t know the whole story about what had happened back in March, but he knew enough to know that Steve had been part of it. Wayne had cleaned Eddie’s wounds while he recovered, wiped his ass when he couldn’t twist to do so himself, he’d soothed Eddie from the nightmares and sat up with him after if he needed to. Eddie had told him bits and pieces; it had sounded crazy. Eddie may have been a storyteller and a bit of a coward, but he was no liar. He’d never needed to lie. Even about the drug dealing that Wayne had staunchly ignored, despite knowing it wasn’t safe. He wanted Eddie to be able to buy himself stuff though, and no one in town would give him a job. Even at sixteen adults had been afraid of him.

Either way, Steve had seen the horrors Eddie had seen and based on how Wayne hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Mr. or Mrs. Harrington around their son, Steve was likely dealing with it all alone. Wayne hated meddling, but he liked Steve well enough. He’d spoken to him a few times when he was over the trailer, more in recent months than in the months immediately following the aftermath. He’d seen him at the drives, handing out food and water and blankets. He was pretty sure he even had a sweater that had once belonged to the young boy hung up in his closet. He’d taken it from the drive because it had been soft and it wouldn’t irritate Eddie’s injuries, but Eddie had refused to wear anything that pastel in color.

“You look worried.”

Wayne nearly jumped out of his skin at the familiar voice and the gentle hand on his lower back, hidden from sight by the counter just behind them. “ Christ! ” He turned to look at the man to his left, “Gonna give someone a heart attack one ‘a these days.”

Ennis simply smiled and rubbed his thumb across Wayne’s spine. “What’s got you thinkin’ so hard?”

Wayne sighed, wishing he could melt into Ennis’s side and let him take away his burdens. But he couldn’t. Not just because they were two men, but Ennis was married, living a double life, he couldn’t ask him to give that up just for him. He couldn’t share that part of his life with Ennis, just as Ennis couldn’t share his entire life with him. “Steve and Eddie are friends… With Steve havin’ called out the last few days I was just worried that he mighta been pushing himself too hard.”

Ennis hummed, “Well, he very well may be, but that’s the boy’s choice. Though, looks like the foreman ain’t going easy on him neither.”

That was what had Wayne worried, Steve looked ill still. “I’m gonna go help him,” Wayne announced, pulling away from the warmth of Ennis’s hand on his back and making his way over to where Steve was. Wayne didn’t even get all the way over to Steve’s side before he wobbled and nearly fell over. Wayne wasn’t too old to catch him, though it certainly hurt his knees a bit.

“Sorry,” Steve said, stabilizing himself with a hand on Wayne’s shoulder.

“All good, but maybe you aught ta take a rest. The plant ain’t gonna shut down if you take a break. And ‘fore you argue, Rich can shove it. He’s bein’ a hardass, but he’s called out sick more times than anyone.”

Steve chuckled and cast a glance at their foreman. “Alright, just a quick one,” Steve agreed, letting Wayne take over for him while he went and sat down for a moment, drinking some water and eating a snack.

His hands always shook, but once they stopped violently shaking and were back to their normal tremors, Steve stood and swapped back out with Wayne so Wayne could get back to his own post. “Thank you,” Steve said softly.

Wayne offered him a small smile, the resemblance between him and his nephew a little clearer with it. “I’ve been assured that you would do the same for me,” he said, patting Steve’s shoulder before making his way back to his station.

When work finally ended, Steve felt like he was dead on his feet. Wayne put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “You… need a lift? You ain’t looking fit to drive.”

“Ah, I couldn’t ask-“

“You didn’t, I offered,” Wayne interrupted, “Come on, I can drop you off at home or you can come ‘round the trailer, I’m sure Ed won’t mind the company.”

Steve waffled for only a moment, but his mind was made up for him when Wayne literally herded him into his truck, not putting up with Steve’s barely-there argument about his car staying in the parking lot all day. Much to Steve’s surprise, he fell asleep in the passenger seat on the short  fifteen -minute drive from the plant to the trailer.

Wayne woke him up when they arrived and ushered Steve into the small home, “Get some rest kid, you need it.”

Before Steve could consciously make the decision, his mouth was open. “Wayne, thanks. For, uh, everything. For caring.”

Despite his gruff look, smiles weren’t foreign to Wayne’s face. The small fond one that filled it when Steve thanked him looked right at home. It looked like a face he’d worn many times. “You’re a good kid Steve, you deserve someone who’s gonna look after you. You never say anything ‘bout it, but I went to school with your parents, I know their kind. I imagine it’s lonely in that big house all alone.”

Unbidden tears welled up in Steve’s eyes and he looked at the floor. There was no reason for Wayne to care the way he did. He didn’t even get that from Joyce or Hopper, not the same seemingly unconditional care that seemed to pour from Wayne like a waterfall. People who had seen the same hell as him, who had lived through it, fought alongside him, they never spoke to Steve this way. He didn’t have an open invitation to come to them when he was having issues. “Can I, uh, talk to you? About things?”

Wayne raised an eyebrow, “Things?”

Steve twitched nervously, “Uh, like personal things? I know we’re not family and you’ve got no reason to listen to my problems…”

“Steve,” Wayne interrupted, “I ain’t never gonna turn you away. Unless you hurt Ed, but well, I don’t see that happenin’ anytime soon."

Steve couldn’t imagine having blind faith in someone like Wayne seemed to have in him. Even Robin, he was still so scared that she would wake up and see that he was still the asshole he was in high school. Steve swallowed, “I…”

When Steve didn’t immediately follow the start of his sentence up with more words, Wayne ushered Steve towards the kitchen and the coffee maker. He set about making a new pot of coffee and poured Steve a mug full. “You know, you don’t have to tell me nothin’. Yer not gonna get pressured to talk about things you don’t wanna talk about.” He met Steve’s eyes, “But if you feel ready and want an adult, or whatever, to talk to, I’ll be here.”

“I know I’m like, an adult too, but sometimes I feel like I don’t understand anything.”

Wayne cracked a small smile, “Wanna know a secret?”

“What?”

“That feelin’ never really goes away,” Wayne admitted, “I’m damn near fifty years old and I still don’t understand a lot of things.”

Steve huffed, “That’s not really that big of a comfort…”

“Why not?” Wayne asked, “What I’m sayin’ is that it’s okay not to understand. No one understands everythin’. Not even us old folk.”

Steve laughed a little, “You’re not old.”

Wayne made an exaggerated show of stretching his back and groaning, “Tell that to my bones.”

Maybe Wayne and Eddie weren’t as different as they at first glance appeared. Steve still could barely believe that Wayne Munson used to be intimidating to him, but now he knew the man was a big ol’ softie. He was only as tough as the situation needed, but he had the capacity for great softness. He was so drastically different from his own parents. His parents who hadn’t ever been soft around him. Even when Steve was ill or hurt.

He had a distinct feeling that had he grown up in the care of one Wayne Munson, Steve would have been cared for. When he came home after the first run-in with the Demogorgon, and Jonathan, neither of his parents had cared for his wounds. His father had simply looked at him and told him that he should have put up more of a fight. His mother was seemingly disgusted by the blood, telling him to make sure he didn’t use the white towels. Had he come home to Wayne instead, he had the feeling that Steve would have been washed up, maybe given cocoa or something. He already knew that Wayne had tended to Eddie’s injuries, but being on the receiving end of Wayne’s care felt different than Steve had imagined.

He desperately wished he could stay in the trailer and never leave. To pretend that Wayne was his father rather than John Harrington.

“Thank you,” Steve said, rather than voicing all the other thoughts. It was soft and genuine.

Wayne seemed to soften and he squeezed Steve’s shoulder. “Anytime. Honest,” he promised. He gave Steve a quick once over before deciding that he’d probably done all he could. He turned towards the bathroom to clean up after a long night.

Steve stood in the kitchen sipping at his coffee for a while longer before making his way towards Eddie’s closed bedroom door. He knocked twice just in case the door was closed because Eddie was jerking off or something, but no answer came. He pushed the door open and was hit in the face with the smell of weed.

“Steeeeeve.” Eddie grinned, “You’re here.” Sluggishly, Eddie attempted to sit up before giving up and lying flat on his back.

Steve snorted at the sight, “You’re awake?”

“Mmmm, nightmares.” He answered.

“How high are you?” Steve asked, stepping into the room and shutting the door. He pulled off his dirty shirt from work and changed into one of Eddie’s shirts. When he turned back towards the bed, he noticed that Eddie was watching him, though he looked pretty checked out. “Gimme a blanket.”

Eddie hummed and blinked slowly, he felt around for a blanket and pulled a fuzzy one up towards his face, rubbing his face in it and humming.

“Alright, pretty high then.” Steve laughed, grabbing a blanket off Eddie’s bed himself, even though he had to tug it out from under Eddie’s legs. He tried not to let his eyes linger on the nasty scar that he could see peeking out from under the edge of Eddie’s boxers. He made a small makeshift bed for himself on the floor before digging through Eddie’s nightstand for something to smoke and a lighter, he politely ignored the unopened box of condoms (they were expired) and the half empty bottle of lube. 

He laid himself down on his makeshift bed and lit up. There was probably no salvaging the day for Eddie, it was already 7am when Steve and Wayne got back to the trailer, and if he had been up most of the night smoking because of nightmares, he would likely be catching up on that sleep the rest of the day. That meant that Steve would more than likely be able to get a good amount of uninterrupted sleep in before Eddie dragged his ass out of bed.

Just as Steve was about to fall asleep, listening to the soft breathing from Eddie and the occasional shift of blankets from his interminable wiggling, Eddie spoke. “It sucks,” he whispered into the darkened room.

“What does?” Steve asked softly as he moved to lay flat on his back.

“How common abuse is,” Eddie answered. When Steve didn’t say anything, Eddie plowed on, “I mean, I was abused, Jonathan and his mom were abused by Lonnie… Will was probably emotionally abused by him.” Eddie, despite being high as a kite, continued to rant about the people they’d gone to school with, listing off people that Steve had never even heard of. “Then there’s you . If the golden boy of Hawkins can be abused and she can just get away with it, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

Steve sat up and crossed his arms on the edge of Eddie’s bed, peering at him despite the darkness. He couldn’t make out much other than the whites of his eyes, wide open and bright, maybe a little glossy with tears or from being high. “Why are you thinking about that?”

Eddie sighed and turned his head to look at Steve. “I… wasn’t entirely telling you the truth when I said I was still awake because of nightmares…” Eddie groaned as he shifted to turn the bedside lamp on, flooding the small space with a soft, warm light. He grabbed an envelope off his desk and handed it to Steve. “I don’t want him back in my life again.”

Steve flipped the envelope over and saw the messy scrawl on the front. Al Munson . He pulled the letter out and looked at Eddie, who nodded at him.

He skimmed through the letter. “Your dad’s getting out of prison.”

“I don’t want him to be anywhere near me. Not ever again.”

Steve slipped the paper back into the envelope. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“Not long enough.” Eddie answered quickly, then looked away, “I think when I was eighteen, I was…” He sighed, “It’s stupid, but I had big dreams of making it big and there was this chick, I thought she was the real deal, was going to make Corroded Coffin big. But it was all a con from my dad to make a quick buck and profit off my suffering. He got arrested again not too long after that. Back to prison. He was always getting me caught up in his crimes.” Eddie sat up and leaned over the edge of the bed, his dark brown eyes staring into Steve’s soul. “Have you ever been held at gunpoint? Because I have. Twice. Both times it was because of my dad’s shitty schemes.” He flopped back on the bed and went silent.

Steve stayed silent, processing this information. He had just assumed that Eddie’s dad had been in prison this whole time, it had never even occurred to him that people don’t get life sentences for grand theft auto. He decided that since this was about Eddie, he wouldn’t remind him of the fact that he very much had been held at gunpoint, it didn’t really seem to matter at the moment. 

“He’s a manipulative bastard,” Eddie finally concluded.

“If you tell Wayne, I’m sure that he’ll keep his brother away from you as best he can.” 

Eddie sighed. That was probably true, but Al Munson wasn’t one for respecting other people’s wishes. He was brash and arrogant and mean. Eddie knew that he got his dad’s temper, it was something he fought with his entire life. “He’s just… persistent. I keep hoping that he’s gonna do something to get him locked up forever, but then I get scared thinking what it could be.”

Steve had been so wrapped up in his own world lately with all his own abuse coming to light, he never even thought about how Eddie’s dad might still be affecting his life. He felt like a shit friend. “He’s not gonna be able to hurt you Eddie, Wayne and I won’t let him.”

In a movement that Steve was surprised by, if only because Eddie seemed so high, his friend reached over and flicked the light off before bundling himself up in a ball facing away from Steve. He held in his sigh as he climbed up onto the bed, dragging his blanket off the floor and getting comfortable. He could see Eddie’s shoulders shaking, he wasn’t an idiot.

He laid there for a long time, just listening to Eddie try to keep his cries silent, but he didn’t know what to do or say. He felt completely helpless.

Eventually Eddie’s snuffles turned to snores and Steve got up, too much nervous energy about sharing the bed to fall asleep there, even if he trusted Eddie not to take advantage of him. He sighed and moved to the couch.

Steve woke up around midday to the sound of shuffling feet as Eddie dragged his ass from his bedroom to the bathroom, then to the kitchen, “Want something to eat?” Eddie asked him.

Sitting up and yawning, Steve nodded. “Yeah, anything is fine.”

Eddie hummed and pulled a small container out of the fridge, “Lucky for you,” Eddie slapped the container down, “We have fried artichokes!”

“What the fuck is an artichoke?”

Eddie turned to look at Steve aghast, “You don’t know what an artichoke is?” He asked, plopping the container down and grabbing two plates to start heating them up a serving. He brought two plates into the living room and plopped down next to Steve. “To be honest, they’re not as good reheated, but I don’t feel like cooking.”

“You and Wayne eat some strange foods,” Steve commented, pushing the crispy vegetable with his fork and only agreeing to eat one after seeing Eddie munching happily on his own.

Eddie chuckled, but stayed silent until Steve had eaten an artichoke, when he went back for the second, Eddie laughed harder. “It’s old family recipes and shit man.”

They sat in relative silence as they ate, but Steve couldn’t stop thinking about the night before. “Hey man, did you wanna talk about last night? With your dad?”

Eddie hummed, looking at Steve guiltily, “Uh, yeah. Sorry you had to see that shit.”

“What?” Steve asked, confused, “Why are you apologizing?”

Eddie flopped backwards against the couch and sighed, “I just… I didn’t mean to vomit my problems all over you when you’ve already got so much shit on your plate.”

Reaching out, Steve wrapped his hand around Eddie’s arm, “You’re allowed to have problems. You’re allowed to complain. Just because I’m having issues doesn’t mean that your issues are invalid or need to take a back seat. I can complain about Beth and you can complain about your dad. One isn’t, like, more important than the other.” Steve felt like a hypocrite saying it, since he was basically just repeating what Robin had told him, that she could deal with her heartbreak and help Steve at the same time. 

In retrospect, Eddie knew that was true, but he felt like Steve’s problems were so much bigger. Eddie had been dealing with his dad coming and going in his life since the day he was born. He would probably never rid himself of him. Not unless he did something truly horrible that got him sentenced to life.

Despite the invitation for conversation, Eddie didn’t say anything else. Neither did Steve. They just turned on the TV and watched a movie in silence. Eventually Wayne emerged from his bedroom and shuffled around in the kitchen, fixing himself up some coffee before joining the boys in the living room.

The silence was comfortable though, but after the fourth time he fell asleep and slumped into Eddie, he finally listened to him when he was told to just go lay down in bed.

“Dad’s getting out,” Eddie said, once the door to his bedroom door was mostly closed.

Wayne hummed and looked at his nephew. “Anytime you want, we can get you that restrainin’ order,” he promised. “Anytime.”

Eddie sighed and rubbed his sore eyes. “Why do I still want him to love me?” he asked, barely above a whisper. “He’s never been good to me, he’s only even used and abused me. So why do I still want him to care?”

Wayne stood and moved to the couch, dragging his nephew to his side. “It’s just human nature,” he answered, letting Eddie soak the shoulder of his shirt. “We want our parents to love us, we want attention and love and care. That’s normal, kiddo, it sucks, but you’re not wrong for wantin’ it. Al’s wrong for not givin’ it.”

“Does it hurt you that I still want him to care?”

It probably should, he was basically Eddie’s parent at this point. Legally, he was, but Wayne had grown up in a broken home too. He’d also wanted the love of his parents only to be met with the backside of a hand. He loved his mom, he loved her a whole lot, even when she was too scared to protect him from his father. So, yeah, he understood Eddie. “No, Eddie, I understand.” He kissed the crown of Eddie’s head and together they just watched the TV. Eddie would have to be strong and turn his father away, that was just how it was.

Wayne drove Steve to work that night, since his car was still parked in the parking lot of the plant. Just as they were getting out, Steve turned to Wayne and opened his mouth to speak, but he chickened out and shut it again. Wayne smiled and patted Steve’s knee, “Whenever you’re ready kid, no need to push yourself.”

Steve nodded and thanked Wayne before stepping out of the truck. The night was bound to be long. He was still exhausted, despite sleeping most of the day away in Eddie’s bed. Maybe he could get Eddie to join him and Robin when they went to check out the school in Bloomington, Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to drive all that way as tired as he was.

Chapter Text

“Enjoy your weekend off!” One of the men yelled as they switched shifts with the morning crew. Steve already felt like he was ready to collapse into his bed, “I can’t believe I have to drive to Bloomington,” Steve bitched, sliding his ticket into the time clock for stamping.

“Are you takin’ Ed?” Wayne asked curiously.

“I was thinking about asking him, I think I’m probably too tired to drive. Robin would keep me awake, but she can’t drive.”

Wayne nodded knowingly before they parted ways to drive, though they both ended up back at the trailer. When Steve pushed open Eddie’s door, his friend was passed out face down in his bed, so Steve left him alone. He made his way to the living room to lay down. 

The phone ringing was what woke him up. Steve sat up and waited, but upon hearing no movement from either Eddie or Wayne’s room, he dragged himself off the couch and answered the phone. “Munson residence.” 

“Dude, you’re late.”

Steve furrowed his brow. “Robin?” he asked, looking at his watch. “Why’d you call Eddie’s trailer looking for me?”

Robin snorted on the other end of the line, a loud crackle traveling through to Steve’s ear. “Well, you’re there, aren’t you?” 

Steve grumbled and Robin powered on. 

“I called your house, but your mom said you never returned from work and that your car wasn’t there, so I figured you were at your boyfriend’s house.”

“Eddie isn’t…” Steve sighed, “I’m here, yes, I will leave in a few minutes to come get you. I’m gonna see if Eddie can drive though, because I feel like absolute shit.”

“You know we can wait if you’re not feeling good. I told you I’m applying for Spring start.”

“I know,” Steve said, “but I seem to always be feeling terrible, so no point in pushing it off.”

Robin huffed. “We’re talking about that in the car,” she stated, hanging up immediately after to stop him from arguing. He sighed again and hung up the phone. 

He walked into Eddie’s room and he was still snoring away, his hand rucked up inside his shirt, giving Steve a good view of all the scarring on his torso. It was so much worse than Steve’s injuries. Steve couldn’t imagine the pain Eddie must have felt, he knew how much his own hurt. He reached out and shook Eddie gently. “Hey.”

Eddie startled, his hand clamping around Steve’s wrist like a vice and his eyes wide in surprise. His breathing took a moment to calm back down, but eventually his tight posture melted back into the mattress. “Oh, it’s you.” Eddie sighed, relieved. “What’s up?”

Steve wondered if maybe he should be concerned that Eddie wasn’t even surprised it was him. Maybe he was over too often. “Uh, you feel like driving to Bloomington?”

Eddie rolled over and groaned, “With Buckley?”

“Yeah.”

Silence for a long moment before Eddie pushed himself up. “Yeah. Let me throw on some pants and brush my teeth.”

Steve nodded. “You care if I snag a shirt?”

Eddie smirked at him. “You keep taking all my shirts and I’m not gonna have any left, big boy.”

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but stopped short. He had been stealing a lot of Eddie’s shirts. “I’ll bring them back.” 

Eddie laughed and gently nudged Steve. “No worries. I have plenty.”

Steve rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath, “ Then why’d you bring it up ?”

Once the boys were changed, Steve and Eddie climbed into Steve’s car and made their way over to Robin. “Move it punk. Front seat is for best friends only.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he did, in fact, move to the backseat. He knew that Robin and Steve were just like that . He leaned back and listened to Robin and Steve chat about nothing in particular, even occasionally interjecting his own opinion, sometimes to Robin’s chagrin. About thirty minutes into the three hour drive though, Steve hit the rumble strip. When he did it again a few minutes later, Eddie leaned forward and nudged him. “Hey, big guy, let me take over, huh?”

Steve sighed, but he pulled over into the nearest rest area and they moved around: Robin climbed into the back with Steve and Eddie got into the driver’s seat. He adjusted the mirrors, watching as Robin made Steve lay down with his head on her thigh. She really was a good friend. Eddie took his eyes off the passengers so he could start driving. 

They got back from Bloomington late, dropping Robin off before heading back to the trailer. “Hey,” Steve said, stopping Eddie as he was climbing out of the car, “Thanks again for coming.”

Eddie smiled. “Yeah, tell Buckley to pick her college though. Your headaches have been coming more, you shouldn’t be driving so much.”

Steve blinked. “You noticed?”

“Dude, you’re here like, all the time lately.” Eddie laughed, “You thought I wouldn’t ?”

He felt a little self-conscious about how often he’d been at the trailer. Often enough for Eddie to notice that his headaches were coming more frequently. Maybe he should stop going over all the time. 

“Hey.” Eddie reached over and shoved Steve’s shoulder. “You’re welcome whenever, that hasn’t changed. Ain’t gonna change. So, do me a favor, don’t get all in your head about it.”

“Why’d you stop hanging out with your band?” 

Eddie blinked and leaned more heavily on the car, leaning his forehead against the door frame as he looked in. “I can’t play the guitar as well anymore… but also, we just kind of grew apart. After Vecna, you know, they couldn’t visit me while I was under suspicion of murder, then I was recovering and sleeping like twenty-three  hours a day… We still play D&D together and for now that’s enough. They’re all still in high school, you know? It’s hard. It’s life.” He shrugged. 

Steve hummed and leaned back in his own seat. “Dustin has been nagging me to play that shit for so long.” He laughed, “I keep telling them that I can’t. I’m not gonna understand it.”

Eddie pushed himself off the car. “Well, you don’t have to play, but I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, man.” He slapped the top of the car, “Goodnight. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”

“Dude, Dustin had this idea to do a one shot campaign for Halloween and Will’s gonna DM, was wondering if you wanted to give it a shot.”

Steve rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stared blankly across his kitchen as he tried to process the nonsense that just spilled across the phone line from Eddie’s mouth. “What?”

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Eddie said, like that clarified anything .

“No, man, start over. I didn’t understand a word of what you said.”

“Oh!” Eddie cleared his throat. “The other day you were talking about how Dustin keeps badgering you to play D&D, so I thought since we’re planning a one shot for Halloween, maybe you’d be interested in joining. It’s gonna be low stakes and since Will’s gonna run it, I can help you with the rules and the dice.”

“Oh,” Steve said, pausing for a moment to think it over. “Do I have to say yes or no right now?”

“Nah, anytime up until the start of the game is probably fine. Will seems competent enough that adding someone else shouldn’t be hard. But if you wanna come over after your next shift, I can kind of give you a run down of the rules and help you make a character sheet. If you want to join, that is.” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Okay, gotta run.” He didn’t even say goodbye before hanging up and Steve stared at the phone a moment longer before hanging it up. With a shrug, he went to go ask his mom if she wanted something for breakfast. 

Steve did end up agreeing to the game, so he brought Dustin over to Eddie’s trailer one morning to work on the character sheets that they apparently needed for the game. Things seemed to be going well, Eddie was patient as he explained the different classes and skills. But… things didn’t stay going well.

“Why are you so dumb?" Dustin bit out angrily, snatching his paper back from Steve unaware of the crestfallen look on Steve's face. He had just wanted to help.

Eddie's head snapped up from where he'd been working on his own character sheet. "Why do you act like stupid is the worst thing you can be?" Eddie asked, brows furrowed and a little defensive on Steve’s behalf. "You do realize it took me three tries to graduate high school, right?"

Dustin turned to look at Eddie, "But you're smart in other ways!"

Steve grimaced. "It's fine Eddie," he said, wanting Eddie to drop it.

Eddie stood, hands still on the table. "No, it's not okay," he snapped, "I'm a goddamn idiot, I couldn't pass high school, multiple times, the assignments don't even change year to year. I'm good at D&D, sure, but what other areas am I smart in?"

Dustin floundered, "music?"

“Cars,” Steve offered.

"Sure," Eddie huffed, "but you know who isn't great at this whole Upside Down shit? Me. Steve is, like, hyper-competent at it. He's a fighter and he's saved your ass more times than I can count. And he graduated on his first try."

Steve felt himself shrink a bit at Eddie's comments, though he couldn't exactly pinpoint why. Steve had been waiting years for someone to say he wasn't an idiot, but now that it was happening it felt wrong.

"Eddie, seriously, back off."

Eddie glanced at him, a questioning look in his face. "Are you serious? Steve? You're not going to tell them to stop, and now I'm, what, not allowed to?"

Steve huffed and crossed his arms. “They're just joking around. It's no different than them razzing Mike about his hair."

Eddie was silent for a moment, mouth parted and clearly ready to talk. "Nope," he said, slapping his hands on the table and roughly pushing himself up out of the chair and abruptly leaving the room.

"What the fuck man?" Steve shouted after him, getting no response beyond the slamming of the trailer door. "He just left."

"I have eyes, Steve," Dustin snapped.

"But we're in his home," Steve said, just utterly dumbfounded by Eddie's actions.

"Yeah. I know that too," Dustin said with a large dose of exasperation as he picked his pencil back up and went back to working on his character sheet.

Steve sighed and took his own paper back, trying to finish the rest off without asking Dustin any questions.

It felt like an eternity before the door of the trailer creaked back open and Eddie announced his presence with a statement as he slapped his hands down on the table and leaned into the space between Dustin and Steve. "I thought he was a clockmaker too," Eddie said, staring right at Dustin.

Dustin looked up for a second, confused. He looked back at the character sheet, seemingly looking for anything that eluded to clocks. "What?" he eventually asked.

"Vecna. When we were in his house and saw the clock. I thought he was also a clock maker. For like, a second. Thought that if we were in a movie, that clock woulda been the clue to who Henry was."

Dustin rolled his eyes. "We aren't in a movie, dude."

"Really?!" Eddie asked, voice positively dripping with sarcasm. "I hadn't fucking noticed." He looked at Steve. "And I can't quote fucking Sherlock Holmes off the top of my head either," he said, “I’m so sick of you putting everyone else ahead of yourself, even when you go through shit, you don’t let on.” He shook his head. “You’ve saved this asshat from the demogorgon, demo-dogs, Russian Spies, American military, angry jocks, Vecna !” He sighed angrily. “The list goes on.”

He turned to Dustin. “And you put so much stock in intelligence but what’s the stat most people dump?”

Dustin squirmed, his face turning into an unhappy pout. “Intelligence.”

He nodded and looked at Steve. “I don’t think you’re dumb. I know you’re not a genius, but you’re surrounded by people who are incredibly smart and they know it . Cut yourself some slack and ignore this butthead.” 

Steve swallowed and stood. “Just, ah, one minute,” he said, making a hasty retreat to Eddie’s bedroom and shutting the door tightly behind him. He could still hear Eddie and Dustin squabbling behind the door, but he covered his ears. 

Steve couldn’t explain why he didn’t want Eddie defending him. He didn’t know why, but it made his chest hurt and his throat clog up. He felt a little bit like crying. He had been waiting years for someone to look at him and say he wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t say that his friends ignored his stupidity, because they pointed it out all the time, just like they pointed out that he was a slut . 

The door slowly creaked open, but Steve didn’t move from where he was curled up facing the wall. He didn’t move when the bed dipped. 

“Steve?” Eddie’s voice was soft. “I took Dustin home.” Oh. Then Steve supposed he’d probably been laying there for quite some time. 

Eddie watched as Steve sucked in one shuddering breath after another. He gently placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder and it was like a damn breaking. He’d seen Steve cry only a couple times, both times in connection to Beth. He hadn’t even cried when he’d been torn to bits by bats. Eddie swallowed, not sure what really set this off, but he would stay and comfort Steve through whatever his inner turmoil was. 

“Robin…” She looked up from where she was writing her application essay, laying on Steve’s bedroom floor. 

“What’s up, chicken butt?” 

Steve sat up and slid off the bed, ungracefully plopping down next to Robin and leaning his head into her shoulder. She smiled and nuzzled the back of his head before getting back to writing. Steve would speak in his own time, she knew that. 

The problem was that Steve finally coming to grips about what happened to him made him wonder if she was doing it to someone else. It also opened up a whole new can of worms into his feelings about men, but that was not the discussion he wanted to have. “Is there any way to make sure she doesn’t do it to another kid?”

Robin hummed, setting her pencil down. “The police?”

“I don’t think I can…” Robin looked over at Steve. “I don’t know if I can look Hopper in the eyes and say that I’ve been… you know.”

“I can’t think of any other way… I suppose we could just go to the principal, but I think one way or the other you’re gonna have to tell someone.”

Steve shuddered and pressed his head against Robin’s shoulder again. “The whole town will find out,” he whispered.

Robin was silent for a long moment before sighing, “I know.”

Chapter Text

Two days before Halloween 1986, Steve had his first known seizure. By some stroke of luck his mother had actually been home, so she’d heard when he slipped and fell on the stairs. 

Robin got a call from Mrs. Harrington and she, in turn, called Eddie. 

By the time they got to the hospital, Steve was already awake and, though he looked exhausted, he was talking and making jokes. “Hey!” Steve smiled, looking genuinely excited to see them, even though Mrs. Harrington looked confused as to why Eddie Munson had just walked in. They both sat down in the flimsy plastic chairs next to the bed and Mrs. Harrington excused herself. 

“You look like shit,” Eddie said, earning him a smack on the arm from Robin. 

“That’s not nice,” she admonished, “Though you do. Look like shit, that is.”

Eddie tossed his hands up in exasperation as Steve laughed, his head lolled towards them. “My life just keeps getting better,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “You know those headaches that I get? They come on and I usually have to sleep them off? Sometimes I get like, dizzy and uncoordinated?”

“Yeah?” They replied in unison, elbowing each other like children. 

“They did a scan of my brain or something, don’t remember what the test was called, but they said that this is not the first time this has happened. It’s just the first time I’ve, like, lost consciousness.”

“I thought people always lost consciousness during a seizure?” Eddie said, confused. 

Steve shrugged. “I did too.” He said, “They said they’re gonna give me a write up and paperwork and shit, but they also said that when those headaches come, the best thing to do is basically what I’ve been doing? Just heading to bed, or like, laying on a soft surface.”

Robin and Eddie looked at one another before both reaching for a hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on you,” they promised.

Mrs. Harrington waved goodbye to her son as she left the hospital, leaving him in Robin and Eddie’s care. “I feel like…”

“It’s fine, Rob. Leave it. I know,” Steve said, shifting in the bed and grimacing. “Wake me up when they say I can go home.” 

Steve didn’t get much rest, the doctor coming in only 20 minutes later to discharge him. He was a little unsteady on his feet as he got up, feeling like a balloon from the two bags of IV fluids they pumped into him when he arrived. “Come back with me?” Eddie offered. “Robin, you are also, obviously, welcome.”

Realistically, he knew that it would make more sense to go home , but even with his mom bringing him to the hospital, home didn’t feel much like home lately. It hadn’t in a long time, if he was being honest with himself. “Yeah, okay, but I wanna grab some stuff from my house and tell my mom I’ll be gone.”

They drove back to Steve’s in awkward silence, the cavalier nature of Steve’s mother’s response hanging heavy in the air. “You guys can come in, they don’t bite.” 

“Psh, I know,” Eddie huffed, slowly undoing his seatbelt and sliding out of the car. Robin, who had actually been to Steve’s a fair amount, rushed to get the door open so Steve didn’t have to with his unsteady feet. Together they made their way upstairs, Mrs. Harrington’s voice muffled from somewhere in the house. 

“She’s probably on the phone with my dad,” Steve said, answering the unasked question. He opened his bedroom door and let the two inside. Steve grabbed a small pile of laundry off the floor and shoved it into a duffle bag. He knew that he hadn’t actually been invited to spend the night, but he knew Eddie and he knew that when he said ‘come over’ that it wasn’t a one night invitation. He wanted to keep an eye on Steve when he knew his parents wouldn’t. “I’m gonna have to run the laundry at your place…” Steve winced, knowing that it wasn’t fair since he was the one who didn’t have to pay utilities, but if Eddie wanted his shirts back clean, that was just how it was going to have to go.

“All good,” Eddie said, sitting on the edge of Steve’s unmade bed and watching. He opened the nightstand drawer, just to be nosey, and snorted. “Jesus, you got enough condoms in here?” he asked. 

Steve turned to look over his shoulder at Eddie and huffed. “Well, everytime Robin comes over and my mom is home, she practically throws a sleeve of them at her. She just won't believe that Robin and I aren’t dating. Then I have some from… before.” He shrugged. “I just haven’t been very interested in dating since March,” he said. “And now, with all the stuff with Beth kind of coming into focus, I want sex even less than I want dates,” he said honestly. “I’m happy to have you guys though, and the kids when they aren’t being total assholes.”

Robin and Eddie looked at each other before Robin wrapped Steve in a big hug. “We love you,” she said, watching Eddie over Steve’s shoulder, beckoning him to join them with her eyes. 

“Ugh, this soo goes against my image.” Eddie groaned, lifting himself off the bed and dropping to his knees behind Steve to wrap his arms around them. 

Steve laughed, tilting his head to the side to make room for Eddie and relishing in the full body contact between him and his friends. Eddie, for all his faults, showed his affection easily, and Steve was grateful. 

Pretty soon, the three were dogpiled on Eddie’s creaking couch. They were having their own little Halloween movie marathon, letting the TV guide lead them. Eddie was pretty sure he had popcorn stuck in his hair thanks to Robin, but with Steve passed out in the crook of his arm, he didn’t dare move to get it out. 

Wayne got back from the bar around 8pm, ready to collapse into his bed, but he paused just inside the door. He couldn’t help but smile at the small pile of people on his couch, even with the waste of electricity from the TV running and the lights on as all three of them were fast asleep. Slowly, Wayne walked around, picking up empty soda cans and shutting off the lights and TV. He stopped by the phone on the way to his room, making a quiet phone call to the Buckley’s residence to tell them that their daughter was sound asleep with her friends on his couch. 

The second worst part about working in the middle of the night usually, was that Steve’s sleep schedule made it hard to sleep normal hours. He woke up sometime in the early morning hours and he could smell the fresh coffee from the kitchen. He carefully extracted himself out from under Robin and Eddie. 

He used the restroom before standing in the kitchen and staring at the coffee pot. It likely meant that Wayne was awake, but with him not in the kitchen or living room, Steve didn’t know if he could bother him. After debating with himself for a long time, Steve walked down the small hallway and knocked twice quietly on Wayne’s bedroom door. 

“Come in.”

Steve slowly pressed the door open and peeked in. Wayne was sitting up in his bed, glasses on his face and bedside lamp on as he read something. 

“Had a feelin’ it was you,” Wayne said. “Can’t sleep?”

Steve shook his head and stepped further into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed when Wayne waved him to do so. “How do you get used to it? You were out earlier today.”

Wayne laughed and gestured to himself, “I took a nap, and now I’m up. Best way to deal with working opposite most people seems to be naps and then just stayin’ up. Least, in my experience.” 

“I hate that.” 

“You’re welcome to sit in here if you’re worried about waking Ed and Robin.” He offered, “I got plenty of books.”

The offer was tempting, but Steve figured that if he was ever going to get a chance to ask Wayne for his opinion on what happened with Beth, this was probably it. “Actually,” Steve started, “Can I talk to you about something?”

Wayne looked up at Steve and slowly shut his book. “Take it this is the serious matter that’s been on your mind?”

Steve nodded and crossed his legs on the bed, facing Wayne. “I, uh… I don’t think that I can talk to my parents about it and… I think you’re the next like, adult that I’m close to,” he admitted. “And I’m worried about it spreading, so you gotta promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise,” Wayne said, studying Steve’s face seriously. He often thought that Eddie’s friends looked young, but it was usually just because he was a jaded old man, but Steve looked young in a completely different way. He looked nervous in a way Wayne rarely saw out of him. “I won’t tell no one.”

Licking his lips, Steve quietly explained what had happened to him in high school, who had done it, and what she had seen to precipitate the event. Throughout the retelling, Wayne stayed silent, only ever offering soft reassurances that he was listening. Steve told him about the fight with Robin, the fight with Eddie, and about his own struggles when it came to how he thought about Eddie. 

When all was said and done, Wayne nodded. “You want my honest opinion on the matter?”

Steve nodded, “Yeah, of course.”

“Don’t tell no one else what you just told me.” 

Steve frowned, confused. “What?”

“This town ain’t good for nothin’ but gossip. You can’t do nothin’ ‘bout it now, you ain’t gonna get her fired for something like this, not unless you go to the police. And they’re gonna ask you why she done it. You can’t tell ‘em that she caught ya kissin’ a boy, they’ll look the other way while some asshole ties you to a trailer hitch and drives ‘til you’re dead.” 

Steve paled at the realization that, not only was Wayne serious, but he was probably right. 

“Best thing you can do, for yourself , is to keep your head down ‘bout the whole thing and carry on as well as possible. You ain’t gonna change the minds of the townsfolk.”

The worst part was Steve realizing that Wayne didn’t even need to provide proof for that statement, it was written in graffiti across the outside of the trailer, orange spray paint spelling out ‘MURDERER’. 

Wayne sighed. “But, if you’d like, without usin’ your name, I could reach out to my lawyer, see if there is anything we can do.” He added it like an afterthought, like he didn’t really see the point, but he was willing to at least try. 

“You have a lawyer?” Steve asked, letting the subject, hopefully, change. 

Wayne laughed, genuine and on the brink of being too loud. “Of course I got a lawyer, son. My kid nearly got killed a few months ago, first by some supernatural creature, then by a group of assholes.” He leaned forward some, “Though if you want me to be honest with you, he’s not a defense attorney or nothin’ he was the lawyer that walked me through the adoption proceedings.” 

“Oh.” Steve blinked. “I didn’t know you needed a lawyer to adopt someone.”

Wayne shrugged. “When you get a kid in Eddie’s circumstances you do. His momma may have died, but his dad was alive and well, just in custody. I had to fight for the right to legally adopt Eddie because of that. Otherwise, I would’a just been a legal guardian while his dad was locked up.” Wayne shook his head. “Too much risk in that, Ed wasn’t safe with him and I had to prove that to the courts.”

Steve thought that over. “Isn’t hiring a lawyer, like, really expensive?” 

“Why do you think I still live in a trailer park?” Wayne asked. “I’d have loved to move, to give Eddie a better place to grow up. This was it though, most of my money came in from the plant and went out to utilities, rent, food, and the loan I had to take out to hire Bill.” 

Steve had been raised not to talk about money, so he never asked, even though he had wondered. “You’re a good man, Wayne. A really good man. I don’t think a lot of people would give up their financial security for a kid that wasn’t theirs.”

Wayne got silent for a moment, his fingers gently rubbing over the corners of the book. “Steve, I think that, while there are bad people out there, my brother, your teacher, those government people that tried to see my kid sent away for somethin’ he didn’t do, there is still good out there. Don’t forget to look for it, okay?” 

Steve looked down at his lap and picked at his nails. “Eddie’s good,” he said softly, “And Robin’s good. The kids are good.” 

“See.” Wayne smiled. “You’re already surroundin’ yourself with good people, that’s, in my opinion, a pretty damn good place to start.” 

Both men startled at a sudden knock at the door, opening to reveal a very sleepy looking Eddie. “You guys havin’ a party without me?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Who parties at…” Eddie squinted at the clock on Wayne’s nightstand, “three. It’s three am.”

Laughter burst from Steve and Wayne, Steve grinned. “Don’t forget we usually work in the middle of the night.” He stood up. “Thank you, Wayne.” 

Wayne nodded. “Good night boys.”

“Let’s get you back to sleep,” Steve said, ushering Eddie down the hallway to his room. Once Eddie was safe and sound snoring in his bed, Steve went back out to the couch. Robin was laying face down on the couch, one arm hanging off snoring louder than any of them. He chuckled and nudged her until he could slide onto the couch alongside her. 

“Are you sure you wanna have this here?” Steve asked, setting down a huge bowl of popcorn in the center of the coffee table. “Didn’t you say this was a tabletop game. I was under the impression we needed a table .” 

Eddie shrugged, rearranging some pillows and blankets on the floor for the plethora of teens to sit on. “Yeah, but Will said this would be fine and Karen and Ted are hosting a birthday party for Holly, so, we’re stuck here.” He looked up at Steve. “You said your parents are home, right?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, and I think they would die if I invited the party over. Especially after just getting out of the hospital.”

“Speaking of…” Eddie squinted at Steve. “You’re feeling okay? You and Robin left before I woke up yesterday.” 

Steve leaned against the kitchen counter. “Yeah, I mean, I feel normal.” He shrugged. “The doctor did say that this has been going on for a while, so like, I guess if I space out…” Steve shrugged.

“But you’re, like, looking out for the symptoms and shit?”

“Yeah man, I mean,” Steve huffed, a little exasperated. “I just don’t feel that different. And I haven’t had a headache since I collapsed.” 

“Okay, just checkin’.”

Steve tapped his foot. “Have you heard anything about your dad?”

Eddie shook his head, his hair covering part of his face and he bent down to straighten out the rug. “His release date is the 14th of November, that’s all I know right now.”

They were saved from the awkward lull in the conversation by a knock on the door. “Mini Byers, what’s up?” Eddie asked, letting him in and waving at Joyce. She waved back, but made no move to come inside. 

Will grinned, excited. “It’s been so long since I did this, I hope I’m still good.” 

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Eddie said, peeking out the door for any further signs of people coming. Likely Will just wanted to come early to prepare. 

Steve waved Will over. “Eddie set this counter up as your, uh, dungeon area.”

“Thanks,” Will said, hoisting himself onto a stool and getting all set up. They would have to forego some of the miniatures that he liked in favor of space, but Will didn’t mind. “Steve?” 

Steve looked back at Will, “Yeah?”

Will looked up at him, searching his face. “You’re doing okay?” 

Silence permeated the air for a long moment before Steve nodded. “Yeah bud, I’m doing okay.” 

Within the hour the trailer was filled to the brim with young teenagers. It took some wrangling, but Eddie managed to get everyone seated and lay down some ground rules, if only for Wayne’s sake. Wayne was at the bar, as he was most Friday nights, and Eddie didn’t want him to come home to a huge mess. Wayne could deal with the number of people, he was expecting that, but Eddie didn’t want him to feel like he had to clean up after them. 

Eddie settled close to Steve’s side, looking over his character sheet with him. As they progressed through the game, each character getting their turn to shine, Eddie kept an eye on Dustin, making sure he didn’t make any remarks that were out of line. In the end, it was Mike that said something though. 

“You take so long to do math,” Mike complained.

Steve looked up at him. “What?”

“He said you take too long to do math,” Erica said, rolling her eyes.

Steve bit his lip and looked at the sheet, thinking back to Eddie and Dustin. He looked at Eddie, already opening his mouth to say something. Steve grabbed his knee, stopping Eddie in the tracks. He scooted forward on the couch. “You know what, Mike?” 

Mike looked up at Steve. “What?”

“You try getting five fucking concussions and then do math.”

Robin, in the background whispered an ‘Oh snap’ to Max. 

“When did you get five concussions?” Mike asked, completely ignorant. 

Steve scoffed. “Uh, once when Jonathan Byers kicked my ass, rightfully so. Another time I believe I was, oh yeah, protecting your best friend from a racist asshole, who, by the way, broke my orbital bone . Another time when I was beaten half to death by Russian guards. Hm, I think I remember getting my shit rocked by hitting a car to save your sister’s ass. Do I need to continue?” 

Mike, for his part, looked properly cowed by Steve’s outburst.

“Not that you guys ever need anything if it’s not a ride to the arcade or someone to save your asses, but I’m only human. I was just told two fucking days ago that I’ve been having seizures for years, they just were like…” Steve lost the words and he thunked his head back against the couch. 

“Petit mal, sweetheart,” Eddie reminded him gently. 

Steve lifted his head back up and nodded. “Right, those.” He looked back at the group of kids. “So, I suggest that, maybe, you fuck off with the jokes about my intelligence.” 

“Sorry,” Mike said, quiet, but Steve heard it. His eyes cut to Dustin, who looked concerned, his eyes holding unshed tears. 

“I didn’t know it was so bad,” Dustin whispered. 

Steve sighed and sank back into the couch, leaning ever so slightly against Eddie’s side, seeking comfort from the person who made him feel like it was okay to stand up for himself. 

“Doesn’t Robin call you a Dingus all the time?” Max asked, raising a brow. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, looking at her, “but we had our own conversation, and she’s a little different anyway.” She usually only ignored his feelings when she was super stressed, and she’d been a lot better about it in the last few months. Finally Steve turned to look at Will. “21, by the way.” 

Will blinked and looked down at his own dice. “You lift your sword high above your head and bring it down in a powerful arch, slaying the beast with one mighty blow,” he said, carrying on the game like there hadn’t been an interruption at all. 

Eddie looked at Steve, watching him out of the corner of his eye, his hand moving to rest on Steve’s knee, squeezing reassuringly. 

No one else gave Steve shit about how slow he added up the dice for the rest of the game. 

When the game was over, Joyce picked up her son and a couple of the others, while the rest loaded into Steve’s car. It was over capacity, but the police force in Hawkins had more things to worry about than a car with too many kids in it. 

Steve dropped the kids off, wishing them a goodnight, but saving Robin for last, per her request. “I’m proud of you, Steve,” she said, once it was just them in the car. “I know you don’t like telling them off.”

“Eddie blew up at Dustin the other day for calling me an idiot,” Steve admitted, “And I got pissed at Eddie because they’re just joking… but… I think my trip to the hospital really solidified that I’ve given up ever having a normal life, just to protect those kids. I was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but sometimes it takes genuine effort just to form a fucking thought.” He pulled up outside Robin’s house and parked. “That scares the shit out of me.” 

Robin hummed and nodded, “I didn’t know that Billy broke your face,” she said, “Like actually broke a bone?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, the doctors confirmed it when they did the other tests after my seizure. They did an x-ray too.”

“Oh, so how do you know it was Billy?”

“He got me the worst.” Steve shrugged. “I struggled to breathe after that one, and I couldn’t blow my nose for, like, two weeks because of the pressure right here.” Steve ran his finger along the inside ridge of his eye, where it sat next to his nose. “So it was definitely from Billy.”

Robin stretched across the seat and pulled Steve into a hug, “You’re literally the best friend someone could ask for.” She pulled back with a smile and poked his nose. “Even if you’re a dingus,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him. 

Just as Robin went to go open the door, Steve grabbed her hand, “I, uh, I’ve also been thinking… When you had a crush on Vickie, how did you know?”

Robin stopped and looked at Steve. “Babe,” she said, flipping her hand over and squeezing Steve’s, “You know what a crush feels like, just because it’s someone of the same gender doesn’t mean it feels different.”

Steve’s eyes dropped to the shifter before flicking back up. “I’m scared.”

“I know.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, an unusually affectionate gesture. “But you’re gonna be fine.” 

Chapter Text

“Steve, Steve, Steven!” 

Steve caught himself on the edge of the counter, closing his eyes and fighting off the wave of dizziness that overwhelmed him. “What?” he grit out, his teeth aching from clenching them. 

“I was trying to talk to you and you just started ignoring me.”

“I’m not ignoring you, dad, I think…” Steve rubbed his temple with the hand not keeping him balanced. “I think I had a seizure.” 

John Harrington scoffed. “That’s your mother talking,” he said. 

“No, dad, it is an actual diagnosis that I received at the hospital.” Steve took a careful step forward and sat down on one of the stools in the kitchen. Steve didn’t know for sure, but he felt like now that he was paying attention to the symptoms, he was probably getting a little better at noticing the seizures. He still wanted to just chalk it all up to migraines, but he wasn’t sure. They didn’t happen all that often, not really. The doctor had said some people, children really, experience up to 40 in one day, which Steve was positive was not happening to him. 

Mr. Harrington ignored his son’s health concern, instead continuing his lecture about trying to find his own place and moving out. “I believe we’ve coddled you long enough.”

Steve held his head in his hands and sighed. “Why’d you have a kid?” he asked, feeling rejected. “It certainly wasn’t because you wanted one.” Steve flinched when his father’s hand smacked the counter. 

“Everything that we’ve done for you, and you’re going to act like this? We’ve made sacrifices for you, Steve, you should be grateful that you still live in this house considering the medical bills I’ve had to pay because you can’t keep yourself out of trouble.”

“I…” Steve stood up slowly, “I think that’s just something you do, when you love your kid. Except I’ve seen parents who love their kids… and I just don’t think that you do.” He shook his head and stepped away from his father. “I’ve been through things you can’t even imagine, and not once have you asked how I got hurt, only bothering to lecture me about the cost of it. The cost to you , and here I am, suffering with multiple head traumas, and you don’t give a shit beyond the medical bills.” Steve waved his father off and started up the stairs. “I’ll be out by the end of the month.”

Steve had no idea where he would go, but he had saved up a decent amount since starting at the plant. He could probably afford a little lot in the trailer park. Or maybe Robin would consider getting an apartment with him somewhere outside of Hawkins. Steve wasn’t going to think about that at the moment though, for the time being he was content to fall into bed. 

Steve managed to get all of two hours of fitful sleep before giving up. It was his night off and nearing midnight, but Steve still got up and pulled a winter coat over his pajamas. He sighed and went out to his car, slowly cleaning the light covering of snow off the windshield before getting in and making the drive to the trailer park.

“Steve.” Eddie blinked, looking confused as to what Steve was doing there. It was Steve’s night off, but he and Eddie didn’t have plans. “What’s up?” he asked, inviting Steve in and heading towards the warmth of his bedroom. 

Steve couldn’t help but appreciate Eddie’s clothing choices, “That’s my sweater,” he pointed out. 

Eddie looked down at the pale blue, contrasting horribly with the bright red boxers. “Yup, seems like it.” He looked at Steve. “What are you doing here? I thought you said that your parents expected you home?”

“Well, I got into a fight with my dad, but I just can’t sleep.” 

Looking over his shoulder at the nice, cozy, warm bed he’d just crawled out of, Eddie held in his sigh as he realized that he was going to move to the cold and lonely couch in the living room. He didn’t have to , but he was going to. Because he was in love with this man. “You wanna sleep here?” he asked, standing up and grabbing one of his blankets. 

In a move neither boy expected, Steve stopped Eddie. “We can share… I don’t want to kick you out of your bed. Again. Or I can sleep in the living room.” 

Eddie paused, clutching the blanket in his hands. “You sure? Because I don't mind but, uh... last time you did... you're not gonna wake up and hate me, right?"

Steve shook his head. "Nah, I uh, after everything we talked about, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be okay. I'm expecting it this time."

Slowly, like he was still unsure if Steve was going to change his mind, Eddie climbed into the bed facing the wall, hyper aware of Steve climbing in behind him and tugging the blankets over them. “Good night,” Eddie said. 

“Good night. Thanks,” Steve whispered back.

Eddie woke up again a few hours later when he felt hands on him. He was groggy as he realized Steve was curling up against his back, one arm snaking its way over his ribs and his head snuggling the spot between his shoulder blades. He took a deep breath. It felt so nice, but there was no way he could let Steve wake up like that. "Steve," he called, bringing an elbow back to nudge him softly.

He stirred, squeezing Eddie slightly, "hmprf." Eddie elbowed him again and Steve groaned. "What?" he whined.

Eddie stretched a little; just making a move to show Steve that he was cuddled up to him. "You're hugging me."

Steve was silent for a moment before his hand slid back from Eddie's belly to his ribs. "Oh, sorry, you're just really warm."

Eddie smiled and chuckled. "I don't really mind, it's nice, I just, well you know. I don't want you to wake up and think I did something I didn't."

He could feel Steve waffling, but he waited it out, knowing that these were decisions that Steve had to make for himself. After a moment though, Eddie felt fingers on his belly again as Steve hugged him close. He felt Steve's shaky exhale against his back and the way his knees curled up and pressed to the backside of his own. Eddie smiled to himself, letting himself enjoy the small indulgence since it was on Steve's terms. "Comfy?" he asked, only getting a sleepy hum in response. Steve was snoring within a minute of cuddling in, and well, Eddie could hardly blame him.

When Steve and Eddie woke up in the morning, it was to Wayne creaking the door open. Steve was sort of awake, mostly just floating there lost in the warmth against his front and the smell of Eddie’s shampoo. He tipped his head up to see Wayne, who didn’t look the least bit surprised to see Steve and Eddie cuddled up together in bed. “Hm, I figured Eddie was more of a big spoon,” he joked. He reached out and ruffled Steve’s hair. “You kids want breakfast?” 

“Pancakes?” Eddie asked from somewhere under his mound of curls, half mumbled into the pillow.

“Sure,” Wayne said, “That good for you?”

Steve nodded. Once the door was closed again, Steve squeezed Eddie before starting to pull back, 

“Noo,” Eddie whined, “My personal blanket.”

Steve laughed, and sat up. “Come on, get up.” He nudged Eddie. “I wanna talk to you.” 

Eddie slowly lifted himself up in the weirdest way ever, it certainly didn’t look comfortable. He shook his hair out of his face and peeked at Steve. “So uh, what’s up?” he asked, slowly, like he was genuinely worried about what Steve was going to say. 

Steve fiddled with his fingers. “I, uh… I’ve realized a lot of things since September…” He said, “Mostly things about Beth and my past, but, uh, tied into that is stuff about my sexuality.” He heard when Eddie swallowed. “I’m like, pretty sure I’m gay. Or, like, maybe I like both? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that I like you .” He turned to look at Eddie, but what he saw wasn’t what he was hoping for. 

"I don’t..." Eddie started. Steve shifted, looking nervous and maybe a little afraid. "No...  I just... I can't be an experiment."

"What?"

"I mean that.... Jesus, Steve. I mean that I wanna take you on dates and dance in the kitchen and hold your hand. I want to sit in your passenger seat and have you sit in mine. I wanna kiss you until we fall asleep and I want to have sex with you when you're ready and willing. I want to laugh with you and cry with you. I want to fight and make up because it means we're working shit out . I am so head over heels in love with you that it makes me sick. I can not be an experiment."

Steve stared at Eddie with wide eyes. "You love me?"

Eddie nodded slowly. "I know, maybe it's crazy, but yeah. If we do this, I want to do it because we want it to last forever. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but I don't want to go into this with you thinking you're just experimenting."

Steve hadn't told anyone that he loved them since Nancy. Hadn't even considered that he could love someone like that again, not romantically at least. It had hurt so much to have her tell him that their entire year-long relationship was bullshit. He supposed at the very least he could understand why Eddie was laying this all out, he was protecting himself. "I don't know if I can profess the same thing, not yet at least, but you're not an experiment to me, Eddie. I want the same things, I'm not looking to confirm anything or get my rocks off. I'm looking for the long term. I've been looking for the long term, I just think I was looking in the wrong place."

The war on Eddie's face was clear, he was putting up a valiant fight against the smile trying to break out on his face, presumably trying to look neutral for the sake of their conversation, but Steve turned the tide of the war by offering his own smile. Eddie gave up all pretenses and aimed his megawatt smile at Steve, inching closer. "So, can I kiss you?"

Steve wrinkled his nose playfully. "I don't know, you've probably got some pretty rough morning breath."

"Oh shut up." Eddie laughed, tugging Steve in and peppering his face with little kisses, waiting for Steve to change the direction and smack one on him. They kept it short because they did have morning breath, but it was perfect anyway.

Steve had to wait two whole days to tell Robin about him and Eddie, mostly due to conflicting schedules and both their parents being around. But, every Thursday night, Robin’s parents have ‘date night,’ so Steve made his way over to Robin’s right after they left for their date. 

Robin opened the door and waved Steve in. She looked tired. “You good?” he asked. 

She nodded and they made their way to her room, it was slowly being packed up. “Yeah, just been sorting through what I’m taking with me to the dorms and what’s staying here.” She shrugged and flopped down into her desk chair. “What have you been up to?”

Steve sat on Robin’s bed and picked up one of Robin’s stuffed animals, hugging it to his chest. “I, uh… got a boyfriend,” he announced. 

There was a shocked moment of silence before Robin pounced on Steve and shook him violently. “Tell me everything right now!” she yelled, the main reason why Steve had to be strategic in when and where to tell her. He knew that she would freak out, in a good way. 

Steve laughed and pushed her back by the shoulders. “Well…” he started, “I got into a fight with my dad the other day about my seizures and when I couldn’t sleep I just left and went to Eddie’s place. He doesn’t usually mind me going there at odd hours since usually he’s up. Insomnia and all that.” Robin nodded to show she was following along. “So, he let me in, but it was pretty clear I’d woken him up. But, being a nice dude, he still offered me his bed. Seeing as the heating in the living room is broken, I just suggested we share the bed. We talked about it a little, he was nervous because of what happened last time…”

“Wait,” Robin stopped him, “what happened last time? I don’t think you told me this.” 

“Oh…” Steve tried to think back, but he’d been so caught up in fighting with Robin that he hadn’t actually gotten to that point in the conversation with her before he’d been kicked out. “Uh, well after the first time we had talked about my situation with Beth, I fell asleep in his bed. Usually he goes to the couch, he hadn’t, I freaked out a bit. I’d found a gay skin mag in his room a little while before that, so I knew he was gay and my brain.” Steve made an exploding motion. “It freaked out about the whole thing.” 

Robin was silent but nodded. 

“Alright, yeah, so he checked to make sure it was okay and that I was okay.” He shrugged. “So… yeah.”

Robin blinked. “Steve, you forgot to mention the part where you guys got together?” 

“Shit, sorry.” Steve shook his head. “Uh, well, when we woke up we just talked. Eddie said he couldn’t be an experiment and I told him I didn’t want him to be an experiment and… now we’re dating. I guess.” It was a little weird for him, but usually because his relationships started with dates, not the other way around. “Now I just have to figure out how to start taking him on dates where people aren’t going to make small town assumptions and feed the rumor mill.” 

Robin laughed and moved to lay down next to him instead of oddly sitting hovering over him. “Eddie’s got a van, right? You guys could just drive up to the quarry and get freaky in the back of the van.”

Steve pushed her lightly. “I said date not hookup . This is new Steve. He is healing from his… forced sexuality.” 

“Wooow.” Robin turned towards him and smiled, “So, you’re not gonna fuck?”

Steve shrugged. “I mean, yeah, eventually. Eddie said he’s willing to wait until I’m ready. I mean… I’ve always… ever since Beth, sex and love and dating have been so mixed up in my head. I think I… I want the sex to mean something this time. For years, I’ve been working my way through the female population of Hawkins and the surrounding towns because I was told that was what I should do, probably just to cover up the rumors of our affair. But that’s… don’t most people have sex because it means something?”

Robin shrugged. “I don’t know, Steve, I’m a virgin, remember?” 

They both chuckled and elbowed one another. “Alright, I mean, I know casual sex is a thing, but… I want it to mean something. I want it to be when we’re both ready and not just because that’s what I do. I don’t wanna be the guy that’s known for being good at sex.”

“Eddie doesn’t see you that way.” 

Steve smiled. “I know. Maybe that’s why.”

“So, have you decided what you’re going to do about Mrs. Jenkins?”

Steve’s smile fell and he looked at Robin with a slightly guilty look. “I’m not going to do anything,” he said. “I don’t think it’s safe. She’s been a teacher for a long time; I don’t think I would have any footing to go against her if I reported her to the school board. I maybe could get her fired if I decided to go the route of legal action… but if I do that then every single nosey motherfucker in Hawkins is going to know and they’re going to ask why . I don’t want to have to come out as gay. I don’t want the whole town up my ass about it. And I really, really , don’t want anyone connecting the dots about Eddie and me and making his life even harder.” 

Robin thought through Steve’s decision. It was maybe a little selfish, considering other kids could potentially fall victim to the lady, but at the same time, he was probably right. Even if Steve did report her, who would believe them in the current political climate? Women didn’t go to prison for rape, they didn’t get in trouble for sexual abuse, some people didn’t understand that women could even be sexual predators. 

“You don’t think that’s… cruel, do you?” Steve asked, sounding unsure.

“Steve, I think that’s exactly what you need to do to survive in this place. I can’t speak for your experiences, but if there is one thing the fucking government has taught us, it’s that shutting up sometimes really is the best course of action.”

Steve nodded and shuffled closer. “You wanna take a nap?”

Robin smirked. “You just want to cuddle, don’t you? You have a boyfriend now!”

Steve grinned a dopey grin, thinking of Eddie, “Yeah, I do, but I think he’s at Nancy’s house, going through rigorous interview prep. He’s trying really hard to get a job.”

“Oh God, poor guy.” She laughed and they repositioned themselves. “Make sure you wake up before you have to go to work.”

Chapter Text

It took weeks, but eventually Eddie managed to land an interview at an auto shop about forty minutes outside of Hawkins. 

The day Eddie had his interview, Steve waited for him at the trailer. Mostly because his interview was early in the day, at the time Steve usually took his morning nap. When he had first started at the plant, Steve had tried to just get the eight hours before work, but since getting used to it, he found it more effective if he slept four hours after work then four hours again before work. He didn’t know why, it just worked better for him. 

Though, that at least meant that when Eddie got back, Steve was already up and waiting for him, barely up, but up. He was shoving a barely warmed Hot Pocket in his mouth when the door to the trailer burst open. “I got the job!” Eddie cheered. 

Steve dropped the Hot Pocket and cheered right along with him, dragging him into a sloppy kiss that was way too much tongue given that Steve still had pizza sauce smeared on his lip. “I knew you could do it.” 

Eddie grinned at Steve. “I’ll have, like, a probationary period before I’m officially part of the team, but starting pay is seven dollars an hour! And it’s flat rate, so like, I guess manufacturers send out these bulletins full of how long it should take a mechanic to fix something, so the garage pays based on that. If say, your car came in needing a… gas tank… the TSB might say that it’s supposed to take three hours. If I can get it done in two, I’ll still get paid for three. Sucks that if I take four hours I’ll still only get paid for three, but like, that just means I gotta work harder and faster.”

“That’s great!” Steve said, genuinely happy for his boyfriend. Seven dollars an hour was nothing to sneeze at, it was more than twice what Steve made at scoops.

“I gotta tell Wayne,” Eddie said, smacking another kiss on Steve’s cheek before disappearing further into the trailer to ramble at his uncle. Steve was so happy for Eddie, he just wished Eddie didn’t need to drive forty minutes just to get a job in a town far enough away that they didn’t believe the small town Hawkins rumors. 

While Eddie was talking to Wayne, Steve went into Eddie’s room to grab his wallet and keys off Eddie’s nightstand, then he knocked on the door and interrupted the pair. “Hey, let’s get lunch to celebrate. On me.”

Eddie spun around and smiled. “Didn’t you just eat?”

“I had a half of a Hot Pocket,” he deadpanned, “It’s not exactly anything to write home about. Come on, we can go to the diner on Main.”

Eddie nodded and followed after Steve. 

“You boys enjoy your date!” Wayne called after them. 

While the boys sat in the diner, Steve flipped through a newspaper, looking at rentals in Hawkins and surrounding towns. There wasn’t much in Hawkins but it didn’t look completely hopeless. “I think this one might work.” Steve pointed out, sliding the paper across the table. 

Eddie pulled the paper closer and read the short description below the image. “Two-eighty a month doesn't sound too bad. You should check it out.”

“It’s a two bedroom,” he pointed out. 

Eddie stared at him for a long moment. “Are you… asking what I think you’re asking?”

Steve shrugged. “I know it’s fast, but it isn’t like you can’t go back to your uncle if things sour. I just thought it might be nice to give the guy his own space, you know? Wayne’s done a lot for you, for both of us really. I’m sure he’d like to get laid in his own home every once in a while rather than having to go to a seedy motel outside of town.” 

“Ew, why do you know anything about my uncle’s sex life?” Eddie asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. 

“I, uh, maybe have been at the seedy motel at the same time as him. It was a while ago now, before March even. I didn't even know him, but I do remember seeing him at the condom vending machine.” 

Eddie gave a full body shiver. “Steve, stop talking right now.” 

Steve laughed and kicked Eddie under the table, “Come on now, I know you want him to be happy.” 

Eddie tapped the advertisement. “I’ll check it out with you, but I’m not making any promises to become roommates just yet.” 

“Deal.” 

The landlord was someone that Steve and Eddie hardly knew, maybe someone new to town, though Steve couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to move to Hawkins considering the bad press. Maybe the guy was just capitalizing on lower real estate values. The apartment seemed to be in decent condition at least. The sinks didn’t leak and there was no visible water damage anywhere. It could use some updating, but Steve didn’t care about that so much. “I’ll take it,” he said, turning towards the landlord. 

Him and Eddie left that day with keys.

“I told Wayne, about you asking me to move in,” Eddie said as he slid into the passenger seat of the BMW a few days later.

“What’d he say?”

Eddie snorted. “He said that he thinks we’re crazy, but that if anyone was gonna keep me, it’d be you.” 

Steve grinned. “Fuck, I wish I could kiss you.” 

“We’ll be back to your place soon.” 

Steve pulled into the driveway to his parents house and sighed with relief that no one was home. Both of his parents were still in town, but his mother had said something about a luncheon with ‘the girls’ and his dad was out playing golf. 

The two headed inside and straight up to Steve’s room, where Steve wasted no time in kissing Eddie silly, even going so far as to push him down onto the bed, climbing in after him. 

Healing was a journey that Steve had only begun to embark on when he started dating Eddie. A few months into it, he’d barely even begun to understand it. The two started slow, or as slow as a couple like them could start. They were supposed to clearing out the last of Steve’s belongings, especially seeing as Steve was already over due on moving out, but they were a little distracted. 

When Steve reached for Eddie’s belt, both of their shirts already discarded, Eddie grabbed Steve’s wrists and looked at him. His big brown eyes stared at Steve. “We don’t have to.” 

Steve looked up at him. “I want to. I really want to.” He scooted back up the bed to press a kiss to Eddie’s lips. “Please let me suck your dick.”

Eddie groaned and dropped his head back on the bed. “Shit. Consent is sexy.” Steve raised his eyebrow and Eddie dragged him in for a searing kiss. When they finally broke apart Eddie helped Steve get his belt undone, shoving his pants down to his knees. He reached for his boxers but Steve stopped him.

“Let me take care of you, alright?” 

“I’m sucking your dick after.” 

There really wasn’t a time that Eddie didn’t think Steve was beautiful, but sitting there, with a flush on his cheeks, lips reddened from kissing and his hair messy from Eddie’s hands… Eddie wished he was an artist. He wished he could take a photo of Steve looking so happy and healthy and plaster it on every surface of his house. Wayne might disapprove.

Eddie scooted himself up the bed, propping himself up on Steve’s pillow, desperate for a front row seat as Steve kissed his way down Eddie’s chest. Eddie had told Steve when they got together that he was going to wait for Steve, until Steve was ready to have sex. At the time it had been to comfort Steve, to avoid pressuring him into a situation that could be, at best uncomfortable and at worst, retraumatizing. As he watched Steve, he knew it was the best decision he could have made. He’d wrung himself dry jerking off to the thoughts of his boyfriend and their potential sex life. 

Real life was so much better than the fantasy. 

The simple fact that Steve looked like he wanted to be there… 

Eddie gasped when Steve bit down on his hipbone, brown meeting brown as Steve smiled up at him. Steve propped himself up on one arm and used the other to help Eddie kick his pants completely off. He reached up and tugged at the waistband of Eddie’s boxers, the blue material tenting obscenely. “You look a little pent up there.” His voice was teasing at it drove Eddie wild.

“Considering how much I’ve been jerking off… I don’t think pent up is the right word,” he confessed, his voice sounding breathless even to himself. He could hear the awe in his own voice and he would be embarrassed if he were around anyone else. “Excited might be a better word.”

Steve hummed thoughtfully. He snapped the waistband and wrapped his hand around Eddie through the thin material. “Well, you are the wordsmith, I suppose you’d know words better.” 

Eddie could feel the warmth of Steve’s hand through the material, he rocked his hips up trying to get any friction from the hand, but Steve wasn’t giving in. 

Steve had never had sex with another man, had never touched a dick that wasn’t his own, but wrapping his hand around Eddie’s heat was easier than he thought it would be. He’d almost thought he’d have another sexuality crisis in the midst of this, but as he assessed his own body, he knew his heart was pounding from excitement. His mouth was watering at the very thought of trying to take Eddie’s length. 

He carefully worked Eddie’s boxers off with Eddie’s help, tossing them to the floor. He glanced up at Eddie, making sure Eddie didn’t look like he’d changed his mind before leaning down.

Eddie sucked in a breath and prepared himself for what was bound to be an overwhelming sensation, only to blow out the breath in fake exasperation when Steve completely avoided licking Eddie’s dick. It was surreal watching Steve press his nose to Eddie’s public hair, pressing soft kisses to the coarse hair and soft skin while his hand just held Eddie’s stiffness out of the way. Eddie groaned and he felt Steve chuckle against him. 

When Steve urged Eddie to bend his leg, his hand coming up under his thigh, Eddie was helpless but to comply. He laid there, naked and exposed, and let Steve press kisses and bites to the inside of his thigh and his hips, so high up it was almost embarrassing how quickly Eddie would have flipped over to get that tongue between his cheeks. Still, Eddie let Steve take his time. It felt great anyway. 

Steve spent so long avoiding Eddie’s dick that when the first tentative lick was finally bestowed upon the long-forgotten appendage, Eddie nearly shouted. He jerked in surprise, nearly pressing his chin to his sternum in an effort to see everything that Steve did next. 

The taste wasn’t bad, if Steve had to pick a work he would probably say it tasted salty. He didn’t know if Eddie had showered that morning, but he didn’t taste gross. Mostly, it tasted like skin. Steve was slow as he eased the length into his mouth, groaning as he took him deeper and deeper until he gagged. He stopped then, taking a deep breath through his nose. 

Despite all his experience, he didn’t want to fall back on thinking about what he did with those girls in order to figure out what to do, not when he hadn’t wanted to do most of that. So he pushed them from his mind, let himself clear his mind of anything other than Eddie and the bed they were on. He was careful when he started bobbing his head, not wanting to gag himself again. He was determined to take his time and make this good. For both of them. 

Eddie was probably dead. He was fairly certain he’d ascended to Heaven, though the possibility of being in Hell couldn’t be entirely ruled out. Not with how slow Steve was going. It felt amazing for sure. It also felt like torture. “Steve…” He sighed, reaching out and cupping the back of Steve’s neck. Steve’s eyes flicked up to meet his own and Eddie felt like jumping off a bridge. He felt coiled tight, ready to blow. To combust. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so on a tether in his entire life. His emotions were everywhere and his dick ached. 

Steve pulled off after what could have been hours. He felt a little drunk on Eddie, watching him squirm and listening to his moans and whines. His jaw ached a bit but he kind of wanted to stay laying there with Eddie’s dick in his mouth for hours. 

He wondered if Eddie would let him do that someday.

Steve jerked Eddie off slowly, the glide made easy by all the spit Steve left behind. He ducked his head down to mouth at one of Eddie’s ball, pride welling in his chest at Eddie’s strangled moan above him. Balls were objectively not very attractive, but Steve knew they felt good to play with. He sucked one into his mouth and looked up at Eddie. Eddie looked like a wild man. 

Steve shuddered and pulled back, moving to give Eddie’s other ball some love before moving back to sucking him off. He went a little faster this time, the hand on the back of his neck a comfort rather than a cage for the first time ever. He moaned around Eddie’s length and rocked his hips into the bed, reminding himself that he was allowed to enjoy this. He was allowed to want this. 

When Eddie finally came, it took both boys by surprise. Steve hadn’t really been ready for it, but Eddie hadn’t expected Steve to reach up and tug on his sack. It hadn’t been hard, but oh boy, it had definitely done something to Eddie’s brain chemistry. He hadn’t had even a second to warn Steve. 

Steve jerked back when the first spurt hit the back of his throat, gagging him. Unfortunately for Steve, that meant the rest of Eddie’s release ended up on his face. It wasn’t even that it tasted bad, though it hadn’t tasted great . It had just surprised him. 

The two of them sat there staring at one another for a minute, both of them surprised before Eddie surged forward, cupping Steve’s face in his hands and kissing the daylights out of him. Steve laughed loudly and pushed at Eddie when he licked the jizz off his face with a long broad stroke of his tongue. “Gross!” His voice was loud with his laughter, but Eddie didn’t think he sounded all that disgusted. 

They kissed again, this time noticeable softer. “That was amazing, Steve.”

Steve flushed and leaned back. “I liked it. More than I thought I would.”

Eddie laughed. “Well you’re more than welcome to do it again any time you want!”

With a shove, Eddie flopped back, accepting the weight of Steve crawling over him to kiss him into silence again. Eddie’s hands wandering. They started on Steve’s back, but it didn’t take that long for Eddie to be groping insistently at Steve’s ass. He had a favor he wanted to repay after all. 

He pushed gently on Steve’s shoulder twice until he got the hint and let Eddie roll them over. Eddie followed Steve over before propping himself up on his elbows. “I only wanna do this if you want it too.” 

Steve reached up and pinched Eddie’s cheek. “I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted something, or someone, more.”

Eddie’s grin was blinding. A deadly weapon if Steve had ever seen one. 

Eddie worked Steve out of his pants and underwear much quicker than Steve had stripped Eddie. He wasted far less time in swallowing Steve down. His inexperience showed, but Steve didn’t mind. He liked it. It was obvious that Eddie was trying to follow the example Steve led by, not giving all of his attention to Steve’s dick, but he also clearly didn’t want to take Steve’s dick out of his mouth even for a second. 

It was wet and messy. The room filled with the wet sounds of Eddie slurping and Steve’s quiet moans. 

Unlike when Eddie came, when Steve came he was able to give Eddie fair warning. Eddie groaned loudly, breathing harshly through his nose when Steve came over his tongue. It was salty and kind of gross but Eddie didn’t care. He liked the heady taste. 

Neither of them knew how much time passed curled up on Steve’s childhood bed as they caught their breath. At one point Eddie peeked over and saw Steve sleeping peacefully. He felt like he should find it rude that Steve conked out after a good nut, leaving Eddie to fend for himself. But another, bigger part of him, was just glad that Steve felt safe enough around him to do that. 

Eddie was careful as he lifted himself out of the bed. He grabbed a warm washcloth and returned, waking Steve up slowly so they could clean up. Steve was sleepy and Eddie wiped the remains of Eddie’s release from his face before handing him his underwear and pants.

Slowly, they boxed up the rest of Steve’s room, bringing the boxes down the stairs and out to the car waiting in the driveway. 

Neither of the boys really knew what curve balls life would end up throwing their way. Eddie was still nervous about his father getting out of jail and they would have a lifetime of dealing with Steve’s seizures and Eddie’s physical disabilities from dealing with the Upside Down. They both knew that the healing of trauma would be bumpy. There would be setback and mistakes. But they were more than willing to take it on together. And when problems got too big for just the two of them? 

Well, they had an entire party at their backs to help. 

"What happens when people open their hearts?

They get better.”

― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood