Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Steve flips over the store sign at 8:58, closing time at nine be damned. He turns around to find Robin already counting the till. He swears, they have this Family Video closing shift routine down to the second. If they’re lucky they’ll get out of here before 9:15.

It’s like clockwork. Steve wanders down the aisles to collect any garbage (seriously, when will people stop leaving their finished or unfinished drinks on the shelves?) and stands the videos the right way up on the shelves.

He casts a glance over to Robin, counting under her breath as she flits through a pile of one dollar bills. “What were you and Eddie all giggly about tonight?” he asks.

Robin shrugs. “I can’t remember. What have I told you about talking to me when I’m doing math?”

Steve remains quiet, pursing his lips and sucking on his teeth, holding back a smart retort. The last thing he needs is a confused, math riddled Robin mad at him.

Ever since they put the whole Vecna thing to rest (literally), and everyone’s wounds had scarred over, Eddie has been spending a lot of his free time (which translates to, ‘all his time’) at Family Video. Steve thinks it’s mostly to see Robin. The two of them sparked what Steve can only refer to as an unlikely friendship post-Vecna.

In fact, Eddie has sparked a friendship with most of the party. He had already been close with Mike, Dustin and Lucas, with the Hellfire Club and whatnot, but now Eddie seemed to have wormed his way into the hearts of Max and Eleven. He met Will briefly before the Byers had to return to California to pack up their stuff, and he had been totally entranced by Eddie. Steve couldn’t really blame any of them.

They finish up their closing tasks, Steve grabbing the garbage and recycling on the way out and Robin shutting down the computer system. She uses her key to lock the door while Steve throws out the trash and then they are off.

“Can I put on something?” Robin asks, gesturing to the console. Steve gives her a nod as she digs something out of her coat pocket and slips a tape in. The music starts with a gentle guitar strum, Robin’s face concentrated. Steve watches her, eyes flitting back and forth from the road to her.

After about thirty seconds, the song suddenly blares louder.

Robin scrunches up her nose. “Nope.” She pauses the tape.

“What the hell was that?”

“Metallica,” Robin says, leaning back in her seat. “Eddie gave it to me. He really wants one of us to like his style of music,” she laughs. “It’s just too loud, though. Makes my brain feel all busy and not in a good way.”

“Uh-huh,” Steve says. “Okay.”

“You should give it a try, though. Eddie needs someone who's willing to listen to his crap.”

“Okay,” Steve says again.

Silence draws over the two of them. Steve drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Do you have a problem with Eddie or something?” Robin asks.

Steve sputters. “What? No. No way.”

“Because you act all weird around him all the time. He survived an interdimensional fight with us. That makes him part of the…the club or whatever, whether you like him or not.”

“I like him!”

Robin stares.

“I like him!” Steve says again. “I just — he’s been around a lot. I just didn’t expect him to wanna stick around after all this happened.”

“I reiterate,” Robin gestures widely with her arms. “Interdimensional demon fight. He probably just wants to be around people who get it, you know? Living through it is hard enough, but it’s the after that’s the worst.”

Steve does know. It seems like every time shit goes down in Hawkins he spends the next year trying to reform what is left of his brain before the next monster appears. This year is no different. They got out of the Upside Down, but all the gates are still there. Eleven stayed behind to work on trying to close them before the Mind Flayer could come back, along with Hopper — apparently not dead, who fucking knew?

Still, though, the After. Steve knows about it. The waking up in a cold sweat from the nightmares, the not being able to look in your backyard or swim in the pool. He gets it. Steve can’t stop dreaming about the gates and the things that could crawl out of them, he keeps dreaming of how they found Eddie lying there on the ground, bleeding, and Dustin half out of his mind screaming. Steve blinks until the thoughts leave him.

“If it makes you feel better he’s probably just hanging around for me,” Robin supplies.

That, in fact, does not make Steve feel better. That makes something ugly twist in the bottom of his stomach, but he pushes it down. Instead just rolling his eyes, telling himself that Robin is only joking. Because if Eddie really did hate Steve, he wouldn’t spend all his time at Family Video just to see Robin. Right?

The rest of the drive is in silence, not even any music playing. Steve rolls into Robin’s driveway.

“Hey,” she says, nudging Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’re still my favourite guy.”

“Yeah,” Steve waves her off. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Eddie’s gonna give me a ride after school,” she says as she opens the door to get out. “So don’t worry about coming to pick me up.”

Steve gives her a nod. He watches Robin get into her house, presses play on the tape, and then drives home.

***

Before all the Vecna shit, Steve knew Eddie as…yeah, Eddie the Freak. It was a title he’s pretty certain Eddie had gotten sometime in middle school and the sentiment only grew. Unfortunately, it grew to the point where half of Hawkins still thinks he murdered Chrissy Cunningham — despite Government intervention to clear his name. But for Steve, it was really just because he was seen universally as a weird dude.

They never really crossed paths before. Steve thinks he remembers Eddie showing up at some school parties, where he sold to the other guys there, but before Eddie held a broken bottle up to his neck he’s not sure he had spoken even one word to the guy.

Now, well, now Steve sees him almost every day. In the back of his car when his van won’t start and he needs a ride to school. Out of the corner of his eye when he’s ringing someone up at Family Video. He’s there when Steve picks up Henderson and the other little twerps from their Dungeon and Dragons games (now restricted to the shiny new two bedroom trailer the government gave to the Munsons as part of their NDA.)

Eddie Munson is everywhere and it sets Steve on edge. He doesn’t know what exactly to do with it, and the other half of the issue is he doesn’t want Eddie to not be around. Now that Steve knows what it’s like to have Eddie in his life, even on the periphery, he isn’t sure he wants to go back to not having that.

Steve doesn’t know when he started making all his friends from people he’s endured unspeakable horrors with, but Eddie is one of them. He just doesn’t think Eddie knows that, yet.

***

In the post-Vecna world, Steve’s life looks a little bit like this:

He thinks Keith hates him, so he usually works through the afternoon to closing. So, usually, he wakes up and follows a typical routine of shoving dry cereal into his mouth for breakfast so he can rush out the door and drive whatever thankless teenager needs it to school. He’ll return home, fix his hair (wash it if needed), brush his teeth, lay around until it’s time to go to work. Work. Take a break to go get Robin (if Robin is also working and Eddie isn’t driving her) finish work, go home, eat something from the fridge for dinner, go to bed, repeat.

It really, upon reflection, is not different from his pre-Vecna routine other than the added bonus of Eddie being around sometimes. But it makes Steve feel better to feign normalcy when recovering from fighting an evil man (unconfirmed) from an alternate dimension.

Plus, the day to day can change. For example, Eddie shows up after work with Robin a lot of the time. He really ought to just ask Keith for a job at this point, Steve thinks. He’s been pretty much clocking the same hours that Steve is.

Today is no different. Robin walks into Family Video slipping her vest on with Eddie trailing in not far behind her.

“What’s going on today, Dingus?” Robin asks by way of greeting. She goes immediately into the video stacks to find something to watch.

“It’s a Wednesday,” Steve replies.

“So it’s totally dead,” Eddie says. “Which is great, because I have a test I have to study for.” Robin gives him a disbelieving stare as she goes to the back to clock in. Eddie walks up to the front counter and grabs a Mars bar, tearing it open and taking a bite.

“Dude,” Steve says, “you gotta stop doing that.”

“Relax, Harrington, I’m good for it. Ring me through.”

Steve does, and Eddie throws him the change to buy it. He slinks around into the till area and pulls out a history textbook and a few loose sheets of paper, pulling up a chair like he owns the place.

“You know,” Steve says, throwing out Eddie’s receipt. “You could always find a less distracting place to study.”

Eddie turns, his head tilting to the side and with a smile on his face. “But then who would give you the attention you so desperately crave, Stevie?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he knows he isn’t doing very well at hiding his smile.

The afternoon continues on as it usually does. Robin plays Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a distraction from the mind-numbing pace of the evening, but she mostly seems to be helping Eddie with his studying. Steve pops in every once in a while to help, but he scraped by history classes with a D-minus at best, so he feels a bit useless about it all.

A few hours in, Robin claps her hands together. “Alright, I’m getting hungry. Time for a snack run, do you guys want anything?” She likes to go to the burger place down the strip.

Steve shakes his head no, he already had snuck out once before Keith left for the day and grabbed something. Eddie asks for some fries and a milkshake, and then Robin is out the door.

That’s when Steve remembers — he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tape from the previous night. He calls Eddie’s name, and then throws it to him, who catches it with a confused look in his eyes.

“I thought I gave this to Robin,” he says.

“You did, she left it in my car. Master of Puppets, right?”

Eddie gives a slight smile, he wanders across the cash area to where Steve is standing. “Recognize it?”

“Pretty hard to forget when you blasted it across the Upside Down,” Steve says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, I listened to it. It’s pretty alright.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “You listened to Metallica? And it’s pretty alright?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “But next time I’d choose something a little less intense for Robin.”

Eddie leans forward across the counter. “But not for you?”

Steve flushes, shifts on his feet, clears his throat. “I mean — I don’t know. I liked it.”

Eddie clicks his tongue. “Never would have thought you a metalhead, Harrington.”

“Now I wouldn’t go that far.”

Eddie laughs, his head dropping down and he smiles to the counter. When he lifts his head, his eyes flit over Steve’s face like he’s trying to figure something out. “Would you want to hear more?” he asks.

“Metallica?” Steve asks.

Eddie gives a shrug. “Or anything I listen to. There’s Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin.”

Steve bites on his bottom lip before he replies, “Yeah. I’d be down.”

“How about tonight?”

Steve blinks. “Huh?”

“How about tonight?” Eddie repeats, slower. “After you guys close up shop here. Wayne’s back at night shifts so he’ll be gone, we can just listen to some music. There’s probably a few beers, or I have weed. Or not. Whatever’s fine.”

“That, uh, that sounds nice.”

Eddie seems to perk up. “Yeah?”

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

Eddie claps his hands together. “Great. You can just drop by after you guys close. Whoever drops Robin off at her place.”

Steve swallows nervously. “Awesome.”

***

When Robin returns Eddie takes his milkshake and fries and says he has to take off. He doesn’t give a reason, but then again he usually doesn’t. Robin asks no questions, and with a wave Steve watches Eddie walk out the door.

He doesn’t tell Robin what his plans are for tonight.

They close up at their usual time, even earlier in fact because Steve is feeling antsy. He drops Robin off, goes home and changes into jeans and a t-shirt. Then, he loads himself back into his car and drives across town to the trailer park.

The Munsons still live in the same area they always did, much to the disappointment of a few residents who had been convinced Eddie was a murderer. They have, however, moved their new trailer further back than it used to be, out of the way and therefore less likely to draw attention to itself. When Steve pulls up, Eddie’s van is parked half haphazardly in the front and there is a soft glow of the kitchen light.

When Eddie answers the door he’s wearing only his usual jeans and a t-shirt, no shoes or socks. He looks softer like this, without the leather and barefooted. Steve has the urge to run his hands over the soft fabric. Instead he side steps Eddie in the doorway as he lets Steve in saying, “Mi casa, tu casa.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, no idea what the hell he just said.

“Hungry?” Eddie asks, and Steve nods. He can hear music trailing from the back of the trailer where he knows Eddie’s bedroom is. It sounds like the Metallica tape.

Eddie makes them hot dogs and macaroni and Steve loves it. They eat it together at the table with a beer each and Eddie talks about his history test — how he’s hoping to scrape by with a C at least — and how he’s preparing for the next D&D session that’ll be taking place in a few weeks — he thinks he’s going to blow the little twerps brains out with it. He’s excited, the joy so clear on his face, and Steve just smiles as he listens to him talk animatedly.

“Kind of feels like things are starting to go back to normal,” Eddie muses. “You know, people still think I’m a murderer, but it’s not like they liked me beforehand so what’s really different at the end of the day?”

“Are you thinking of colleges?” Steve asks. “For you know…after.”

Eddie snorts. “Hell no. I can barely get out of high school, man.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I know the feeling.”

“No college for you any time soon?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nah,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I have no clue what I’d want to do and I doubt my grades would get me anywhere.”

Eddie laughs, and they cheers their drinks to that.

“Honestly, it’s good to know there’ll be someone here after the summer is over,” Steve admits.

“Robin’s sticking around, though,” Eddie says. She is. Robin was planning on enrolling at the Community College for a few extra courses to save the money. Steve is also grateful for that — he doesn’t know what he would do with himself if Robin left Hawkins.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs. “You probably could too, you know.”

“Same for you, Harrington.”

They stare at each other. Then both of them just seem to call it a truce.

When they’re done eating, Steve moves to put the dishes in the kitchen sink and almost starts washing them until Eddie pulls him away by the bicep. “Dude, you’re a guest.”

They end up back in Eddie’s room. Steve sits on the edge of the bed against the wall while Eddie kneels on the floor and fishes through a bin of his tapes. A lot of things in the trailer are still in boxes from unpacking, and Eddie’s room is no different. Though he has at least gotten around to hanging up some posters.

“Who's your favourite musician?” Steve asks.

Eddie lets out a long breath. “That’s a tough one. Ozzy is always good, but Led Zeppelin,” he pats his chest, “I’ve been listening to them since I was a kid.”

“I’ve heard of him before,” Steve says.

Eddie laughs. “Led Zeppelin is the name of the band, Harrington, not a person. I’ll definitely show them to you one day but I think,” he pulls out a tape, “we’ll start with Ozzy. Since you two have so much in common.”

“The guy who bit off a bat’s head?”

“On stage,” Eddie adds, like it was important. As he’s putting the tape into his music player, he starts telling Steve something or other about the history of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. Steve tries to pay attention, but he’s a little distracted at how excited Eddie looks even just to tell him everything. “And this album was his first release after he was fired from Black Sabbath. Blizzard of Oz.” He puts the tape in and presses play.

It starts off louder than the Metallica tape, less of a build up. But Steve has to admit he likes it, he hopes he conveys it with a smile pointed Eddie’s way.

“It’s cool, man,” he says after the first song.

“Just wait,” Eddie holds out a hand to stop him from talking. They head into a song called Crazy Train, Steve checks the back of the tape. And he has to admit, there’s something fun about this kind of music. He could just imagine it played loud, thrumming into his chest. But there’s also something fun about watching Eddie listen to this music. He taps out the beat of the drums, sometimes plays the air guitar and Steve can’t help but watch his fingers move.

After the song concludes, Eddie turns the music down ever so slightly so he can talk gently over it. “So you’re liking it?” Steve nods, and Eddie stands from where he has been sitting and sits down on the bed.

Steve nods. The next song is slow — he likes slow songs. They listen in silence for a moment, Steve listens to the words Goodbye to romance, yeah and swallows around something in his throat.

“You know, uh,” he starts. “I was kind of jealous of you, too. About your relationship with Dustin.”

Steve thinks it takes Eddie a second to figure out what the hell he is talking about, but when he does, he smirks and says, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dustin and I, we don’t have a whole lot in common and then suddenly here you were, and you could be the big, cooler older brother type and you were into all the nerdy shit he’s into?” Steve let out a very low whistle. “I thought for sure he’d forget about me.”

“He’s fought monsters with you, Harrington.” Eddie shoves his shoulder playfully against Steve’s. They’re sitting close, Steve realizes. “That beats D&D any day.”

“Yeah well he’s done that with you too, now, though,” Steve laughs. “So thanks for that.”

Eddie returns the laugh. “I think there’s room for the both of us.”

Steve nods. His eyes flicker around Eddie’s face, doesn’t know where to look. “I think so, too.”

“Speaking of monster fights,” Steve twists his hands together, staring down into his lap. “How’re you doing?”

Eddie snorts. “Well, I survived.”

Eddie had been hurt. The fucking bats, man, they swarmed at the last minute after Steve, Robin, and Nancy returned from the Creel House. They had taken a chunk out of Eddie’s side, not unlike Steve’s, but definitely worse. Steve had practically dragged him back through the gate, arm slung over his shoulders. Steve doesn’t like to think about it often.

“Do you have nightmares?” Eddie whispers suddenly. It shocks Steve for a second, before he can reply.

“Of course I do,” Steve tells him. “I don’t think there’s a way for you to go through this shit and not have nightmares.”

“I dream of Chrissy,” Eddie admits. “Which maybe is stupid. But I dream of her up on that ceiling, and sometimes I dream the bats are after me again and I just have to run for ages.”

“It’s not stupid.” Steve takes a hand and grips at Eddie’s shoulder. “I, um, I dream of my pool. Being stuck there, and Demogorgons come and…” he trails off, shakes his head. He takes his hand away from Eddie’s shoulder, only now noticing it’s still there. “Yeah. I dream, too, and none of it is stupid. It’s mostly just really shitty.”

“Definitely.”

“We all have them,” Steve assures him. “It means you’re in the club now.”

Eddie scoffs. “Pretty shitty club.

“Yeah,” Steve laughs. “But, um, the people aren’t so bad.”

Eddie lifts his head. “Yeah. They’re not so bad.” He nudges Steve’s thigh with his own, and Steve smiles at the contact.

They look at each other. Steve has never known anybody who looks at him like he thinks Eddie looks at him sometimes. As if he is looking into him; like Eddie actually sees him.

Eddie kisses him. Or maybe Steve kisses him. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because they’re kissing. And Eddie is leaning into Steve’s body, a hand wrapping along the side of Steve’s jaw to hold him — fuck, his hands are big. Why has Steve never noticed how big his hands are? And his fingers, they curl into the back of Steve’s head, tug gently on his hair.

Steve sighs into Eddie’s mouth, his hands grappling for something, anything, to hold on to. They tighten themselves into the front of Eddie’s shirt, pulling him closer. Eddie’s tongue is in Steve’s mouth, and his hands are in his hair, one dropping down to grip tightly at Steve’s waist. They shift closer, Steve drops a hand onto Eddie’s knee so they don’t topple over.

His head is buzzing, Steve doesn’t think he has ever felt more alive than in this moment, under the pressure of Eddie’s hands. And he feels so warm, stomach swirling and heated in that new and exciting way. He doesn’t want to let go of this, doesn’t want to ever not be experiencing this moment, right here, just as it is.

They break, and Steve pants in the space between them, breathless, alive, hopeless. Eddie’s hand is still in his hair, his fingers stroke the nape of Steve’s neck. He whispers between them, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers back, and pulls him in for more, because once would never be enough. Twice is probably not enough, either. Steve kisses Eddie again, presses his tongue against the seam of Eddie’s mouth until he is granted the beautiful pleasure of sliding their tongues together. And this time Steve slips his hands under Eddie’s t-shirt, feeling the smooth skin and the rough texture of their twin scars.

They shift further back on the bed, and Steve feels himself laying down, pulling Eddie with him, until he is flat on his back, and Eddie moves to lean over him, his legs bracketing Steve’s thigh. And then, then, Eddie is pulling his mouth away and he is kissing down the hinge of Steve’s jaw and along the sensitive skin of his neck and Steve thinks his brain may actually leak out of his ears and onto the bed below him.

Eddie rocks his hips forwards gently, and Steve moans quietly, head tipping back onto the mattress and giving Eddie more access to kiss his neck. He can feel how hard Eddie is getting pressed onto his thigh. He wonders deliriously if Eddie can feel how hard he is getting, and he rocks up into the press of Eddie’s body again.

“Fuck,” Steve breathes out.

“Harrington…” Eddie murmurs, gentle, his hands have moved to the hem of Steve’s shirt, riding it up, his finger tips are pressing into Steve’s belly.

“Don’t call me Harrington when we’re hooking up, man,” Steve gasps, his hips twitching up to rub against Eddie’s clothed thigh.

Eddie just laughs breathlessly, it ghosts along Steve’s neck, and pulls up to look Steve in the eye. “Then don’t call me man. Hooking up, though?” He’s cocky, head tilted to the side and Steve is going to lose his mind, he thinks. “I didn’t know that’s what’s what we were d—”

“Shut up,” Steve groans, pulling him back in.

They fall back into it easily, Eddie’s mouth opening at the press of Steve’s, and this time it’s different, this time it’s more urgent. This time Steve’s hands move towards Eddie’s belt, and Eddie sits up on his knees over him to throw his t-shirt off and somewhere in the corner of the room. When he comes back down, Steve has his belt off and the button undone, and is going towards his own until Eddie pushes his hands away with a quick — “Fuck, let me.” — and Steve doesn’t know what to do but stare at how beautiful — beautiful? Yes. — Eddie looks above him as his long fingers work desperately at the latches of Steve’s belt.

Steve whines, desperate, the back of his throat, and reaches for Eddie again. “Come here,” he says, and Eddie is laughing. (Beautiful.) They meet again, mouths and lips, teeth and tongue, and Eddie loops his fingers in Steve’s pants, and they rock together. Steve runs a hand over the warm skin of Eddie’s chest and back, a hand slides up Eddie’s throat, to his jaw, he can feel under his palm how Eddie’s throat hitches with their steady pressure against one another.

“Can I touch you?” Eddie whispers against Steve’s mouth, and Steve can only nod and murmur, “yes, yes, yes,” in between kisses. And then Eddie’s hands are back at Steve’s waist, pushing his pants down and away. For a moment Eddie pulls away, leaving Steve feeling painfully cold, as he pulls Steve’s pants completely off, including his socks which Steve finds a little funny.

When he’s left in just his boxers, Eddie runs a hand along the smooth skin of Steve’s thigh. Steve shifts below him, wanting to pull Eddie further, to wrap his legs around his waist and pull him back down to him. Instead he says, “Yours too. Take your pants off, too.”

Eddie laughs, which sounds so wonderful Steve almost forgives him for taking so long to press back down on top of him. “If you insist.”

After, Eddie settles between the vee of Steve’s legs, and he kisses him again. Eddie’s hands are everywhere, sliding underneath Steve’s shirt and riding it up his chest, his hands trail down along his thighs. Eddie’s hand presses over Steve’s dick, covered by the layer of fabric and squeezes gently. Steve groans again, shifting his hips up and into Eddie’s hand.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes, “Eddie I need you to touch me, I—”

Eddie shushes him. “I got you, Harrington.”

Steve lets out a frustrated groan, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s Steve.”

Eddie laughs, again, presses close against Steve’s body, places a kiss onto the bolt of his jaw and whispers, “Okay. I got you, Steve.” His hands go to the elastic band of Steve’s boxers to pull them down, his hand reaching towards Steve’s cock and pulling.

Steve feels out of his mind, he kisses Eddie again, licks into his mouth, and pulls him closer by burying a hand in Eddie’s hair, soft as it slides through Steve’s fingers. Eddie strokes Steve and rocks forward against his hip and moans softly. Steve kisses down Eddie’s neck, gets his mouth along Eddie’s collarbone, slides his tongue across the skin and sucks gently. His hands slip down from Eddie’s hair and down his back, underneath his boxers and squeezes Eddie’s ass, urging him to rut up against Steve’s body.

“Fuck,” Eddie hisses, rocking against Steve’s hip.

“God,” Steve whimpers. “Eddie — please, touch me, I’m—”

“Yeah,” Eddie pants out, his hand starts to stroke wildly, his hips twitching and trying to maintain a steady rhythm. “Steve—” he breaks off in another moan.

Steve is so close, his voice is coming out in little ah ah ahs, but it doesn’t feel like enough. He needs more, he reaches a hand underneath Eddie’s boxers, pushes them as much out of the way he can reach and brushes his hand over Eddie’s cock, pulling at it once, twice, until Eddie is pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder, hips stuttering and whispering, “Jesus Christ,” against his skin.

Eddie pushes Steve’s hand out of the way, which he is ready to complain about until Eddie brings both of them together in his hand, and Steve moans loudly. He looks down between their bodies, moaning again at the sight of the two of them pressed together, jaw open.

After that, there is nothing but the sound of the music playing in the background, and their heady breaths falling into each other’s mouths, against their tongues, and Steve is holding Eddie close, kissing him, because he can’t stop, and he is so close to the edge. Eddie is making these beautiful sounds, and he is breaking away from the kiss to pant against Steve’s skin, and to press kisses there, along his neck and his collarbone, back to his mouth like also can’t get enough, whispering Steve’s name against his skin. Whispering Steve and not Harrington.

When Steve comes, his back arches off the mattress, and he pants Eddie’s name. Eddie follows not long after and Steve kisses him through it, before he collapses down onto Steve’s body. Their kisses return to being slow and gentle. Steve runs his hands through Eddie’s hair, feeling warm with sweat.

Eventually, Eddie rolls off of him and they lay together, shoulders pressed together and panting, flushed, the cool air curls around Steve’s body. At one point Eddie reaches over and grabs something to wipe himself clean, then offers it to Steve. It’s Eddie’s shirt, Steve realizes.

“Would you believe me if I said this wasn’t my plan when I invited you over tonight?” Eddie asks, breaking the growing tension. Steve laughs, when he turns his head to the side Eddie is also looking at him. Steve has the sudden urge to reach for him again.

Instead, he sits up and fishes around for his boxers to pull on, feeling a little silly sitting bottom half naked. He didn’t even get his shirt off. When he looks back at Eddie, he’s tucked back into his boxers and leaning up against the wall, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from his bedside table. He puts one in his mouth, lights it, and then offers a drag to Steve, who politely refuses.

Steve suddenly feels very small and out of his depth. He sits back down next to Eddie on the edge of the bed, though. That makes him feel a little better. He watches as Eddie smokes his cigarette, looking so very at ease, so very normal.

“Should we, uh, talk about this?” Steve asks him.

“What’s there to talk about?”

Steve looks down at his feet on the floor. “So you’ve done this before?” It’s more of a statement, rather than a question.

Eddie raises an eyebrow at him. “Sex? Have you, Harrington?”

Steve hits him in the arm. “Fuck off. I mean — I mean…with guys.”

“Ah.” Eddie takes another drag of his smoke. “Yeah.” He doesn’t say anything more.

Steve wants to say more, the words are stuck in his throat. Eddie beats him to it.

“If you’re going to be weird about it we can just pretend—”

“I’m not going to be weird about it,” Steve interrupts. Eddie gives him a look that suggests he doesn’t quite believe him. “I’m not!”

“Alright, Harrington,” Steve says, smug smirk across his face. He takes another long drag of his cigarette.

“It was good.” Steve wonders if he manages to get the words out without completely turning red.

“I thought so, too,” Eddie replies.

Steve tries a different tactic. “Though I’m not sure I believe you when you say this wasn’t an attempt to seduce me,” he muses, twisting his body and leaning over Eddie, arm bracketing him in.

“No?” Eddie is still smirking at him. Playful, fun. Steve loves it when he’s like this.

“You invited me over to listen to music,” Steve says. “It’s practically a booty call.”

“You fell for it.”

Steves smiles. “Yes, I did.” Eddie is so close to him again that his voice comes out slightly choked. His eyes flit over Eddie’s mouth, still red from all the kissing, from the smoke he’s having. Eddie leans in closer. It would be so easy to kiss him again, Steve thinks.

“I should probably go,” he whispers in between them instead.

Eddie nods. “Work tomorrow?” he asks.

“Yeah. I’ll see you there?” Steve replies. He watches as a hard line in Eddie’s shoulders seems to relax, he hadn’t noticed he had been so tense. Eddie reaches a hand up, those big hands, he cups the side of Steve’s face, thumb brushing over his bottom lip.

Somehow, Steve pulls away from him and slips off the bed, finding his pants somewhere on the ground. He doesn’t know where his socks are, so he decides to leave it.

He makes his way to the doorway, he hears in the background the Ozzy tape still playing. Then Eddie says, “hey,” and is throwing a tape Steve’s way. He barely manages to catch it, but then he looks down at it. Reads, Led Zeppelin II.

“Homework,” Eddie says.

“Really?”

Eddie smirks, and Steve waves him off.

He drives home listening to I’m gonna give you my love, I’m gonna give you every inch of my love.

Chapter Text

They don’t talk about it. Not in the way where they talk with words, but Steve notices how much closer Eddie is. Closer than he used to be. He’ll brush up against Steve as he walks past, he puts a hand on Steve’s arm to draw his attention to something. Maybe Steve responds by pushing into the touch, for finding reasons to stand next to Eddie when he can. But they don’t talk about it, instead Steve will reach for him in the dark and Eddie will follow him home.

It’s another closing shift at Family Video — Steve is certain Keith hates him and that’s why he keeps getting them. He’s taking the garbage around to the back, Robin’s inside and they close in fifteen minutes. It’s been busier than they both expected for a weekday night.

“Hey.” Steve hears a voice from behind him, turning to see Eddie leaned against the wall by the back door where he just exited.

“Jesus Christ, where did you even come from?” Steve gasps.

Eddie laughs, and takes a step closer to Steve. His hands are deep in his pockets, he looks nervous. “You think I’m stalking you, Harrington?”

“Well you just came out of nowhere in the darkness of the night like a fucking vampire, so—” Steve is interrupted when Eddie steps into his space, takes the bag of garbage from Steve’s hand and throws it over them into the dumpster. It really shouldn’t be sexy but, well, here we are. Eddie doesn’t step away, and he’s so close, and he is illuminated so beautifully by the single light on the back of the building, his eyes so big and round.

Steve definitely kisses him first this time. He presses his mouth to Eddie’s lips and pulls a startled breath from him, like he wasn’t expecting this to happen again. Steve buries his hands in Eddie’s hair and pulls him closer.

Eddie presses him back against the dumpster, arms bracketing his waist. It fucking smells, but Eddie pressed up against his front feels so good Steve doesn’t think he cares. He trails his mouth down along Steve’s neck, like he did the last time, his tongue trailing over the tendons of his neck and pulling down the neckline of his shirt to suck under his collarbone. Steve wonders absentmindedly if it’s going to leave a mark.

He tilts his head back, back arching into Eddie’s body. “Eddie—”

“What do you want?”

Steve blinks. If that isn’t the question.

“I could blow you right here, if you want,” Eddie whispers, and Steve has to squeeze his eyes shut and focus on his breathing.

“Robin’s going to wonder where I am,” Steve whispers, and he watches Eddie falter for a moment. Steve grabs at the lapels of Eddie’s leather jacket to keep him close. “But come over tonight.”

Eddie’s smile returns. “Can do.” Steve pulls him in to kiss him again. They get lost in it for a moment, Eddie’s hands pull at Steve’s hips, fingers hooking into his belt loops to bring them against each other.

“Okay.” Steve pulls away, sliding out from under Eddie’s hands. “I’ll see you in a bit.” he says.

“Okay,” Eddie replies. He has a beautiful smile on his face, nervousness and excitement. He brings his thumb up to his mouth and chews on the nail, his big eyes staring at Steve. Steve grins back at him, and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth before fleeing inside.

“What took you so long?” Robin muses when Steve walks back into the building.

“Bag broke,” he says. The lie comes easy, he can’t help but notice.

Robin cackles at him.

***

Another time they’re having a movie night — something Robin insisted they began doing weekly back in the aftermath of Vecna, when all of them were on edge and no one could sleep. One week, though, Robin had to go to a Buckley family reunion so it ends up just being Steve and Eddie at Eddie’s house. And this time it’s on the couch, and like last time it’s Eddie’s hands all over him, and Steve crawling into his lap and kissing him until they’re both spit slick, red mouthed and Eddie’s hands are crawling under Steve’s shirt, warm skin with his calloused fingers that drive Steve crazy.

Or Steve will drive Robin home after work and when he gets to his own house Eddie will be standing outside the front door, waiting for him, and Steve will invite him in without a word spoken between them.

Or it’s another closing night shift at Family Video, and Steve is working alone because it’s Monday and they don’t really need two people. And Eddie will come in, and he’ll lean across the counter like he always does, take a chocolate bar and eat it before he pays for it. And his eyes are so dark, and he smiles up at Steve through his bangs and Steve knows he is already so far gone.

And they will end up in the back of Eddie’s van, parked in the darkest spot in the lot, and Eddie will slide his way down Steve’s body and pull his fly open and whisper, “Can I?” and Steve just has to pull him up and kiss him yes, because he thinks the answer will always be yes when it’s Eddie who is asking.

More often than not, though, they end up at Steve’s because it’s always empty and Steve thinks Eddie likes how big the beds are and that it isn’t in a trailer park where some people still think he’s a murderer. And Steve doesn’t say no because he likes when he wakes up early in the morning before his alarm — never could get those early morning swim practices out of his system — and Eddie is laid in his bed, hair wild and mouth pursed and soft in sleep.

Maybe they shouldn’t sleep in the same bed and maybe Eddie shouldn’t sleep over as much as he does. Maybe that complicates things, but afterwards Steve doesn’t want Eddie to leave, and so most of the time he stays. And they breathe each other’s names into their mouths, and afterwards Steve feels acutely like he’s been carved open and left to bleed. But Eddie always lays next to him, and buries his face in Steve’s neck and they sleep and everything else washes away.

They both have nightmares. Steve knows he does, and sometimes he’ll wake in the middle of the night to Eddie whimpering in his sleep, brow creased and uncomfortable. Steve will run his thumb over Eddie’s forehead and smooth out the pain there. Eddie usually doesn’t wake.

But one night, almost three weeks after they listened to music for the first time in Eddie’s trailer, Eddie wakes in the middle of the night in a panic. Steve recognizes it, the wild eyes, the thrashing of your body awake, the cold sweat and the heavy breathing. Steve pulls at his shoulders, Eddie turns to him in a panic, and for a moment Steve knows Eddie doesn’t know where he is. He whispers, “Hey, it’s okay, it’s Steve you’re at my house.” He pulls until Eddie’s back is pressed into his chest. “It’s okay, Eddie, you’re okay. You’re here with me. Match my breathing, come on.”

Eddie relaxes back into him, breathing deeply but it comes in slower, not the panting gasps he woke up with. His hands grip at Steve’s wrists where they wrap around his body, like he’s holding Steve closer, holding onto him to ground himself.

A few minutes pass, the only sound between them is their breathing. Steve doesn’t know what comes over him but he turns his head and presses a kiss to Eddie’s sweaty temple.

After another moment he says, “You here with me, man?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I’m here.” After another minute, he pulls away, Steve reluctantly letting him go. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize,” Steve says. “We’ve all been there just…trust me.”

Eddie lays back down on the bed, and Steve just follows him and lays down on his side so they’re facing each other. Steve reaches a hand to the back of Eddie’s head. “Do you want to talk about it?” Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. Steve runs his fingers through Eddie’s hair, nails scratching lightly as his scalp. Eddie seems to lean into it.

“Can you just — talk? Distract me,” Eddie says.

“Yeah,” Steve replies, shifting ever so slightly closer. “I — uh — you know, like I said I still dream about shit. Especially uh…shit that’s already happened. I’ve dealt with demogorgons, demodogs — has Dustin caught you up to speed on all their nerdy names for this shit?” Eddie nods. “Okay, so I’ve dealt with those. Last summer there were the Russians and the Mind Flayer. That was next level fucked up. I dream the most about Barb, though. Have you ever heard about Barbara Holland?”

“The girl who died in the lab experiment shit a few years ago?”

“Yeah, uh well…she didn’t die because of an experiment gone wrong. Well, I guess she did in some ways but no. She, uh, went missing right in my backyard. In the pool. Upside Down opened up and a Demogorgon took her. She died there.”

Eddie blinks. “I asked for a distraction and you tell me a girl was killed in your backyard?” His voice is deep and dry.

Steve blanches. “I’m sorry.”

Eddie just laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’re a weird guy, Harrington.”

Steve just gives him a weird smile. He feels weird when it comes to Eddie.

“That’s really fucked up,” Eddie says. “About Barbara.”

“She was Nancy’s best friend,” Steve says. “They were here for…a stupid party.” He doesn’t say Nancy stayed over and they slept together. He usually doesn’t if he ever tells this story, which admittedly has only been to Robin before now. But he and Nancy — the whole story is too personal, and not really anyone’s business, so. “I guess my point is — I still dream about her, and that was three years ago, and…it’s okay. But…you should know you didn’t kill Chrissy.”

Eddie swallows. “She was at my trailer, though.”

“Yeah, and Vecna would have got her wherever she was that night.”

Eddie’s brow is furrowed. Steve doesn’t like that, he runs his hand through the length of Eddie’s hair. It’s so soft, always so soft.

“You didn’t kill Barbara either,” Eddie says. Steve stops moving his hand.

“What?”

“I can read between the lines, Steve,” Eddie says. “You tell me a story about a girl who died in your backyard, end it with I didn’t kill Chrissy? You didn’t kill her, either.”

“If I didn’t have the party, maybe she would still be alive.”

“Key word there is maybe. You don’t know.”

“Yeah, maybe I don’t,” Steve murmurs. “You’re right, this probably wasn’t the best thing to talk about in the middle of the night.”

Eddie’s mouth twitches in a sad smile. “Yeah.” He reaches his hand towards Steve’s neck, runs his fingertips along his throat where that demobat’s tail nearly choked the life out of him. The marks and bruises are gone now, healed with little scarring. You have to squint to see it. “Go to sleep, Steve,” he says.

***

Steve wakes a few hours later at the ass crack of dawn, eyes heavy and still tired. Eddie is still asleep, curled up facing him, Steve doesn’t reach out to touch him even though he wants to. Just because he rises with the sun doesn't necessarily mean Eddie has to.

He lays in bed for another hour at least, slips in and out of half-sleep, but then eventually grows impatient and sore and decides to get up for the day. He does his typical day-off routine, showers, does his hair the way he likes it. He doesn’t bother putting on more than a clean pair of boxers and a sweatshirt because he has a day off and really enjoys his comfies, okay?

Downstairs is quiet. The whole house is quiet, but he lays on the couch and watches whatever is on the TV until he thinks he hears Eddie move upstairs. Then he goes into the kitchen and pulls out enough food to probably feed Henderson and all his nerdy little friends.

He starts to cook the bacon, and once he’s about halfway done cooking the whole pack, he hears Eddie walk into the room behind him. Steve glances at him over his shoulder, he’s wearing his boxers and a Metallica t-shirt. A hand rubs sleepily at his eye, and it pulls at something in Steve’s naval. He is so soft in the morning, eyes warm, hair soft and frizzed.

Eddie walks up behind him and wraps his arms around Steve’s waist, pulling him back against his chest. Steve leans into it. “Good morning,” Eddie whispers into his neck.

“Hey,” Steve greets. “Hungry?”

Eddie hums, presses his lips against Steve’s neck but doesn’t kiss, just rests his mouth against the skin. Steve doesn’t protest, in fact it feels nice and he just carries on flipping the bacon in the pan as it sizzles away.

After a moment he tries to slink out of Eddie’s grasp, but Eddie just holds on tighter, and Steve laughs, pushing back against him. “I have to get the eggs,” he says. Eddie just squeezes him, bites lightly at his neck. Steve laughs again, turns around, and then they’re kissing. Slow and lazy which feels so nice in the morning, kissing someone in his kitchen, no plans for the rest of the day. They could just do this for hours, if they wanted.

The front door opens. “Steve?!” comes Robin's voice. Steve forgot he gave her a key. The two of them practically jump apart, Steve bumping back into the stove behind him, Eddie into the island counter opposite him and Steve is momentarily distracted by Eddie’s hands rubbing over the mouth that Steve was just kissing.

Robin’s panicked voice comes again, “Steve!”

“I’m in here!” Steve calls out.

“Steve—” Robin reaches for him, they grip each other’s forearms and Steve is certain she’s about to announce that someone is dead, or Vecna is alive, or something awful, and then she spots Eddie. “What is Eddie doing here?”

“Uh,” Steve says.

“I slept over,” Eddie supplies.

“Oh, okay,” Robin says. “Anyway — Steve.”

Steve thinks he’s going to punch her in the face. “For fuck’s sake, Robin, what?!”

“I think I just asked Vickie out,” she admits.

Steve glances back at Eddie in a panic and blurts out, “As friends!”

“It’s alright Steve, Eddie knows,” Robin says with a wave of her hand. “I told him two weeks ago. We had a heart to heart, it’s all very cute, blah, blah, blah.” Steve’s mouth drops open in an ‘oh’ and Eddie just pats his shoulder.

“You think you asked Vickie out?” Eddie asks, he’s taken a cooked bit of bacon and is chewing on it.

“No, well, I definitely did. I said, ‘What are you doing this weekend’ and she said, ‘What did you have in mind?’ and so I asked her if she would want to go see a movie and possibly get dinner afterwards and then she said yes.” Robin gets it out all in one breath. Sometimes Steve wonders how she can talk so much and not go red in the face.

“That’s good!” Steve says, he pats Robin at the arm. “Rob, seriously. That’s awesome.” He doesn’t quite understand why she looks like she’s going to hurl in his kitchen.

“But now I don’t know what to do!” Robin whines. She practically throws her top half down on the island counter, her cheek pressing into the marble.

“You go on the date,” Steve tells her. He goes back to the bacon, moving to drain the fat into an empty jam jar. He puts some toast in the toaster, starts scrambling some eggs.

“But, Steve, I’m not date material,” Robin laughs hysterically.

“You’re totally date material,” Eddie tells her, moving into her space and rubbing a hand on her back.

“But what if I do the thing where I can’t shut up? I do it all the time, I’m heading towards not being able to shut up right now! And then there’s all the stupid date rituals, like, should I go pick her up? I can’t drive and I doubt she’d want to ride on the back of my bike, and no way in hell am I asking Steve to drive me!” Steve tries not to be offended by that. “And then there’s the fact that I have to woo her.” Robin moves into Steve’s space, she starts tugging at his sweater sleeve. “Steve. How do I woo a woman?”

Steve’s eyes flit over to her in a panic. “Why are you asking me?”

“Hello? King Steve? You’ve slept with practically the whole female population of Hawkins High.”

Steve flushes. “That,” he lets out an awkward laugh. “Is not true.”

“Okay but you’ve taken a lot of them out on dates. At least kissed a good chunk of them. Linda? Heidi? Nancy? All the other women I don’t bother to remember.”

“Yeah one date and they didn’t really go anywhere, did they? And — don’t talk about Nancy.” His neck is on fire, he stares intently at the eggs in the pan and very much doesn’t turn to look at Eddie standing behind him.

“My point is you know how to woo a woman. And I need you to tell me what to do.”

The toast pops and Steve nearly jumps out of his skin. Instead of answering Robin he starts to pull out plates for them to fill up, shoving even more bread into the toaster.

“What’s the plan for the date?” Eddie asks, he slides up to where Robin is. “Movie and then dinner?”

“Is that good?” Robin asks.

“Oh yeah,” Eddie nods, enthusiastic and kind. “Dinner after a movie means you will definitely have something to talk about. But you gotta make sure you don’t fill up on popcorn and sweets or else you won’t be hungry. You know? You could also just do ice cream after the movie, if you do end up eating too much. The plan can deviate, it’s okay.”

Robin nods, wide eyed and listening, like she didn’t even think about that.

“You gotta listen to her,” Eddie continues. “You know, brainstorm some questions. Did you have a class together? Ask her about band, or whatever. You guys have loads in common, I’m not worried about you not having anything to talk about. But wooing? Buckley, you got loads of woo potential.”

“I do?” Robin whispers.

“Definitely. You’re cute and funny and a little eccentric which will pair very nicely with Vickie’s more shy personality. And if you want a tip from me,” he leans against the island, Steve is momentarily distracted. “Lower your head like this, look up at her through the hair.” He smiles, Steve almost drops the spatula. They lock eyes. “Works every time.”

“Okay,” Robin nods. Steve turns away and goes back to the eggs, serving them out on plates now.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie says. “You got this, Buckley.”

Robin lets out a held breath. “Thanks. Hey, Dingus, when did Eddie get better at dating than you?”

Steve shoves a plate at her. “Eat,” he commands.

***

“So, I guess you do like Eddie.”

Steve almost swerves the car off the road. “Huh?” It’s another day. They’re just driving around, something the two of them always end up doing since there really isn’t much to keep you busy in Hawkins. You can only go bowling so many times.

“You’re hanging out with him more,” Robin says. “He was over at your house the other day.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “We, uh, had a movie night or whatever. It was late and had a few beers so he just crashed.” He doesn’t even know why he lies, it just spills out of him. Robin didn’t notice anything weird and if she did she clearly wasn’t weirded out. Because of course she wouldn’t be, it’s Robin.

It’s Robin, it’s Robin, it’s Robin repeats on a loop in his head until he needs to make it go away, so he says, “Eddie’s a good friend.”

***

Who sleeps next to Steve most nights and crawls up his body. Who slides his tongue so sweetly against Steve’s own, and touches him in ways that make Steve crazy and whole. He takes Steve’s wrists in one hand and presses them above his head and will draw a map on his body with his tongue, finding all the never before seen places and reaching into the parts of him that nobody has ever touched.

“What do you want?” Eddie will ask, because he always does.

Steve will whine and squirm on the bed, trying to move into the touch, to find the places where they fit together so beautifully. So when Steve can’t use his hands to touch Eddie he’ll get his legs out from under him and wrap them around Eddie’s waist, rolling his hips up so they can press together, and Eddie will laugh — which is Steve’s favourite sound he thinks, his favourite — and press Steve further into the bed.

“Tell me,” Eddie whispers, he trails his lips along Steve’s neck, licks behind his ear. “Please, baby, you’ve gotta tell me.” Which only makes Steve whine more.

“You,” he gasps out.

Whatever he said has given Eddie pause. Steve uses the opportunity to his advantage. He squeezes his legs around Eddie’s waist and easily flips them. He was King Steve once for god's sake. Eddie lets go of his wrists (not that it was a tight hold to begin with) as they move and Steve puts both of his hands on either side of Eddie’s head who gazes up at him with surprise in his eyes.

Eddie likes to tease him, doesn’t know when it started exactly and Steve isn’t necessarily complaining but this time something about it gets to him.

“Big guy, huh?” Eddie jokes. He slides his hands underneath Steve’s shirt, fingers squeezing his hips. “What are you gonna do?”

“Shut you up, that's what I’m gonna do,” Steve huffs, annoyed but laughing. He presses their mouths together, immediately sliding his tongue into Eddie’s mouth, licking behind his teeth. He feels Eddie shudder under his hands, and it feels good to turn the tables like this. He wonders what else he could do to him, all the ways he could make him squirm. He wants to make Eddie feel as out of his mind as Steve is when they’re together, wants to know it isn’t just him; that he isn’t alone in this.

He sucks on Eddie’s tongue. He bites down on Eddie’s lip, gently, and then pulls away. In another moment he’s taking off his shirt and throwing it over on the floor, then tugging Eddie’s over his head as well. They’re already in their boxers. Steve brings his mouth to Eddie’s chest, bites and licks on it, sucks a nipple into his mouth because he remembers girls like that and nipples are nipples, aren’t they?

Eddie moans quietly, Steve looks up at him for a moment and his eyes are so dark, jaw slack and Steve almost moans in response. Then Eddie smiles at him — always smiles, he runs a hand through Steve’s hair and brushes his bangs off his forehead. Steve smiles back, like an idiot, and then continues kissing his way down Eddie’s chest, running his tongue everywhere it can reach.

He bites, he sucks a mark low on Eddie’s hip, under the waistband of his boxers, and then he’s pulling them down. He says, “I want to suck you,” and Eddie’s hips are twitching up and he’s whispering, “Holy fuck, Steve.”

“Have you—” Eddie breathes out, and Steve interrupts him by sucking another mark in the divet of his hip, close to where it meets his thigh.

“No,” he whispers, “but want to for you.”

In the end, it doesn’t really shut Eddie up. But it gets Eddie to where Steve wants him, where he is the one who is writhing and whining. He buries his hands in Steve’s hair, not tightly, but guiding and he whispers that word again, the one that makes Steve feel like he’s flying. He says, “That’s good, baby, like that Steve — oh.”

***

It’s ten at night when Steve gets a phone call from Mrs. Henderson asking if he “could please go pick Dusty up from his little wizard game? Tews vomited all over the carpet and I’m gonna be cleaning it all night—”

He says it’s no problem, because it isn’t. He likes helping out Mrs. Henderson and he hasn’t seen Dustin in a while. He feels a bit guilty about it, but it is what it is. The kid is busy and Steve’s got work and everything. But maybe he should make more of an effort.

When he pulls up, Dustin seems happy to see him, which is always nice. Then he says, “Can Erica and Lucas get a ride, too?”

Steve sighs. “Sure.”

“Mike’s still inside—”

“Holy fuck, just all of you get in the car, okay?”

They pile in, pubescent limbs and everything. Dustin in the passenger seat, Lucas and Erica in the back saving room for Mike in the last seat.

“Thought Mom was coming to get me,” Dustin muses, putting on his seatbelt.

“She called me, Tews vomited or something.”

“God, that cat has some serious health problems. You know I keep telling her she needs to take it to the goddamn vet or something…” and Steve is sure that Dustin continues on whatever tirade he’s about to endeavour on, but he spots Eddie stepping out of his trailer with Mike by his side, the two of them talking animatedly to each other. He looks really good, wearing a t-shirt that he thinks is a couple sizes too small and form fitting, his jeans are slung low on his hips. His pocket chain bounces as he walks. When he spots Steve’s car, he can’t mistake how his smile grows a little wider.

“Thought Mrs. Henderson was getting us,” Mike says as he climbs in.

“Tews vomited,” Lucas says.

“Again?” Mike says.

“I know!” Dustin cries.

“Hey Steve-o,” Eddie greets him, leaning onto the rolled down window of Steve’s car. “Playing Mom tonight?”

“Like most nights,” Steve mutters, and Eddie just gives him a look that screams, I know what you get up to most nights that makes Steve blush. “Good, uh, good game?”

Eddie laughs. “Such a jock. Yeah, Harrington, good game.”

“Cool,” he says, and then stares at Eddie for a little bit because he’s right there and he looks really nice.

“Can we go please?” comes Erica from the back of the car.

“You better do what Lady Applejack says,” Eddie says. “She’s a total badass.” Steve scrunches up his nose, no idea whatever the fuck that means, but Erica seems pleased by the compliment.

Eddie hits the roof of the car twice, says, “Goodnight kids.”

There’s a few choruses of goodnight Eddies and Steve gives him a little two fingered wave, and then he’s driving off, and he’s not checking the rear view mirror to see how Eddie watches them go. He’s not.

“Oh,” Mike says as they drive away. “Steve — the Byers officially get back from California next weekend.”

Steve had been hearing through the grapevine for weeks now that the Byers were moving back to Hawkins. Hopper had a house for them and everything. Steve could practically feel the excitement about their move home.

“They’re going to be having a welcome home barbeque,” Mike continues. “You and Robin are invited.”

“Eddie, too?” Steve blurts out.

Mike gives him a weird look from the rear view mirror. “Uh, yeah, I invited him during the game tonight.”

“Cool,” Steve says, being extremely cool.

He drops off the Sinclairs and Mike first, leaving Dustin to last even though it’s a little inconvenient. Mrs. Henderson knows who he’s with, and honestly Steve just misses the kid. He takes them through a drive thru and gets them each a burger and fries to split, and they sit the car parked in an empty parking lot to eat them together.

Steve listens to Dustin rattle off everything he’s been doing, which is mostly school stuff and nerd stuff from the game tonight. Apparently Eddie’s the best Dungeon Master ever which, to be honest, sounds a little dirty to Steve but he bites his tongue.

“So, I know Eddie isn’t really your kind of guy, but I would really appreciate it if the two of you could get along,” Dustin says.

Steve just stares at him. “What the hell are you talking about, man?”

“You and Eddie! You act so weird around him sometimes, it’s like you don’t know how to talk to him,” Dustin rolls his eyes. Steve actually can’t believe him.

“Dude,” Steve says. “Eddie and I are, like, friends.”

“Huh?”

“He comes into Family Video almost every day after school with Robin, and the two of us hang out together all the time. Like, just the two of us.”

Dustin looks at him with a face twisted with utmost confusion. “Why the hell are you so weird around him, then?”

“I’m not!” Steve says. “I’m not weird around him!”

“You’re, like, the weirdest around him,” Dustin says. “Your skin practically started crawling when Mike said he was invited to the barbecue.”

Steve ignores this and drives Dustin home. Probably later than Mrs. Henderson would have wanted but Steve was doing worse at fifteen so he doesn’t think there’s any harm in it.

“You know I’ll figure it out, don’t you?” Dustin says. “Whatever your issue is with Eddie, I’ll figure it out.” His tone is joking and serious, somehow.

Steve swallows around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I’m sure you will.”

Chapter Text

Second verse, same as the first. It’s five o’clock on a Friday at Family Video and people are starting to swarm. Robin’s in the back helping some family find something all their kids will like and enjoy, Steve is behind the desk trying to ring as many people as he can through until he gets a bit of a reprieve. He takes a swig of his water and leans against the counter.

“Hey,” a blonde girl with permed hair steps into his line of vision. “I’m looking for a movie.”

Steve sighs internally. “You’re in the right place,” he says. “What are you looking to get?”

“I’m looking for something really scary. I’ve heard about one called The Exorcist?”

Steve thinks most people have heard of The Exorcist by now. “Yeah,” he says, stepping out from the back of the desks. He walks over with her to the horror section, pulls out a copy of The Exorcist and hands it to her. “This is, like, definitely scary.”

The bell jingles as the door opens.

“Do you have any other suggestions?” she asks. Steve scratches his chin.

“Sure, uh, I mean,” he walks down the aisle. “You got Halloween, The Omen.” He picks them off the shelf and holds them between the two of them. “Both are scary, if horror is what you’re into.”

The girl smiles. “I’m definitely into it,” she takes a step forward, and Steve is practically pushed back into the rack behind him to keep a respectable distance between them. She’s shorter than him, so she tilts her head up, pink glossy lips smiling. “Which one would you say I would need someone to hold me through?”

Steve blushes, he knows he does. He laughs, an awkward smile on his face, his chin dropping into his chest bashfully. It’s a bold move, he’s admittedly impressed. In another universe Steve thinks he probably would ask her out, throw back some cheesy line about what his favourite movie is and how his arms are made for holding, or whatever.

His eyes flicker over to the other end of the store. Eddie is there, watching him. Steve’s stomach bottoms out at the dark look in his eye.

“They’re all really scary,” Steve promises her. He steps around where she is standing. It’s a clear refusal, she seems to get the message with her own embarrassed flush and steps back.

“Thanks,” she squeaks out. “I’ll have to think about it.” Then she’s practically fleeing the store, and Steve is reshelving the movies she put back into his hands.

Robin is finishing ringing through the family she was helping, and they are graciously given an empty video store. Steve goes back behind the desk and leans back on his elbows on the counter.

Robin smacks his arm.

“Ow!”

“That girl was totally hitting on you and you shot her down, what the hell is wrong with you?” Robin hisses. “She was super hot, too!”

“Aren’t you taken, or something?” Steve quips back at her.

Robin’s date with Vickie — much to no one’s surprise but Robin’s — had gone very well. They weren’t necessarily girlfriends, but they had made it very clear that they were both very interested in the other. Steve knew they had their next date planned pretty soon, but they continued to see each other at school most days. According to Eddie, they were always eating their lunch together.

“That’s besides the point,” Robin says. “Eddie, tell Steve he’s an idiot and she was totally hot.”

Eddie’s voice comes from behind Steve. “Totally hot.” Steve’s stomach swirls.

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know!” Steve shrugs, shoulders tight. “I just wasn’t…into it.”

Robin scoffs. “What happened to finding the love of your life? You’re only ever going to be hopeless at romance if even when it drops in front of your feet you say no.”

Steve stares down at his feet. “Maybe I’m just…taking a break from girls right now,” he mumbles. The bell jingles, and Steve relaxes. Another family comes piling in — two parents and, like, five kids. Steve puts his finger on his nose. Not it.

Robin glares at him. “You owe me,” she hisses. She turns towards the group and says, “Hey there, what can I help you with today?”

They’re — shock and surprise — looking for a movie. They’re asking for Dumbo in particular and for some reason they can’t find it on the shelf, until Steve remembers that there were a few kids movies that came back with some sort of strange sticky residue on them and Keith had them back in his office for cleaning. “I’ll go get them,” Steve offers.

The tapes are sitting on the desk in Keith’s office, impressively un-sticky. He hears the door click shut behind him and turns to see Eddie with his hand on the doorknob. He doesn’t lock the door, but Steve is suddenly very aware that there is one.

“Hey,” Steve says, before Eddie’s hands are on his hips and pushing him against the desk. Eddie’s mouth is ghosting along his neck, and Steve — totally hopeless — reaches and grabs onto Eddie’s hips, not pulling, just holding on.

“Robin’s just out the door,” Steve whispers.

“I know where Robin is,” Eddie murmurs, pressing Steve further back against the desk. He trails his nose along Steve’s neck, he doesn’t kiss, doesn’t lick, doesn’t bite. He just breathes against him, and then he rolls his hips forward.

Steve gasps, a hand moving to grasp in the fabric of Eddie’s t-shirt under his jacket. Then, Eddie pulls away, and Steve wants to kiss him, tries to lean forward to do so, but then Eddie’s fist is in his hair and tilts Steve’s head back, angling it so that he can peer down at Steve’s face.

Eddie’s eyes flick over his face, like he’s searching for something. Steve just holds his gaze, eyes fluttering, mouth parted. Whatever Eddie finds, he seems satisfied with. He kisses Steve deeply, dry lips and Steve hardly has any time to react before Eddie is pulling away and walking out the door.

Steve breathes for a moment, fingers touching his lips, before he grabs the movie and returns to work.

***

So, the sex is good. Like, earth shatteringly good, not that Steve has a whole lot to compare it to — he’s only nineteen and theoretically has many, many years of good sex ahead of him. It’s also the first dick, but Eddie is just — yeah. Wow. Really doing it for him lately. And they haven’t even put anything in anyone.

Anyway.

It’s not all about sex. It isn’t a shock to him, really, because they had a few good weeks of platonic friendship and before all the making out and groping. Steve had really enjoyed going over to Eddie’s trailer and having dinner together and listening to music that night. This ends up being something they do often.

Tonight, Eddie is sitting on the floor of Steve’s bedroom and he has his nerdy books all around him and he has his acoustic guitar in his lap and is playing absentmindedly. Steve is laying on his stomach on the bed, chin facing the end and he’s just watching Eddie fiddle around with the guitar.

“You know, sometimes I kick myself for not taking the electric one from the Upside Down,” Eddie muses. “I could have kept mine and sold the other one for profit, no one would have known any better.”

Steve can do nothing but laugh at that. “Only you would think to do that. You wouldn’t want to keep the guitar from an alternate dimension and sell your rightside up one? That seems much more your style.”

Eddie oohs. “Demon guitar…” he murmurs. “That would make a good song title, maybe.” He leans over and scripples something in one of his books.

“Do you write songs?” Steve asks, curiosity suddenly piqued.

“Sometimes,” Eddie says. “Nothing good. I usually play covers of stuff I like.”

“You had a band, didn’t you?” Steve asks. He has a vague memory from middle school.

Eddie laughs. “I did. Or do? I’m not sure anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, a few of the old Hellfire guys and I did have a regular gig, but,” Eddie points towards himself. “Accused of murder, so. We haven’t really picked it back up and cleared or not, I doubt I’d be welcomed back to play another gig right now.”

“Have you talked to those guys?”

“At school a bit.” Eddie starts to pick at the strings of the guitar, turning the pegs at the top. “Look — did you ever have those friends in high school where it was like, they’re not bad people, and you don’t dislike them but you look back at it and it’s like, wow we were really only friends because we were in high school?”

“Dude, that was my entire high school experience,” Steve says. “Only my friends were actually assholes.”

“True,” Eddie says with a point of his finger. “Well, I think that’s how it might be with those guys. They’re good guys, and we bonded together as the freaks everyone assumed we were, but,” he shrugs. “School’s done soon, Hellfire Club is gone, my band is caput and I think so are those friendships.” He doesn’t look too disappointed, but the fact that he doesn’t makes Steve a little sad on his behalf.

“You make better friends outside of high school,” Steve says. “At least in my experience.”

Eddie smirks up at him. “Your friends include the high school freak accused of murder, a whole swarm of fifteen-year-olds, and Robin — who admittedly doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with all of us. She’s great.”

Steve laughs. “Agreed. And those other guys aren’t so bad, either.”

Eddie waves him off with a hand.

Steve continues. “Give yourself a bit more credit. You’re my friend. And all those people you mentioned are yours as well.”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. He looks a little nervous now. “Are you going to that barbeque thing?”

Joyce and Hopper’s barbeque. It was in two days — Steve had been looking forward to it all week.

“I am,” Steve says. “And so are you.”

Eddie looks away from Steve, back towards the guitar in his lap and away. “I wasn’t sure…when Mike invited me…”

Steve reaches an arm out and pokes at Eddie’s shoulder, a gentle nudge. “You’re wanted there. That’s why you were invited. I know you don’t know everyone, but I’ll be there, and so will Robin and Nancy. You’ll like Jonathan, I hear he’s a stoner now.”

Eddie snorts at that. “Okay, okay,” he mumbles. “I hear you. I was going to come, anyway.”

Steve smiles. “Good.” He stares at Eddie for another moment. “Play me something.”

Eddie smiles, and starts to pluck away at the strings. Steve thinks he is playing a Zeppelin song. Steve watches his hands and his fingers on the strings and is briefly reminded that — wow. Yeah. Eddie is really doing it for him lately.

He at least lets him finish out the song.

***

“Do you think it’s okay? Steve asks. “Do you think I need to get anything else?”

Robin blinks at him like she’s considering disowning him, regardless of the fact that Steve is not her child. “I think you almost bought out the entire vegetable section at the store.”

“Joyce asked for a veggie tray!” he said.

“Yes, and I think you’ve fulfilled the quota.”

Steve looks down at his tray of broccoli, cauliflower, every coloured pepper, cucumbers, carrots, celery, and baby tomatoes. “Are you sure?” he genuinely asks.

Robin rolls her eyes. “Can we just get in the car? We’re already late.”

Steve puts the lid on his veggie tray(s). He managed to find two very useful platters hidden in the kitchen he thinks his mom probably used once for PTA meetings or something. He loads everything into the back of the car where Robin is waiting in the passenger seat.

“Are you nervous?” Robin murmurs.

“A bit I guess,” Steve replies.

He always forgets that Robin doesn’t really know Joyce and had never actually met Eleven or Hopper. Steve himself barely knows El, only having talked to her a handful of times over the years. Joyce, though he doesn’t know her super well, is Joyce. She accepts and loves anyone with an open heart, especially her fellow Upside Down…experiencers. (Three years they’ve been at this and Steve still doesn’t know what they should call themselves.) And Hopper — everyone knows Hopper.

The Byers had returned to Hawkins only the day before, reuniting with Hopper and Eleven who had been in Hawkins since the end of March. Steve would have thought that Joyce and Hopper would have wanted to wait longer than twenty-four hours before inviting a bunch of unruly teens over to their house, but as Robin logically explained, they all probably would have been there anyway.

The new place isn’t that far away from Steve, since it’s closer to one of the newer developments. Hopper and Eleven had been living there for a few weeks now. It’s a pretty sizable four bedroom house. Not anything huge, but sensible. It looked like the perfect spot for all of them, Steve thought, as they drove up to the house and knocked on the door.

“Hi, honey,” Joyce greets him with a smile, stepping to the side so Steve and Robin can file in.

“Hi, Joyce.” He motions towards Robin. “This is my friend Robin, I’m not sure if you remember her but she was at Starcourt with us last summer.”

“Of course I remember,” Joyce says, she pulls Robin in for a quick hug, which Robin awkwardly accepts. “Everyone’s out in the backyard, there’s a table out there for your things.”

“Thanks,” Steve says. He and Robin head towards the backyard — pretty spacious, a wooden picnic table out. Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will were already sitting at it. Max and El were sitting over to the side on a blanket together, sharing a bowl of chips. They were already loud, too, but at least they were outside.

“Steve!” Dustin cries when he calls him. He’s sitting beside Will, patting him repeatedly on the back. “Look who it is! Look!”

“Yep, dude, I can see him,” Steve says, putting his tray on the extra table outside, filled with paper plates, plastic forks and hamburger and hot dog buns.

“Hi, Steve,” Will greets him with a smile, Steve walks up behind them and claps a hand on Will’s shoulder.

“Hey kid, it’s great to see you back,” Steve says, meaning it. He’s always liked Will — he knew how to follow instructions and wasn’t loud like the others could be. But Will was also painfully kind and smart. Steve wished he could know him better.

“Thanks,” Will says.

Steve and Robin say their greetings to the rest of the kids and settle near the back of the lawn. After a few minutes, Steve glances up and sees Eddie walking out of the back door with Jonathan and Nancy, they’re each carrying a saran covered bowl and heading towards the food table. They’re talking, and Eddie is smiling, and the corner of Steve’s mouth quirks up at the sight of it. It’s nice to see Eddie get along with everyone.

Eddie spots him from across the lawn and Steve gives him a little wave. Eddie smirks and waves back. After a moment he walks over to Steve and Robin and says hi, giving Robin a hug like he didn’t see them just the day before.

“I’m going to go say hi to Nancy and Jonathan,” Robin says after a moment and skips away.

“Hi,” Steve says.

Eddie gives him a once over. “Is that my vest?”

Steve looks down at himself. He’s wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and — huh. Yeah, it was Eddie’s vest. Steve had honestly just grabbed the first thing he thought of in his closet this morning and threw it on over his shirt. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry, do you want it back?”

Eddie has a strange sort of look on his face. “No, I mean,” he shrugs, “it’s fine. You can wear it.” He rubs his thumb over his bottom lip. “It’s uh — you look hot.”

Steve’s breath hitches. He blinks a few times, before mumbling out a, “Y-yeah?”

Eddie turns to him, head cocked slightly to the side. He reaches forward and tugs Steve minisculely closer by the front of the vest. “Yeah. You look good. In my clothes.” He smiles.

God, Steve thinks, those fucking eyes.

They’re interrupted by Jonathan, who appears out of nowhere with three beers in his hands. He hands one to each of them. “My mom said we’re allowed to have two each.” The three of them laugh.

“Dude,” Eddie says, nudging Steve with his elbow. “Jonathan has an insane amount of weed from California.”

“Oh?”

“My friend Argyle hooked me up. You guys are welcome to come over and smoke anytime,” Jonathan says. “I probably shouldn’t have this much on me anyway…I live with a cop.”

“Hey if you’re offering, I’m not saying no,” says Eddie.

Over the years, Steve has grown used to Jonathan. He wasn’t a bad guy, and Steve knows he’s treated him badly in the past. Before Starcourt, it had hurt to see him walking down the halls holding Nancy’s hand. The truth was very clear, though — Jonathan was a good guy. He made Nancy happy. The two of them appeared to still be together, probably talking a few things out in the past few weeks. Nancy was back to having that glow she had while she was with Jonathan. On top of everything, though, Jonathan was a good brother to Will, in a way that made Steve jealous for something he never knew he wanted.

The afternoon began. Eddie got a formal introduction to El, Will, and Hopper. Though from the look on Eddie’s face when he shakes Hopper’s hand, the two of them have definitely met before.

“It’s great to finally meet Will the Wise,” Eddie says, clapping a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Hellfire heard so much about you. You’re legendary, man.”

Will’s head turned to his friends. “You guys worked me into your back story?”

“Of course we did,” Mike says. “You’re always a part of the party.” Dustin and Lucas nodded enthusiastically, the four of them fell into a pathetically heart-warming group hug.

Hopper cooked the food, Joyce fussed about whether or not she provided enough food for everyone when there’s enough to probably feed a small army. (Robin rests her chin on Steve’s shoulder and whispers, “Just like you. See, you’re such a mom.”) and Steve settles in on a lawn chair nursing his first of two allotted beers while he scarfs down a hamburger, a mountain of his veggie tray, and some potato salad.

It’s fun. Steve has always loved the business of a party. It’s always been somewhere where he feels like he’s completely able to let go of everything else going on in his life. Plus it’s not often that all of them can get together outside of world-ending danger. Steve enjoys watching the kids bicker and fight in the ways they usually do — Mike thinks he’s right about something, no one agrees with him, in the end they’re talking about something completely different, but Max is the clear winner. They make El float something, which sets Hopper off for a bit, chastising them all — “She’s extremely busy cleaning up the mess left to her by One! On the weekends she needs to conserve her energy, not make pop cans float for your enjoyment!”

The most popular topic of all, it seems, is the status of Steve and Eddie’s friendship.

“I just don’t really believe that the two of you actually get along,” Mike says.

Eddie just cackles and takes a swig of his second allotted beer.

“We’re friends! We hang out all the time!” Steve cries, indignant. They have been going over this for half an hour now. “Eddie, will you please just tell them that we’re friends?”

“Oh yeah, me and Steve? We’re besties.” He leans into Steve’s space, chin tilted up. “Aren’t we, buddy ol’ pal?”

Steve laughs, and shoves him away with his elbow. It seems to please Dustin, though, and a series of cheers come from the kids.

“Finally! Dustin’s dads are getting along!” Max cries out, and everyone laughs.

El says, “Dustin has two dads? I have two dads, also.”

“Not the same, kid!” Hopper calls out to her.

They eat a lot. Max and El hog the music and play whatever they want to — a lot of Madonna. They dance and twirl to the music, and eventually they even drag Nancy and Robin into the group citing “girls only.” Steve doesn’t complain. He sits with Eddie for a lot of the evening, and Eddie is being Eddie. He will touch Steve’s arm when he’s talking about him, will turn his head and flash a smile that’s meant for only Steve. Steve can’t stop himself from just staring, he sees Eddie’s hand laying on the arm rest beside him and just aches to reach for it.

Eddie looks so relaxed in everyone’s company, and Steve is so happy for him, it swells up in his chest. Even when Eddie is inevitably dragged away by the boys to talk about D&D. Apparently when they’re not playing, they have to be talking about playing it. But even then — he enthusiastically recounts past games to Will, and they talk about being a Dungeon Master, and setting up a whole new campaign now that Will is back in town. (Steve genuinely has no clue what any of this shit means, but Eddie seems eager to do it.)

Joyce and Hopper spend most of the evening sitting quietly next to one another, hands held between them.

Sometime into his second beer (along with a lot of water) Steve excuses himself inside to use the bathroom. When he steps out of the room, he runs chest-first into Nancy.

“Jesus—”

“Can I ask you something?” she says. Her eyes are large and owl-ish and Steve just shrugs.

“Sure?”

“Are you…” she lowers her voice. “Is there something going on with you and Eddie?”

Panic rises high in Steve’s throat, he looks down the hallway and at the empty bathroom frantically.

“Everyone’s outside,” Nancy says. “I promise.”

“How the hell…” Steve just stares at her. How the hell did she figure it out?

“Steve,” Nancy says, in the way she always does. Or did. The way that still sometimes gets Steve’s gut all twisted around funny with nostalgia. “I know what you look like when…” she trails off.

“When what?”

Nancy shifts her feet, she gazes up at him carefully, studying him.

“When what?” Steve asks again a little louder, feeling a bit lost.

She squeezes his arm. Says, “Nevermind,” and then turns around on her heels, Steve catches her by the arm and tugs at her until she turns back around.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he whispers. “No one knows, not even Robin.”

“You could tell Robin, you know. I think she’d understand.”

Steve blinks. He thought he and Eddie were the only ones who knew about Robin. “Did she—”

“She told me a week ago now,” Nancy explains. For a moment that’s a brief distraction, because it makes Steve so happy that Robin is finding more people she feels comfortable telling about herself.

“You could tell Robin,” Nancy repeats.

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t—” he swallows, throat tightening. He can’t, he can’t, even though he spends a lot of his time now thinking about how it’s Robin. “I mean it, Nance. Not even Jonathan, please.” He hates how his voice shakes, hates how he can’t hide it — this fear.

Nancy softens, but she has always been a little soft when it comes to Steve. “Not even Jonathan,” she says. “I promise,” and Steve relaxes. He drops her arm. “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have…sprung that on you. I thought, maybe, it was sort of common knowledge.”

“It’s fine,” Steve murmurs, even though he doesn’t feel fine. But he knows Nancy, knows she would keep this secret for him. She probably wouldn’t have even brought it up if she had known she was the only person who would know.

“Come on,” she says gently. “Joyce bought a cake for dessert. We can bring it out.”

***

The cake goes off spectacularly, and they eat it all. The kids end up lying back in the grass groaning about full stomachs and Joyce and Hopper cart them off to their respective homes. Steve, Eddie, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan are left sitting in the backyard when Jonathan suggests they could go somewhere to smoke. Eddie offers up his trailer where there’s a fire pit and people who won’t care about the smell of weed.

They all end up driving in their respective vehicles. Eddie in his van, Nancy drives Jonathan in her car, and Steve drives with Robin. They all crowd around Eddie’s trailer and when they arrive Eddie is already building a fire.

Nancy and Robin say they’re not interested in the weed, and decide to oust the boys over a few feet by the trailer for them to smoke.

“Do you have anything to make s’mores?” Robin asks Eddie.

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Eddie replies.

“Awesome,” Robin replies. She shoos the boys away. “Now go over into your little stoner spot and leave the girls to play with fire.”

“Sounds dangerous, Buckley!” Eddie calls as they take a few steps over and Robin disappears inside to find marshmallows.

Steve hasn’t smoked in a long time. Junior year, he thinks. Tommy H was the one who usually supplied him and once Steve had pulled away from him, well, Steve couldn’t be bothered to go looking for whoever he bought it from. Briefly, he wonders if it was Eddie.

Pretty soon, Eddie, Steve and Jonathan are feeling pretty good about themselves, sitting in a slight circle and passing a joint around. After a lengthy argument over music between Jonathan and Eddie, Eddie claims he’s sleepy and slouches down in his lawn chair, he throws his feet over Steve’s legs and Steve doesn’t bother complaining about it.

Instead, he ends up talking to Jonathan, and it turns out to be really nice. He, also, gets the full story of the status of his and Nancy’s relationship.

“It sounds weird, but we’re kind of just coasting until she goes off to Berkeley,” Jonathan shrugs. He seems a little somber about the fact. “We’re still figuring it out. Whether it’ll be long distance, or if we just spend some time apart. I love her, she loves me. But — I can’t leave Mom and Will, yet. And I won’t let her stick around and wait for me if she’s ready to go. Maybe in a year or so, or once we know Vecna’s gone for good.”

“El’s closing all of the gates,” Steve says.

“I know,” Jonathan says. “But we thought it was over and done with after Will came back.”

Steve swallows, the unspoken you never know settling over the three of them. Still, though, right now there’s no threat. Cheers to that, he supposes.

Somehow, the conversation of Nancy continues. They speak in hushed tones they hope don’t carry a few feet over where Nancy and Robin are listening to music and making s’mores together. For the first time, they talk about the weird realities of their relationships with Nancy.

“You don’t hate me?” Jonathan asks in wonderment.

Steve scrunches his nose. “Nah,” he says. “I was jealous of you for a long time, you know. Your friendship with Nance. So unless you’re gonna tell me that you and Nance were hooking up before we ended things, no, I don’t hate you.”

Jonathan leans forward waving his hands about. “Nothing before you guys broke up, I promise, man. I mean, full disclosure I had a massive crush on her but…” Steve just laughs, because that’s funny. Who didn’t have a massive crush on Nancy at some point?

“Honestly, man, I thought you hated me,” Steve says.

Jonathan thinks about that. “You’re gonna have to give a more specific time frame, because I did kinda hate you at some point. You were an ass for a long time.”

Eddie cackles from where he is sitting with his feet resting on Steve. Steve debates locating something to throw at him. Instead he just shrugs and says to Jonathan, “After the whole demogorgon in your living room.”

“Ah,” Jonathan says. “You were okay after that, I guess. But honestly, dude, it’s seeing you with Dustin and the rest of the kids that made me have major respect for you. You’re way different now than you were in high school.”

Steve clicks his tongue. If he had a dollar for everytime someone said that to him, he thinks he would be able to…buy something expensive, or something. Fuck, he’s really high.

“Can I ask you something only a paranoid high boyfriend could ask his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend?” Jonathan asks next.

“Sure,” Steve says, after thinking about the question for a moment because that was a lot of words at once.

“You don’t have any lingering feelings for Nancy, do you?”

Steve starts shaking his head and waving his hands back and forth immediately, but then it makes him a little dizzy so he stops. “No way. Not at all.” When he drops his hand down, he accidentally hits Eddie’s ankle, and the contact feels nice, so he wraps a hand around it.

“Really?” Jonathan asks.

Steve doesn’t think he would actually tell Jonathan if he did, what would be the point? The two of them quite literally just got their shit back together. But honestly, “No, dude. That was, god, three years ago now. She ended things. I went through my mourning period. I’ve moved on,” he waves the hand that isn’t wrapped around Eddie’s ankle towards Jonathan. “She’s moved on. The only thing I want from her now is to be her friend. Promise.”

“Dude, I like, know about the flirting,” Jonathan whispers, leaning forward towards Steve. “She told me. We’re all about honesty and stuff now, so I know something was going on.”

“No,” Steve says again. “Survival instinct, man, nothing else.” Eddie’s skin feels so soft under his thumb, he strokes back and forth along the bone of his ankle. “My own personal loneliness, maybe. But even then, dude, the way she looks at you. You gotta know that between me and you, it’ll be you every time.”

Jonathan looks genuinely touched by that statement. “I really appreciate you being honest with me about this, man,” he says, solemnly. “We probably should have done this years ago.”

Steve laughs. “Probably!”

Jonathan leans forward, puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Thank you so much. You — you’re the best, you know? I love you.”

Steve, feeling high and heartwarmed, grips at Jonathan’s hand and squeezes. “No, you’re the best. I love you, man.”

“Are you two done yet?” Eddie murmurs. Then calls out, “Ladies! Turn up the music, will you?”

“It’s Blondie,” Nancy calls back.

“I don’t care,” Eddie says. “Anything to drown out these two blubbering about their feelings.”

“Aw, Steve!” Robin calls out. “You’re talking about feelings?”

Steve throws her the middle finger. Robin acts as if he blew her a kiss and catches it in her hands, pressing it to her heart. “He likes me,” she fawns to Nancy. “He really likes me!” Nancy rolls her eyes with a smile.

For a few minutes, they all listen to the music together, Eddie leaning back in his chair, eyes closed. Jonathan gets out another joint, and Steve takes a few more hits of it with him. At some point, Nancy comes over with a s’more for Jonathan. He gasps when he sees it, pulls Nancy down so she can sit on his lap and he can kiss her thanks. Steve smiles at the two of them, realizes he genuinely feels no jealousy or pain from seeing them together. And that feels so awesome.

Nancy looks between Steve and Eddie. She smiles at them. And Steve suddenly remembers that she knows, and Eddie’s legs feel very heavy in his lap. His palms start to sweat. Because, he realizes desperately, if Nancy knows from just looking at the two of them on one random afternoon, then how long is it before everyone figures it out?

Even worse, what if they already know?

Then suddenly Steve can’t breathe.

He feels his chest tightening and it’s as if the world is closing in on him although they’re outside. He lets out a gasping breath, then another, and they keep coming.

“Steve?” Robin calls from the fire. Steve watches blurrily as she runs up to him. “You okay?”

Eddie’s feet are off his lap in an instant, and in the other, he’s kneeling in front of Steve, both hands on Steve’s knees. “Hey, hey, hey,” he’s whispering, so kind and so beautiful, Steve feels panic set in more. Steve squeezes his eyes shut, but Eddie’s hands squeeze him tighter. “Harrington — Steve, look at me. Can you hear me?”

Steve nods. His ears are ringing a little but he can hear him.

“You don’t have to say anything, okay, but in your head, what are five things you can see?”

Somehow, Steve manages to give him an incredulous look. Because, like, what?

“Just go along with it. Humour me. Five things you can see, Steve, it’s okay. Nod when you have them.”

Steve sees Eddie, and the fire light glowing behind him. He can see Robin in his peripheral. He looks around and sees Eddie’s trailer, and there’s a squirrel in a tree father away. He nods.

“Okay, four things you can touch. Not just from your hands, what can you feel?” The dirt below his feet, Steve thinks. The chair he is sitting on. His clothes on his body. Eddie. He nods.

“Three sounds you can hear.” The fire crackling. The crickets chirping. There’s someone else having some sort of party across the trailer park, he can hear them. He nods.

“Two things you can smell.” That one is easy. The fire and the weed. He nods.

“One thing you can taste.”

The only thing Steve can taste is the weed smoke from his own mouth. He laughs, finding the whole thing stupid, but with the laugh he realizes he can breathe again. And he feels okay. Jittery and awful and still slightly on edge, but his throat isn’t tight anymore. He chokes out. “I’m okay.”

Eddie’s hand comes up and squeezes Steve’s shoulder, then lets it go.

“What happened?” Nancy murmurs.

“Just, uh, feel really high,” Steve says. And he does, he feels it thrumming in him still, very aware of his heart beat.

“Sorry, dude, California weed can be something else,” Jonathan says. “I should have warned you.”

“When was the last time you smoked?” Nancy asks.

“Uh,” Steve laughs. “Junior year?”

Eddie tuts. “Gotta take it slow, Stevie. Come on, let's get you up.”

Robin, still at Steve’s side, and Eddie help get Steve to his feet, but he’s still a little wobbly and ends up stumbling into Steve’s side. “Woah, there,” Eddie says, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist to hold him up.

“I’m okay,” Steve says again.

“Probably just went a bit too hard,” Eddie says gently. “You can sleep it off.”

“I can drive him home,” Nancy offers.

“My car,” Steve protests.

“You can stay here with me and drive home tomorrow,” Eddie offers. He turns to Nancy, “Probably shouldn’t be alone tonight, anyway.”

Nancy nods.

“Robin…” Steve murmurs next. Robin appears at his side and squeezes his hand.

“Nance can give me a ride home. Right, Nance?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, Steve, I got her.”

“I’m sorry…” Steve murmurs, feeling very embarrassed all of a sudden.

“It’s okay.” Robin kisses his cheek. “Call me tomorrow, yeah?” Steve nods.

“Come on, big guy,” Eddie says, pulling Steve towards the front door of the trailer. Steve sees out of the corner of his eye Nancy and Robin putting out the fire, he turns his head and spots Jonathan putting away their chairs.

Steve turns to look at Eddie now. “Did I ruin the night?”

“No way,” Eddie says, sincere. “It’s getting late, anyway.”

“Are you sure? You’re not just saying that?”

“Not just saying it, I promise.” Eddie holds the door open and helps Steve get in. They go back to Eddie’s bedroom and Steve is put on the edge of Eddie’s bed. He lays down, feet still planted on the floor and rubs his eyes.

“I’m going to get you a glass of water, okay?” Eddie says, walking out of the room. Steve is helpless and just lays there on the bed until Eddie comes back with a cool glass and helps Steve sit back up so he can drink it.

After, Eddie goes back outside and Steve listens to the sounds of everyone backing up and eventually of Nancy’s car starting and driving away. Eddie comes back in, he kneels in front of Steve on the bed, just like he was outside.

“Feeling okay?”

“My mouth is really dry,” Steve says.

“I’ll get you more water,” Eddie says, taking the glass and then he’s gone again.

When he’s back, he asks, “Can I take your shoes off for you?” Steve is nodding, and downs the glass of water. He lays back down on the bed, as Eddie’s hands work off his shoes.

“I don’t like being this high,” he says out loud. The ceiling is spinning and there’s funny designs moving on it. But the panic is lessening, it’s just him and Eddie in here. No one else can see them.

Eddie laughs quietly. “No one does, dude. But you’re feeling better now, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” He thinks he might actually be telling the truth. “Where did you learn that?”

“Learn what, Stevie? You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“All that shit outside. About the seeing and the tasting and...” he trails off, waving his hand in front of his face to explain the rest.

“Ah,” Eddie murmurs. He crawls up onto the bed and lays next to Steve, their heads laid next to one another. “My Uncle taught me. Unfortunately panic attacks run in the Munson family.”

“Is that what that was?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says gently. “Never had one before?”

Steve swallows. He can remember feeling tightness in his chest like that before. How in that first year after the demogorgons any sort of flickering light would make him need to sit down and think about his breathing.

“Nothing like that,” Steve says.

“Weed panic is next level,” Eddie agrees.

Steve blinks a few times. “I’m tired,” he murmurs out loud.

“Well you can take your pants off and crawl into bed,” Eddie says.

Steve reaches his hand out so the back of it bumps Eddie’s shoulder. “You could take ‘em off me.”

Eddie smirks. “Not when you’re this high, dude. No way.”

Steve thinks he might actually pout. But he’s sitting up to throw off Eddie’s vest and to remove his jeans. Eddie does the same, and then the two of them are crawling into the bed, the only light on in the room is a lamp next to Eddie’s bed.

Suddenly, Steve realizes they’ve never slept beside each other in Eddie’s bed. He realizes he likes being in Eddie’s bed. It smells like him, and yeah, it’s smaller than Steve’s bed but it means they can lie much closer to one another and Steve likes that.

“You haven’t even kissed me today,” Steve murmurs out loud. The thought occurs to him as he says it, and now that it’s been said, he realizes how sad that fact really is. A crime of horrid nature. He and Eddie should be kissing every single day.

Eddie gives him a look he’s too high to try and decipher, sits up on an elbow and leans over Steve’s body. He leans down, presses a kiss to Steve’s forehead. It’s chaste, and gentle. He whispers, “Go to sleep, Harrington.”

Steve does. He tries not to think about how he thinks it might mean something when Eddie calls him Harrington instead of Steve.

Chapter Text

The weather warms as May continues and Eddie spends most of his nights with Steve in his bed. His van breaks down and so Steve’s morning routine now extends to picking Eddie up and dropping him off at school. (That is — when Eddie feels like going. He’s passed most of his classes at this point.) Robin is now mostly getting rides with Vickie.

In fact, Robin begins to spend a lot of her extra time with Vickie. Though initially Steve is a little bummed about the fact that Robin isn’t able to hang out with him as much as she used to (at least, outside of Family Video) she seems so happy and experiencing the honeymoon phase of a new relationship that Steve doesn’t have the heart to even tease her about it.

After their second date, Robin showed up at Steve’s house. Luckily on a night that Eddie wasn’t there — he was playing his nerd game with the kids.

“She kissed me!” Robin blurted out as soon as Steve answers the door. Steve immediately pulled her inside and they spent most of the night together in Steve’s living room sharing a blanket and Robin telling Steve all about the date. How she couldn’t believe Vickie actually liked her and the luck of it all that Robin managed to kiss a girl before she left small town Hawkins. “I asked her if she would be my girlfriend and she said yes.”

Steve listened to her in rapture. He’s never had a friend like Robin — one who showed up unannounced, but always welcome. Who would actually listen to him when he needed someone to. He has never had a friend who so gleefully told them about the exciting things in their life with no other purpose than to just share it with him. (He can remember when Tommy H. began dating Carol in the seventh grade, how he had almost held her up to Steve like some sort of prized possession as he claimed I got her, Harrington, not you.)

Steve loves Robin, he is so happy for her. He doesn’t think about how shocked she would be if he ever told her he had kissed a boy.

***

End of May is prom season in Hawkins. Which means downtown (revitalized with its lack of mall) is crawling with girls flocking to any available shop trying to find dresses. Steve has witnessed far too many guys giving flowers to their prospective dates on his morning drop off with Eddie, and he hates it. It’s all so stupid anyway.

So when he goes to pick up Eddie from school on his afternoon off and finds Robin standing next to him with a sheet of lined paper that reads, HEY DINGUS — PROM? the only logical first reaction is to say, “What the fuck?”

Both Eddie and Robin laugh at him and practically push him back into his own car. (He was leaning super casually on it so that Eddie could find him.) Robin in the passenger seat and Eddie sprawled out in the back, and tell him to drive.

“Milkshakes on me!” Robin says, all while Steve is still waving the piece of paper around in the air and saying, “Rob, I’m serious, what the hell is this?!”

They hold him off until Steve has a milkshake in his hand and they’re sitting at an abandoned picnic table, Robin crossed legged on the table top and Steve and Eddie on either side.

“I have a suggestion for you both,” Robin begins. “And I’ve already run it by Eddie and he says he’ll do whatever you want to do, Steve.”

Eddie flushes. “That’s not exactly what I—”

“That was essentially what it boiled down to,” Robin cuts in.

“Can you, for the love of god, just spit it out Robin?” Steve asks. It’s been almost half an hour of this rambling and putting off the question.

“Prom is coming up. Vickie and I have been talking about it and we really want to go together. But, stupid society would completely outcast us if we chose to. So…” she eyes Steve. “We were thinking we could each go with one of you guys, all of us as a sort of foursome, that way we could spend prom together and no one would really notice.” Robin looks nervous by the end of it, twiddling her thumbs in her lap. “Eddie would go with Vickie and I would go with you. Because no offense Eddie I think if you showed up at my front door to pick me up my parents would lock me away from men all together. Not that I would complain about that, much.”

“No offense taken,” Eddie says.

Steve stares at her, feeling a bit caught off guard.

“What do you think?” Robin asks.

“I’m thinking I didn’t even go to my senior prom and now you want me to show up yours a year later? It screams, ‘this guy peaked in high school.’”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Maybe because you did.”

“You think that’ll make me go with you?” Steve looks past her and stares at Eddie. “She thinks that’ll get me to go with her?”

“Pretty low, Buckley,” Eddie agrees, but he has that tone and a smile on his face that means Steve knows he’s still being made fun of. Steve pouts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, come on, Stevie, don’t you worry. Some of us weren’t even cool in high school.” He kicks gently at Steve’s leg under the picnic table and then keeps his foot there.

“Yeah, and some of us are closeted lesbians who just want to go prom with our girlfriend, but because of societies stupid preconcieved predjuces, she can’t.”

Steve sighs. “Really?”

Robin flutters her eyelashes and looks down at Steve. “Pretty please? I know you think I’m pretty, you’ve asked me out before.”

Eddie almost spits out a mouthful of milkshake, and then laughs so hard tears come out of his eyes. “You asked out Robin?!”

“I didn’t know—” Steve hisses, he lowers his voice. “It was before I knew she was a lesbian! I was drugged by Russians!”

Eddie just keeps on laughing, Steve reaches across the table and punches him in the arm.

“Steve, can I just get an answer?

Steve sighs. He loves Robin, he loves her so goddamn much.

“I guess we’re going to prom,” he says.

***

Later, Eddie is at Steve’s house digging through Steve’s closet for something to wear.

“I could just rent two tuxes, it’s really not a big deal,” Steve offers from where he is sitting on the end of his bed.

“Not a charity case, Harrington,” Eddie calls back.

Steve sighs. “I didn’t—”

Eddie appears from the closet, holds up a hand to placate him. “Relax. But you just don’t need to do that, okay? You have shit in here and we’re practically the same size. What would be the point of renting something?”

“Renting a tux is just what you do, I guess.”

Eddie smirks. “Well, I don’t typically do what most people do.” He pulls out a black suit, holds it up. “What do you think?”

Steve stands, walks over to him and looks at it. “It’s good.”

“Tags are still on it,” Eddie observes.

“My mom probably brought it the last time she was here. She wants me to have stuff like this in case I need to look…presentable for whatever reason. ‘A Harrington should never be caught off guard.’”

Eddie doesn’t reply to that, which Steve is pleased about. Instead Steve sidesteps him back into the closet. “There’s probably another one here.” He pulls another suit out. “This one’s older, I think.” It could be the one he wore to junior prom with Nancy. Maybe there’s something else he could wear…

“Well I’ll take that one,” Eddie says, reaching a hand out to take it from him.

Steve shakes his head. “No, you found that one, you should get to wear it.”

Eddie doesn’t look so sure.

“Please,” Steve insists. “It makes me happy to picture my mom finding out that it’s being worn by the guy I—” he stops himself, flushing red.

Eddie stares at him, wide eyed. “The guy you’re…?”

“You know,” Steve mumbles. He clears his throat. He doesn’t pay attention to the way Eddie sighs. He goes back into the closet to pull out a few dress shirts.

“Why didn’t you go to your senior prom?” Eddie asks.

“Uh…” Steve emerges with a handful of starchy white shirts. “A few reasons, I guess. I had no friends, I had no girlfriend, I knew I would just be gawked at the whole time.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you not hear about Steve Harrington’s fall from grace his senior year?” Steve laughs humourlessly.

“No, I heard,” Eddie says. He doesn’t clarify how, but everyone knew back then. “Didn’t you date Nancy your senior year?”

“She broke up with me long before prom,” Steve mutters.

Eddie is quiet for a moment, studying the white dress shirts he’s holding and seemingly thinking about them hard. “Was it a tough break with Nancy?”

“For me, I think,” Steve says. “I was totally in love with her and she just — it wasn’t the same for her. I nursed that wound for a long while. She started dating Jonathan pretty soon after. Which — you know, her prerogative, she did what made her happy. I respect that.”

Eddie’s gone to sit where Steve had before, the end of the bed. The suit is laid beside him, and Eddie is staring at his hands, fiddling with his rings. “You and Nancy… is there anything going on there?”

“No,” Steve says, immediately. How could Eddie think that? “No way. She’s dating Jonathan.” Hadn’t Eddie been listening in on Steve’s conversation with Jonathan a while back?

“She was dating Jonathan back in the Upside Down…”

Steve sighs. “I don’t know what that was…”

“You told Jonathan it was because you were lonely.” So he was listening?

“Well I’m not lonely anymore,” Steve bites back, and Eddie’s jaw snaps shut. “Sorry,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “Look, I don’t want to be with Nancy like that. I don’t know how else to explain it. She’s just a friend now, and if I ever think about it harder than that the only thing I feel is how I felt after she dumped me.”

“Which was?”

“Like she blew my heart out of my chest?” he shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

Eddie just nods.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Steve says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I was being nosy. Robin warned me, anyway.”

That makes no sense. “What?”

“I asked Robin once about you and Nancy. She said you didn’t really like to talk about it.” Eddie laughs nervously. “Like I said, I’m nosy.”

Steve bites on the inside of his cheek. It’s true, he doesn’t. Robin only got the full story out of him once when they were hanging out and playing a game of Truth or Drink and Steve ended up wasted. That was a long time ago now, before the school year started but after his face had mostly healed from the Russians.

“You should try on everything,” Steve says, gesturing again to the suit. “Make sure it fits.”

***

Between Robin asking Steve to prom, and prom actually happening, there is about two weeks. Steve goes with Robin to pick out a dress. It’s a dark plum purple, a straight neckline with spaghetti straps. It poofs out at the waist with tulle and falls just below her knees.

“I didn’t think you’d want to wear a dress,” Steve observes. He’s sitting in a plush chair, the full length mirror of the store behind him, Robin is standing in front of Steve, smiling at herself in it.

“Sometimes I like to dress up. You know, when I can pick the colour and the dress itself,” Robin explains. She plays with the tulle of the skirt, not looking at Steve. “Plus it makes my tits look great.” She turns to Steve. “Permission to check out my tits.”

“They look great,” Steve confirms.

Robin gives him a bright smile. “Thank you! Also, I don’t have to wear a bra which means easy access, too.” One of the employees rounds the corner and gives the two of them a strange look, blushing and walking away.

Steve rolls his eyes. “So this is the one?”

“Yes,” Robin claps her hands. She does a little spin. It’s funny to see her act girly, her joy is so palpable. She comes closer to Steve, voice dropping down a little. “Vickie’s dress is pink, too, so … we’ll match a little.”

“Nice,” Steve says with a smile. “Do you want to match with me?” he tags on, just to be a little shit.

Robin makes a fake vomiting sound, and disappears into the changing room. Steve just laughs.

Robin buys the dress and when they get back into the car she asks if Steve wants to grab dinner, so they go to one of the diners down the street. It’s not too busy, they get a booth in the back of the place.

After they order their food, Robin takes a sip of her coke and says, “I feel like I should apologize to you.”

Steve makes a face. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been ditching you to hang out with Vickie so much.”

Steve immediately waves her off. “Don’t worry about it.” After a moment where Robin doesn’t look so convinced, Steve continues, “Seriously. You’re — you’re allowed to want to hang out with Vickie.” He stresses the name because he wishes he could put another one in its place, girlfriend. Robin seems to get it.

“Still,” Robin says. “I remember when all my friends started dating people in middle school, and suddenly it was like I didn’t exist. I don’t want to be the person who ditches her friends to hang out with the person they’re dating.”

“Robin, we see each other at work all the time,” Steve says. “We’re literally hanging out just the two of us right now. I promise, I miss seeing you more, but I’m mostly just happy for you.”

“Really?”

“Really really.”

Robin takes another sip of her drink. “You’re too nice for your own good sometimes, Harrington.”

Steve shrugs. He’s alright enough.

“Plus, I guess it means you can just hang out with Eddie more.” Robin’s making fun of him, it’s obvious enough.

“Oh shut up.” Steve wonders if he’s able to mask the redness he is sure is appearing on his face.

“I know I said a while back that the two of you should be friends, but you really took that and ran with it.”

“I told you I didn’t have a problem with him,” Steve mutters. “He’s — Eddie’s my friend.”

Steve could put the other stuff aside for a moment and think about Eddie as just Eddie. Who was kind, and remembered things about Steve. He thinks about them watching movies together and making dinner in Steve’s kitchen. He thinks about Eddie pulling out a tape to listen to when he drove Eddie to school, or picked him up from wherever. It wasn’t all about the sex.

“You seem really happy when he’s around,” Robin observes.

“I do?”

Robin nods. “And he seems to really enjoy it when you’re around, too.”

That peaks Steve’s interest. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Robin muses. “You know, I remember Eddie back at school. He was in band with me for a few years, and he was always so quiet.”

“Eddie? Quiet?”

Robin laughs. “In band he was, at least. He would just show up with his guitar, do his part, and then leave. Everywhere else, he could be a loudmouth. It’s all so obviously an act, though, you know?”

“I feel like everyone’s putting on an act in high school,” Steve observes.

“But Eddie most of all I think,” Robin says. “I love the guy, I really do, but sometimes I feel like I haven’t really gotten to know him. Like there’s some layer we haven’t got through yet. Do you feel that way?”

Steve thinks of Eddie in his house, how he is funny and soft, and how easily he laughs. How he puts on a tape sometimes and blasts it loud, throwing his head and hair around, wild and free. How he looks in the morning when Steve always wakes before him and he is sleepy and lush, wrapped up in the blankets.

“Yeah,” he lies. “I feel that way sometimes.”

***

Eddie still has nightmares. So does Steve.

The vines come for him when he sleeps. He will be at an early morning swim practice and when he dives into the water, they wrap again around his ankles and pull him back down through the water. It’s red and angry like it was before but it doesn’t stop when Steve gets pulled through the gate. And sometimes the water turns into his pool, and the old dreams mix with the new ones. It keeps going, and Steve keeps getting pulled and pulled, and he can’t breathe, can’t breathe.

He jolts awake, and when he does Eddie is there next to him. He’s saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and his hands are soft and comforting on his arm, his shoulder, his chest, but the touch is too much and Steve can’t be in the bed any longer. He still feels the tight grip of the vines around his legs and he’s still drowning, he still can’t breathe. He climbs out, he turns to Eddie whispering, “Sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t — I’m sorry,” and then he flees the bedroom, blinking away the image of Eddie’s confused gaze.

He goes downstairs to the sitting room. (The one Eddie made fun of — “why do you need a room just for sitting?” he asked.) He sits on the couch, he stares out the window. It’s dark, and there is no one outside. He is alone, but there are no vines, he reminds himself. No water. He can breathe.

Eventually, Eddie comes down the stairs. Steve hears him before he sees him. But then he appears in the doorway, he leans against the archway.

“Are you okay?”

Steve nods. “Bad dream. I got overwhelmed. I’m sorry.”

“Is it because…I was there?” Eddie asks. He sounds so small and sad and Steve hates himself with immediacy because he hurt Eddie up there, didn’t he? He hurt him and he is the reason Eddie is looking at him the way he is and Steve thinks it could break him, this power he has to hurt.

“No,” Steve whispers. Then louder, “No — no — it wasn’t you at all.” The only thing he can think to do is to reach a hand towards Eddie. “Come here?” he asks.

Eddie goes, and Steve brings his hands to his mouth, kisses his fingers.

“It wasn’t you,” he whispers between them. “I was drowning and I woke up and it was like I was still there and I just panicked and needed to not be in that bed. It wasn’t you, do you believe me?”

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers back. Somewhere in between taking Eddie’s hands and starting to talk Eddie had moved closer into Steve’s space, taken Steve’s face between his palms and pressed their foreheads together. “You’re okay now, though, you’re not drowning anymore.” Then he kisses him, and Steve isn’t sure that’s true.

Eddie kisses him so gently, just the dry press of their mouths without the urgency of how they usually meet. It’s sleepy and practiced and perfected and Steve falls into it gracefully and with no other thought.

When Eddie pulls back he says, “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”

“Maybe in a bit,” Steve replies. He thinks he would like to keep kissing, that felt nice.

“I could make you hot chocolate. Do you have hot chocolate?”

Steve just melts. “I think so.”

“Okay,” Eddie stands. “Come on.”

Steve follows Eddie into the kitchen, and only then does he realize it’s four in the morning and Eddie has school tomorrow. “It’s late,” he says, “or early.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie says. “Point me to the hot chocolate, I don’t know where anything is in this place.” Steve just rolls his eyes, because he knows that’s not completely true, he’s made coffee in this kitchen while Eddie found and made himself a bowl of cereal.

The movements between them are quiet, and Eddie gets out the milk and a pot to make “real hot chocolate, none of that boiled water shit.” Steve sits himself on the counter beside the stove where Eddie starts pouring milk into a pot. They return to the quiet for a while, the only sounds being the whisk Eddie is using to stir.

Then, Eddie asks, “Could I ask a potentially invasive question?”

“Sure.”

“Where are your parents?”

Steve thinks about it for a moment. “Uh…hard to know. Last I talked to them Dad was doing some traveling for work, but he’s always doing traveling for work. They could be down in Key West by now, though. They have a vacation home there that Mom likes to spend time in. But she could also have forced him to take her somewhere in Europe while the weather is nice.”

“Do they…ever come home?”

Steve plays with the hem of his shirt. “Christmas, sometimes.”

Eddie’s brow is creased where he stares at the pot of milk, he adds the hot chocolate mix. Steve is sure he has more questions — most people do about his parents. He remembers when Robin asked the same question. Everyone does eventually, Steve, where are your parents? Why aren’t they home? Do they ever see you?

“That’s…” Eddie attempts to say, but trails off.

“It is what it is.”

Eddie doesn’t seem to like that, his eyes flit up. “Steve—”

“Where does Wayne think you are?” Steve blurts out, doesn’t mean it to be mean, but talking about his parents is his least favourite thing in the world. He much prefers to live in a world where he is Steve and not Steven.

Eddie smirks. “He knows I’m here, sometimes. Maybe not as much as I am, but…he’s still on night shifts, so, he’s none the wiser.”

Steve leans his head back against the cabinet. Wonders what Wayne thinks about Eddie staying over at another guy's house so often.

Maybe it’s the early morning darkness, maybe it’s the comforting smell of hot chocolate wafting through the air. Steve asks, “You said you’ve been with guys before?”

Eddie doesn’t look at him when he says, “Yeah, I have.”

“Like this?”

This time Eddie looks at him. Steve wishes he could reach into the gaze and pull out the meaning, have it written out clearly before him.

“No,” Eddie says. “Not like this.”

Steve doesn’t know what that means.

He has one more question. He’ll be brave, for tonight, he thinks.

“Would you say you like both? Guys and girls?”

Eddie seems to seriously consider the question, the hot chocolate is done, though. He goes and gets two mugs and pours it, hands one to Steve. Steve holds it between his palms and doesn't dare to breathe too loud. Then Eddie says, “It’s complicated. But…yes. I like both.”

The next question is probably Eddie’s, but Steve won’t let it be spoken out loud. He reaches for Eddie by the scruff of his shirt, until he is standing between Steve’s legs where he still sits on the counter. He kisses Eddie briefly, a peck of the lips.

“Thank you for the hot chocolate.”

They drink them together and watch the sun rise.

***

Steve picks Robin up first. He goes to the door and knocks, and she answers. She looks beautiful in her dress, her hair is all done up and she looks a little bit like Princess Diana, Steve thinks, with her big eyes and everything. She’s even wearing makeup, eyeliner and lipstick.

“You look pretty,” Steve says.

“Shut up,” she says.

Steve grabs her by the elbow, squeezes. “Rob, I mean it.”

She smiles at him, a friendly blush crawling across her face. “Thanks,” she says, then takes a step aside. “Come in. My mom wants pictures.”

The two of them go through the mortifying ordeal of being immortalized in flash. Steve thinks it’s a little sweet, though, the way Mrs. Buckley fusses over him and Robin, poses them and takes far too many photos. Robin is flushed pink with annoyance by the end of it, and she’s kissing her parents on the cheek and climbing into the back of the car, throwing an overnight bag into the back seat where she slides in.

“You’re not going to sit in the front?”

“I’d like to sit with my date, thanks,” Robin replies.

They drive to Vickie’s house, where Eddie should be meeting up with them. When they pull up, they’re already standing outside Vickie’s house. Vickie is dressed in a pink like Robin said, her red hair coiffed, very Pretty in Pink. And Eddie — well, Steve knows he’s staring. He can’t stop.

Eddie is dressed in the brand new black suit, black bowtie, crisp white button down. His hair is down, and it’s so very Eddie that Steve’s chest warms at the sight. He doesn’t notice at first when Steve pulls up because he’s laughing with Vickie. His hands in his pant pockets, shoulders hunched forward, shy, quiet. But laughing.

Robin hops out of the car with her bag, and she and Vickie hug each other tightly, spinning around with smiles. She calls back, “We’re just going to drop my stuff off inside!” and the two of them disappear into the house for a moment.

Eddie comes to sit in the passenger seat.

“Perks of being a closet lesbian, getting to sleep over at your ‘friend’s’ house after prom?” He uses air quotations, and Steve just laughs.

“You look nice,” Steve says.

“They’re your clothes, Harrington.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve says. “As some would say — you look good in my clothes.” He thrills at the way Eddie’s face blushes pink.

Eddie turns towards Steve in the seat, he reaches towards Steve’s hand that’s laying on his thigh and Steve notices that Eddie is still wearing all his usual rings. Their fingertips brush. “You don’t look half bad yourself. Excited for prom?”

Steve stares at their hands. “I just want Robin and Vickie to have a good time,” he says. He looks up. “Are you excited? It’s your senior prom.”

“My third one.”

“Like you went to any of the others.”

Eddie snorts. “You got me there.”

The door opens and Eddie takes his hand away. Vickie and Robin are crawling into the back and Robin woos! and hits the back of Steve’s seat. “Let’s go!” she cries.

***

Steve cannot be bothered to figure out what the theme is, but the high school gym is covered in streamers, and there are lights, and there’s already music playing when they go. They’re probably a bit late, but the high school jock that still lives inside his mind tells him that they’re fashionably late. No one wants to be early for prom.

As the four of them walk in, Steve realizes that they may be a bit of a spectacle. It makes sense, maybe. Steve Harrington, the fallen King of Hawkins High has just entered a senior prom a year late with Eddie Munson (previously accused of murder) and two band nerds. It would be a weird sight to see for the average Hawkins high school student. There’s a few whispers, and Steve can see how there are a few jocks who snigger at them.

Eddie seems to have noticed the looks as well. “Do you think the punch will get spiked?” he whispers to Steve.

“If it isn’t I’ll figure out a way,” Steve says back, and Eddie snorts.

“Robin! Steve!” is called from across the gym. The four of them spin their heads to see Nancy over by the wall, Jonathan by her side. She’s waving them all over and Robin and Vickie head over first. Steve watches as Nancy gives them both a hug. She’s wearing her own baby blue dress, her hair curly and large.

“Hey Nance,” Steve says, they give each other a strange side hug. Then Steve goes over and shakes Jonathan’s hand. “Hey, man.”

“You’re here with Robin?” Jonathan asks, eyebrow raised.

“Oh I forgot!” Robin says. Her, Vickie and Nancy share a glance and they each seem to give her permission for something. Robin goes up to Jonathan and whispers something in his ear.

“Oh,” Jonathan murmurs, eyes wide. “Okay. Good for you guys.”

“We’re all on the same page now?” Eddie questions.

“Yep,” Jonathan says.

And so the night began.

***

It’s prom. It’s not anything spectacular, Steve can remember junior prom being much of the same. You eat some snacks, you carefully drink the punch, you dance your heart out. Someone will end up crying in the corner by the end of the night.

To Steve, the evening passes in little blips.

The boys sit at their table while the girls scream their heads off to Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know.

At one point, the music is blaring and Steve drags Eddie up to dance near Vickie and Robin. Eddie is, somehow, a terrible dancer. He sways awkwardly next to Steve, and Steve can’t help but laugh and smile about how silly it all looks. He leans into Eddie’s space, puts a guiding hand on his hip to help him sway to the beat, leans in to his space to whisper in his ear, “Come on, I know you know how to use your hips,” and then dances away as Eddie looks like he’s going to swallow his own tongue.

In fact, they’re both more daring tonight than usual. Maybe it’s the more romantic setting, but they let their hands brush. They sit at their claimed table beside the dance floor and tangle their legs together under the table, disguised by the long tablecloth. It’s flirty, it’s probably dangerous, but Steve feels certain that nobody is paying any attention to them.

At another point, Steve is up grabbing two cups of punch (confirmed to not be spiked) when Vickie saddles up next to him and says, “I want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“You know,” she says. “For agreeing to come with us tonight. You could have easily said no.”

“Have you ever tried to say no to Robin? It’s a very difficult thing to do.”

Vickie laughs. “You know what, I haven’t yet said no. We’ve mostly been on the same page.”

“Well, I’m warning you. She’s a hard person to say no to.”

“And I would like to tell you,” Vickie says, “that you’re a good friend.”

Steve waves her off. “Yeah, well…”

“You are.”

“Thanks.”

“Also, you should know there’s an after party tonight. You and Eddie are welcome to come with.”

Steve spots Eddie from across the room. He’s up and dancing with Nancy and Jonathan. Or, well, Nancy has him by the wrists and is forcing him to dance. But he’s laughing and joining along — his hips are moving much better, Steve notes.

“I’ll ask him,” Steve says. “But maybe.” He and Vickie carry their cups of punch back to their table.

Later, when Eddie returns to the table, they start playing Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, and Steve goes, “Oh, I like this song.” Eddie turns his head towards him so fast, and gives Steve a look that gives him a sneaking suspicion that they may never sleep together again.

But Steve, being Steve, smiles at Eddie’s reaction and says, “You don’t like Wham?”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who enjoys Wham?” Eddie asks, voice bland and unamused.

“Definitely,” Steve replies.

“Excuse me?”

“What?” Steve shrugs his shoulders innocently. “It’s good music. You like good music.”

“Harrington—”

“You’re a total Wham-head!”

Eddie blinks. “A Wham-head?” His eyes are wide and disbelieving. “A Wham-head? Harrington, did you just make that up? How could you—” Eddie cuts himself off when he notices Steve can’t stop laughing. “Oh, you asshole. You’re saying this shit on purpose.”

“You’re so easy to rile up, man.”

“I hate you.”

Steve rests his arm on the back of Eddie’s chair. “Really?”

Eddie bites his lip. “Yeah. Definitely.”

Their knees are touching with the angle they’re sitting at. In fact, their whole legs from the knee down are pressed up together, feet side by side under the table. Steve glances around, the only person watching them is Nancy. She looks away when he makes eye contact with her. Steve doesn’t focus on that. Instead he says to Eddie, “Vickie said there’s a party tonight.”

Eddie groans. “Ugh. We don’t have to go to that, do we?”

We. Steve picks up on the word and focuses on it, storing it away for later.

“If you don’t want to we — we could do something else.”

Eddie knocks his knee against Steve’s, friendly, a comfort. “I think I’d prefer that.” There’s a dark glint behind his eye that makes heat pool in Steve’s gut and a smile crawl across his face.

Steve nods. “Okay.”

Eddie smiles. “Okay.”

***

Near the end of the night, the steady beat of Phil Collins’ You Can’t Hurry Love starts playing in the background, and Steve stands from the table. He grabs Robin’s hand and pulls her out of her seat with one hand, his other snapping along to the beat.

“No,” she says as Steve starts pulling her towards the dance floor. “Steve, no,” she’s laughing.

Steve pulls her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist and spinning them around. “You’re going to invite me to prom and then not dance with me?”

“I hate you!” Robin laughs, and Steve just laughs with her, spinning her around again. Phil Collins sings in the background. Robin cries out, “I’m uncoordinated!” she clings to Steve’s shoulders. Steve grabs her hand, wraps his other arm around her waist, lifting her up slightly.

“Stupid jock arms,” Robin rolls her eyes, still grinning.

“Trust me,” he says, swaying them back and forth to the beat. At the chorus he spins her again, throwing her from one arm to the other with ease. Then takes both his hands in hers, pushes and pulls her in again, arm wrapped securely around her waist.

He’s doing most of the dancing. Really, he’s doing a full performance, singing along to it, singing loudly right in Robin’s face, “She said love don’t come eas-aaay, well it’s a game of give and take!” and Robin crying back, “Oh my god, you’re so embarrassing!” and hiding her face in Steve’s shoulder.

He knows he’s drawing attention to himself — to both of them — which is probably something two hours ago he wouldn’t have wanted to do. But Robin is smiling at him, squealing in his ear as he moves them around the dance floor, spinning her. And he’s laughing, by the end of it his face hurts and, really, he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if people are looking at him, thinking he’s the weird high school loser, because in the end he got to go to prom with his best friend. He got to help her pick out a dress that she looks beautiful in, and she’s here with her girlfriend.

Spinning around with Robin, everything else melts away, and he just loves her; loves that she’s in his life and is his friend. He feels like the luckiest guy in the world. And other people might look at them and see two people who won’t “get their acts together” and “just date already.” But what none of those people get or see is that his friendship with Robin is so much deeper than any romance could ever be. He thinks the two of them were meant for each other. He had never understood the concept of soulmates before he met Robin.

As Phil Collins fades, a slower one comes on next and Steve means to pull back, but Robin just wraps her arms around Steve’s neck into a hug, so Steve wraps his arms around her waist and hugs her back.

“You’re my best friend,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “I don’t know if we’ve ever made that clear, but—”

Steve laughs. “You’re my best friend. You’re totally stuck with me, Buckley.”

She squeezes tighter. “Good.”

Someone taps on his shoulder, Steve turns his head to see Nancy.

“Do you think I could steal him?” she asks.

Robin nods. “I’ll happily go back to Vickie.” She slides away.

“Would you dance with me?” Nancy asks.

“You should dance with Jonathan,” Steve murmurs.

“I’ll be dancing with Jon all night,” she replies. “I’d like one dance with you, if you’re willing.”

Steve relents. “Okay,” he says.

He thinks, if people weren’t staring at him before they definitely would be now. But as he glances around, most people are in their own worlds. Nancy puts her hands around Steve’s neck, he settles his own high on her waist. They sway gently, like they’re thirteen-year-olds and this is the first time they’ve danced with anyone.

“How are things?” Nancy asks.

“Nance—”

“It’s just a question,” she says innocently, eyes looking off and away.

“Things are good,” Steve looks down between them, eyes to the floor.

“Robin doesn’t…?”

Steve shakes his head. “Not yet.” He doesn’t say that he has no idea how in the world he’ll ever explain any of this to Robin. The more time that passes, the less he knows how to, and the more he just wants to take this secret with him and harbor it forever.

“You know, I don’t think you notice but,” she pauses for a moment. She’s studying him again, like she did in Joyce and Hopper’s hallway. “You’re happy around him. I’ve never seen you so happy with someone.”

He shrugs. “He’s my friend.”

“It’s more than that, though,” Nancy says. “Isn’t it?”

Bashful again, Steve replies, “I don’t know.”

Nancy’s hands squeeze the back of his neck. “You do, though. I think you do, Steve.”

Steve wants to say, maybe, but even that is woefully inaccurate, a part of him thinks. Nancy leans her head in and rests it on Steve’s chest, Steve leans forward and rests his chin on top of her head. It’s strange, to be near Nancy like this, there will always be a bit of him that feels a little bit heartbroken when he’s with her.

From across the room, Steve and Eddie watch each other as the song plays out.

***

They leave soon after that. It’s getting late, and the gym is emptying out, and they’re craving something greasy to eat so they all pile in the cars they came in and head out to one of the local diners. After which, everyone’s ready for the party which in the end, only Vickie and Robin are going to. (Jonathan’s never been a party guy.)

Steve drops them off outside the party when it seems to be kicking into full gear. Robin makes Steve get out of the car when they arrive so she can hug him close, her thank you wrapped up in the touch. She says, “Are you sure you don’t want to come to the party?”

Steve turns back to glance at Eddie in the car. “Nah,” he says. “You two go. Have fun.”

He gets back in the car and rolls down the window. “Call me if you need a ride home!”

“We’re only two blocks from my house!” Vickie calls back.

“Call me!” Steve stresses.

“Okay, mom!” Robin replies.

Eddie snorts beside him.

Steve glares at him. “Don’t you start.” He rolls the window up and starts driving away.

As they drive away, Eddie’s hand sneaks up high into Steve’s thigh. He squeezes. “Why don’t we go back to yours?” he whispers. “It’s prom night, after all.” Steve just nods and leans on the gas.

***

They haven’t had a drop to drink but Steve feels drunk right now. Eddie is on him the moment Steve closes the front door shut. (Actually, Eddie was on him a little outside the door, too. It was dark, and his hands were on Steve’s hips, and he was a hard line pressed against Steve’s back as he fumbled for his keys and whispered against his ear, “Open the door, baby.”)

But now they’re inside and Eddie slams him into the closed door. Steve barely manages to lock it behind them before he is pushing Eddie backwards, towards the stairs, and Steve starts walking Eddie up them. They’re walking backwards, attempting to kiss throughout it all, but they’re mostly laughing into each other’s mouths and at some point they stop at the top so Steve can press Eddie into the wall and make out a little. He presses a knee between Eddie’s legs, presses up against him until they’re flush.

Steve’s hands are jittery like he’s had too much coffee. He can’t keep them still. He tugs at Eddie’s dress shirt so it is freed from the waist of his pants, so Steve can press his hands to the warm skin of Eddie’s stomach, his hands are cold and Eddie hisses against his mouth. He doesn’t pull away, his hands slide down to Steve’s ass, and pulls him forward so they can rock together. Pleasure soars through Steve’s veins, he laughs with it, pressing himself in closer.

After a moment they push away from the wall, Steve walks backwards towards his bedroom door, hands slipping Eddie’s jacket off his shoulders, fingers going towards the buttons of Eddie’s shirt to pull Eddie along with him. They’re both kicking off their shoes. Steve “oofs” as he is all but thrown back onto the bed. Eddie climbs over him, knees on either side of Steve’s waist.

“Stupid fucking tie,” Eddie mutters.

“I got it,” Steve replies, slipping a finger through the knot and getting it off of him. His and Eddie’s fingers practically tangle together in the haste to get Steve’s shirt unbuttoned, and then they’re both shirtless and Steve’s hands slide up Eddie’s chest, over his scars, to his shoulders, his neck, into his hair as he brings him down into another kiss.

They get their pants off, and Eddie takes the time to get their socks off, like the first time, only this time he presses a kiss to Steve’s ankle. Then they are gloriously naked, and pressed against each other, and Steve moans wildly with it. He hooks a leg around Eddie’s calf, and Eddie’s hand comes and grips at his thigh to hook Steve’s leg higher up over his hip, and they rock together panting into each other’s mouths.

Steve whines, his hands grapple for something to hold onto — Eddie’s back, his shoulders, the back of his neck. He tries to pull Eddie closer when they are pressed together in almost every place they could be but he wants more.

“Love it when you’re like this,” Eddie whispers against his clavicle, sucking a mark there.

“Like what?” Steve gasps.

“Desperate like this.”

Oh, god, he is, isn’t he? He’s desperate for Eddie, for whatever he’s willing to give him. The idea of it just makes Steve flush hot, and press himself up against Eddie more. He just wants to be closer, he wants to crawl inside Eddie’s skin, or maybe — have Eddie crawl inside him.

“Ask me,” Steve gasps, pressing a wet kiss against Eddie’s mouth.

“Ask what?”

“What you always ask me,” Steve grabs at his hips, nails scratching skin.

Then Eddie pulls back, his dark eyes crawling over Steve’s face. He asks, “What do you want?”

It comes easily. “I want you to fuck me.”

Eddie’s eyes widen, and Steve swears to god that he’s pupils fucking dialate. “Steve—”

“I’ve thought about it,” Steve murmurs. “I want it.”

“Holy shit,” Eddie whispers, though Steve thinks it’s mostly external monologue.

Steve shifts his hips up, rubs against Eddie and hooks his leg up higher on Eddie’s waist. “Please?” he asks nervously. Eddie just lets out a disbelieving laugh and kisses him.

They kiss, and they kiss. Tongues wet and teeth biting at each other’s lips. Eddie’s hands trail down the sides of Steve’s body, the touch is featherlight, driving Steve crazy. They’ve kissed before, they’ve had sex before, but this is all new and wild because Steve knows they’re both imagining what is going to come.

They’re pulling the sheets away towards the end of the bed. Steve’s laying back into the pillows, and Eddie finds lube somewhere (did he have it on him?!). He watches as Eddie takes his rings off one by one and places them on the bedside table, Steve almost tells him to put them back on. He gets a pillow and puts it under Steve’s hips.

Steve is laying back by the pillow, and Eddie is settling nervously between his legs, the packet of lube in his hands. He looks bashful, eyes drawn in concentration but he’s not really looking at Steve, just thinking.

“Eddie,” Steve says quietly to get his attention. “Are you okay?”

Eddie licks his lips. “I haven’t ever,” he gestures towards Steve awkwardly. “I’ve never done this, I’ve never gone this far before, with anyone. Or done, you know, the fucking bit.”

Oh, Steve thinks. “I’ve never done the being fucked bit,” he offers up. “Do you want to? Because it’s okay if—”

“I want to,” Eddie says. He reaches down and runs a hand gently over Steve’s bare hip. “God, look at you,” he muses. “Of course I want to.”

Eddie’s mouth comes to his again and now it’s soft, and pliant, and perfect. He kisses down Steve’s body, the side of his neck, his collarbone, his chest. He kisses and nips on Steve’s stomach, running his tongue along where it bites. He sucks marks where he knows they’ll be hidden. Runs his mouth along his scar on his side, the demobat one. The one that Eddie also has his own twisted version of.

And then, something new. Something different. Eddie’s hands are touching him, preparing him. Strong and gentle, and a stretch like Steve couldn’t have imagined.

At every change or shift Eddie’s asking, “Are you okay?” and Steve is nodding and saying “Yeah,” his whole body flushed and back arching and gasping at the press of Eddie’s fingers, and he has found a place in Steve that makes him feel like he’s never imagined he could. Until he swears it’s been fifteen minutes of this, and he’s panting and rocking back onto every movement. Desperate for it, he’s desperate for it like Eddie said.

“I’m ready,” Steve whispers. “Please, Eddie, I’m ready.”

“You, uh —” Eddie stammers. “I think it’s easier the first time if you lay on your stomach.”

Steve pauses. “Can’t we do it like this?” he asks, shyly. “I want to be able to see you.” He doesn’t want to do this not looking at Eddie, he wants to hold onto him, never wants to let go.

He watches as Eddie’s throat flexes. “Yeah, of course we can.” His fingers disappear and he gets a condom on, and he brackets himself over Steve’s body, his hair curtains down around them and it closes Steve in with him.

Steve reaches up, threads his hands through Eddie’s hair and pushes it back, over to one side. They stare at each other for a moment, wide eyed, quiet. It’s not awkward. Steve nods, reaches up to press a soft kiss to Eddie’s mouth. And then he’s pressing in, a slow glide and Steve gasps at it, body tensing and his hands dropping to grasp at Eddie’s shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks. “We can stop.”

“No, no,” Steve cries. “I don’t want you to stop, just—” he kisses him again. A distraction more than anything. Eddie pushes into Steve slowly, and once he’s there, once he’s in Steve is panting, gasping. He’s never felt like this, never wants to feel anything other than like this. “Eddie—”

“God, Steve,” Eddie gasps. “You feel…”

“Tell me.”

“You feel so good, baby.”

Steve whines, head falling back against the pillows. “I love it when you call me that.”

Eddie buries his face in Steve’s neck, presses a kiss there. Whispers baby against his skin. He rocks forward, and Steve gasps with it, he says, “again, again, again” and they ease into a rhythm of Eddie rocking into him steadily. Steve hooks his leg up over Eddie’s hip again, because he liked it before when Eddie held it up and Eddie does it again, this time hooking his arm under Steve’s knee. Steve reaches for something, anything to hold onto, fingers grappling in the sheets below him.

They’re usually desperate. They’re usually fumbling and rushing, like they can’t get enough of each other, like it’s the last time they will ever touch. But this time it’s different, Eddie rocks into him like a heartbeat. It’s not gentle, but it’s not brutal. It’s slower at times, it’s loving.

Oh, Nancy was right. Steve knows.

He knows when he cries out against Eddie’s mouth. He wants to drink him in, thinks maybe he could if he tried hard enough. He knows when he scrapes his nails down Eddie’s back, trying to bring him closer; only ever wants him closer — he wants Eddie to become a part of him, doesn’t want to exist in a world where they aren’t one. He knows when Eddie moans his name into his ear, over and over again — SteveSteveSteve and so good, baby. When he pulls Eddie’s mouth back to his, when he kisses him and says, “I’m —” and when he can’t finish the sentence, but Eddie tells him, “Yes.”

It should scare him, he thinks, but it doesn’t. Steve’s never had anything like this before, and maybe that should scare him, but it doesn’t. It’s Eddie. It’s them. He thinks his body was made for this, to be held and loved like this but only if it is Eddie.

This thing between them is fragile, Steve realizes. It could break. (It could break him.)

Steve swears he won’t be the one to do it.

Steve’s back bows, he lets out a cry, his hands reach for something and in the end it’s Eddie’s hands in his, fingers linked together and pressing Steve back into the mattress, holding him there. It’s Eddie touching him like he did that first time, it’s Eddie’s name on his lips.

And it’s Eddie, looking straight into his eyes when they come.

***

After, they shower together, loose limbs and wobbly legs (if you’re Steve). Eddie laughs at him, but wraps two arms around Steve’s waist and holds him up. They kiss for a long time underneath the spray of the water. Then they crawl back into bed, wrap themselves around each other, clean and warm. Steve holds Eddie’s hand, he plays with his fingers as his eyes droop.

He wants to say it.

Eddie’s hand threads through Steve's wet hair. His nose pressed against Steve’s cheek.

It’s stuck in the back of his throat.

Steve lets Eddie curl into his body, and they fall asleep.

He doesn’t say it.

Chapter Text

The next morning, they wake pressed against each other, Eddie’s front pressed to Steve’s back, an arm wrapped around Steve’s waist. Steve makes them breakfast and coffee, and they eat it sitting practically on top of each other at the island counter. After, they fool around again in the living room trading languid kisses and laughing into each other’s mouths.

Steve drives Eddie back to his trailer in the early afternoon before he has to go to his shift at Family Video. The place is mostly empty, and before Eddie gets out of the car, he sheepishly tilts his head in and kisses Steve deeply, the slightest hint of tongue. He brushes a hand against the side of Steve’s face, gentle.

Steve smiles at him. Gives him one more peck of a kiss, and then Eddie is getting out of the car and disappearing into the trailer, glancing back at Steve as he gets through the door.

On his drive to work, Steve realizes Eddie’s never kissed him goodbye before.

***

In the following days, Steve’s house is made into a makeshift study hall for Robin and Eddie and at times, shockingly, Nancy. They sit in the living room, crowded with their books, and they raid Steve’s (pretty empty already) shelves.

Eddie, in his own way, is putting in so much work to graduate. Scraping by with Cs in most classes, which, zero judgment on Steve’s part, it’s not like he was any better. His last test was a retake of one he missed in the aftermath of Vecna, when school was back but Eddie was still healing from the demobat bites. He finished a practice test, handed it over to Nancy and promptly fled the room.

Nancy sighs quietly, rubbing a hand over her chin.

“Eddie, you can come back in!” she calls out.

Eddie slumps into the room, looking exhausted.

“So,” Nancy says.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Eddie says.

“You got…a lot of them right,” Nancy supplies.

“But it’s not a passing grade, is it?”

Nancy bites her lip. Steve recognizes the look she’s giving Eddie, when she’s trying to figure out how to say what she wants to say nicely.

Eddie crosses the room and takes the paper from her. He stares at it, running a hand through his hair, his bangs sticking up awkwardly after. “This is stupid, this is so fucking stupid.”

Steve swallows. “It’s just a practice test, man.”

Eddie just scoffs, and walks out of the room. He goes into the backyard.

“Anyone want to go after him?” Robin pipes up from the couch, she sounds nervous.

“I got it,” Steve says. He follows Eddie out.

When he closes the sliding door behind him and finds Eddie off in the corner, a cigarette in his mouth that he’s trying to light, but his hands are shaking so much he can’t seem to get it. Steve approaches him quietly, takes the lighter from him, and gets it to spark. Eddie leans closer so he can get the cigarette burning.

“Thanks,” Eddie mutters. Their hands brush as he takes the lighter back.

“You can try again,” Steve says, stupidly. “It’s a practice test, we can go do it all again.”

Eddie just rolls his eyes, takes a long drag from his smoke. He doesn’t say anything.

Steve’s skin prickles. “It’s alright—”

“No, Harrington, it’s pretty far from alright,” he chuckles, in that Eddie way. The way where nothing he’s saying is funny. “Don’t know why I even try, it’s not like I’m gonna fucking graduate anyway.”

“Of course you are,” Steve says, he tries to reach a comforting hand to Eddie’s neck or his waist but Eddie just keeps pulling back and away. (It’s the third time Eddie’s pulled away from him this week, even when they were alone.) “Eddie, hey—”

“Stop, Steve,” Eddie holds out a hand. “Just stop. Stop lying, okay? I’m a high school drop out waiting to happen, I’m just three years too fucking late.”

“You’ll graduate,” Steve says. He tries a final time to pull Eddie closer, to comfort him somehow, but this time Eddie just shoves him back a hand square on his chest. Steve stumbles back for a moment, staring back at Eddie, hurt. He tries, one more time; he takes a step forward.

Eddie takes a step back.

Steve stops. His jaw tense, he shoves his hands deep into his jean pockets. “Whatever,” he mutters, backing towards the house. “Just trying to fucking help.” He spins on his heels and goes back inside.

***

Steve hides in his room for the rest of the evening. Robin comes and checks on him, hovering awkwardly in the doorway. Steve just tells her he has a headache, but they were welcome to keep using the living room. Robin brings up pizza later, but it sits on Steve’s bedside table and goes cold. He doesn’t feel very hungry.

Eventually, he hears a car pull out of the driveway. It’s around 9:30, which means it was close to Nancy’s curfew. Robin’s, too. Robin had come up earlier, possibly to say goodbye, but Steve had pretended to be asleep. He hadn’t been very forthcoming when Robin dropped the pizza off, and he just wasn’t in the mood to feign a conversation. He feels bad, but he’ll call Robin tomorrow and apologize for it.

There’s a gentle knock on his door.

Steve doesn’t answer it. He purposely shifts so that his back faces the door. He doesn’t turn around when he hears it open.

He feels Eddie standing at the end of the bed, just out of his line of sight.

“Thought you would get a lift home with Nancy,” Steve snarks.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Eddie replies.

“About what?”

“Nancy went through the practice test with me. I understand what I was doing wrong now.”

“Whoop-de-fuckin’-do.”

Eddie appears at the side of the bed, he crouches in front of Steve, eyes sad and apologetic. “I’m sorry.” His voice is whisper quiet, Steve barely hears it. Then louder, “Baby, I’m sorry.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “What did I do wrong?” he’s been wracking his mind with it all night.

Eddie’s face crumples. “It wasn’t you. Shit. I promise — it’s not you it’s — it’s me. I’m…I’m just so stressed out about school. I wanna graduate so fuckin’ bad, I just want to be done with it.”

It doesn’t feel like the truth. Or, at least not all of it. There’s something else, Steve can feel it. But he shifts over in the bed and Eddie crawls up beside him. He presses a kiss to Steve’s forehead, and then his cheekbone, the soft part of his cheek, and then his mouth. Then they roll over on the bed, and Steve pulls Eddie into him.

***

Eddie’s pulling away. Steve isn’t stupid, he can recognize it for what it is. He doesn’t know why, but Eddie stops staying over as much as he used to. Eddie gives a few reasons — Wayne’s doing some regular shifts and is back at the trailer most nights; he wants to spend his evenings fixing up his van so he can drive it again. Things that make sense, but at the same time they don’t. Steve doesn’t question it.

Eddie does, however, start driving his van more. Which means he isn’t asking Steve for rides, either.

Steve makes note of every shift. Where Eddie used to stand next to him, and the times he doesn’t. Steve can’t help but incessantly count when Eddie will move away from his touch, or when he doesn’t reach a hand out for Steve’s shoulder, or his arm, like he used to. He doesn’t crack as many jokes, he doesn’t turn his head in Steve’s direction, flirting and fun. It’s obsessive — it's downright compulsive, but Steve can’t stop. He tallies them up in his head throughout the day and then lays awake at night — because Eddie doesn’t stay anymore — and he just wonders, why. Whywhywhy.

He runs through all their previous interactions, trying to figure out where the change was. What Steve could have done, what he could have said. He doesn’t know, he can’t figure it out. But there has to have been something.

Eddie still comes into Family Video with Robin. He still hangs out with Steve. They still hook up, sometimes — in the back of Eddie’s van, on the couch in Steve’s house. But he won’t stay.

***

Everyone is waiting outside the high school.

Like, quite literally everyone. Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Will, El, Max, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan. It was Dustin’s idea — Eddie was inside writing his make up test, it was going to be marked on the spot. So, essentially, the guy’s fate was being decided before all their eyes and they were waiting to find out what the result would be.

“Isn’t this all a bit presumptuous?” Max says. “What if he fails?”

Everyone turns and gives her a collective dirty look. In particular, Dustin gasps loudly and says, “Why the hell would you even say that? Why even speak it into existence?”

“I’m just saying!”

“Well, say less!”

After another moment, Lucas speaks. “So…of curiosity for the worst, where are we going to put these signs if he does fail?” He gestures towards the three bristol board signs that were currently leant up against Steve’s car.

They were decorated with glitter and stickers. Dark, thick lettering reading, CONGRATS EDDIE!!! and CLASS OF ‘86, BABY!! amongst other congratulatory remarks. Steve thought they were sort of cute but, though he didn’t want to assume the worst, Lucas had a point.

“We could change one of them to say Un-congrats Eddie,” Mike suggests.

“That’s stupid,” El says, but she squeezes his hand comfortingly as she says it.

“Just watch for him,” Steve tells them. “You should be able to tell the second he walks out.”

No one says anything for a moment, and when Steve glances over at Robin she has a strange look on her face. Steve shoves his hands deep into his pockets. Now’s not the time to think about whatever it was he just said.

“I just mean — it’s Eddie. He’s emotive, or whatever.”

“True,” Dustin muses. “But I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that because he’s going to be fine.” He says the rest of it through gritted teeth.

“He’s been working really hard,” Nancy interjects where she’s standing beside Jonathan, in front of him Will nods encouragingly.

It’s another few minutes, and then, unmistakably, Eddie comes walking out the double doors of the high school. Maybe Steve was wrong about knowing Eddie’s mannerisms, because he looks dejected. He’s holding a piece of paper in his hand, wearing once again a t-shirt and jeans because it’s gotten way too hot for his leather jacket — which is a bit sad, Steve thinks, but also it means his arms are out and Steve likes seeing his tattoos. His shoulders are slumped as he walks up to the group.

“What the hell are you all doing here?” he says.

“Waiting for you, asshole,” Dustin replies. “Well?!”

Eddie sighs. His mouth pursed in thought, he looks a little lost. But Steve narrows his eyes at him, because it’s similar to that look he has on his face when he’s making fun of Steve—

“You’re looking at a graduate of the class of ‘86, baby!” Eddie yells, holding up the test with one hand. It has “B-” written on it in red marker, and the group goes wild. The kids flood around him, patting his shoulders. Max wraps her arms around Eddie’s waist in a hug, Dustin can’t stop clapping him on the shoulder. And Steve — Steve knows he’s smiling like a goddamn idiot, can’t hold it back. He’s whoo-ing and hollering and clapping along with the rest of them.

“Shit, the signs, get the signs!” Dustin hisses at Mike, and they’re diving for them against Steve’s car and then holding them up. Eddie laughs when he sees them, the highpoint of his cheeks flushing pink, he ruffles Mike’s hair, having to reach up to his own height to get to the kid’s head.

“So that means you’ll walk the stage with us?” Robin asks him when she can finally shove Mike out of the way to get to Eddie.

“I guess so,” Eddie shrugs.

“It’s your fucking year, man!” Dustin screams, tackling Eddie around the middle and then the two of them are off wrestling in the parking lot.

Eventually the crowd begins to disseminate. Luckily the kids came on their bikes, so Steve doesn’t have to pile them into his car. He yearns to drive Eddie home — or anywhere — but he can see his van parked in the far end of the parking lot, and he has to get Robin home, too. So, instead, he walks with Eddie over to his van with the signs the kids made for him.

“Don’t know where the hell I’m going to put these,” Eddie mutters with a laugh. “Plus the glitter’s going to get everywhere and be a pain in the ass.” He doesn’t actually sound upset about that.

“We could hang them on the wall.” Steve suggests. “They’d go perfectly with your creepy metal posters.” Eddie laughs at that, which makes Steve happy, and then he puts the signs in the back of his van, and closes the door. Steve stands next to him, shoulder leant against the doors of the van. He wants to kiss him, but it’s daylight and all their friends are just on the other side of the lot.

“I, um,” Steve clears his throat. “I’m, like, really proud of you. And, uh — happy for you.”

Eddie smiles, bashful, head dropped down. “Thanks, man.”

“And I really want to push you against this van and kiss you,” comes tumbling out of Steve’s mouth. “But, you know.” Eddie doesn’t say anything. “People are watching.”

“Maybe, um,” Eddie whispers, his voice low. “Maybe later.” Steve half expects him to give him a time, to invite himself over, but he doesn’t, his stomach twists with it. “My Uncle is going to be home tonight, and I wanna tell him the good news myself.”

“Of course,” Steve nods. “He’s going to be so happy for you, Eddie.”

Eddie shifts his feet back and forth, nodding. “Yeah. I hope so.”

Steve shoves his shoulder playfully, just to be able to touch him, to get Eddie to look him in the eye again. “I know so.”

***

Graduation is a week later, and Steve goes with Robin’s parents. He sits beside them, and he spots Eddie’s uncle sitting front row centre. It’s as boring as you can expect a high school graduation to be. Steve had attended his, his parents had sat somewhere in the middle for it. They had come for what Steve was sure was the pretense of it all. There had been no one else there for Steve.

Robin is one of the first to walk. Her parents are glowing with pride, and Steve has the brightest smile on his face. She doesn’t do anything spectacular as she walks, her face flushing red with embarrassment where Steve can hear people cheering for her from Band, he joins in with them. She happily takes the diploma and walks off stage.

Then, when Eddie’s name is called, a quiet hush falls over the crowd. But Eddie’s uncle stands, and he starts to clap in earnest, the sound of it bouncing off the auditorium walls. Then Steve stands, and then Nancy from where she is sitting yet to do her walk, and Robin from where she has already returned to her seat. Jonathan and Mike from where they are sitting with Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler.

It’s not everyone, but they fill up the auditorium with their own congratulatory claps anyway. Steve watches as Eddie gives them all a shy smile, crosses the stage, and takes his diploma, shaking the principal’s hand. Then he turns towards the audience, diploma in hand, sticks his tongue out, lifts his hands to the side of his head to create horns.

It only makes their small group clap louder, Steve puts two fingers in his mouth so he can whistle loudly. It’s not much, but it seems to be enough for Eddie, who does a little bow and then walks offstage.

After, Steve’s with Robin’s parents again in the reception when he spots Eddie’s uncle over in the corner. Steve quietly excuses himself and goes over to him.

“Mr. Munson?” he says, and reaches out a hand to shake. “My name’s Steve Harrington, I’m a friend of Eddie’s?”

“Steve? Yeah, I’ve heard of you. You can call me Wayne, though.” He shakes Steve’s hands. “Nice of you to show up for him today.”

Steve nods. “Of course,” he says. “Uh, it’s nice to finally meet you. And it’s awesome you could get work off.”

Wayne gives him a strange look. “What do you mean?”

Steve’s stomach churns. “At the factory? Eddie said you’ve been working days recently.”

“I haven’t worked days in months, kid. That’s how I’m able to be here right now.”

“Oh.” Steve blinks. He fakes a grin. “I must have misunderstood him, then. Sorry.”

“No harm in it,” Wayne says. Then, Eddie appears beside them and Wayne drops everything and envelopes Eddie into his arms. Steve takes a step back, giving them a moment together, but watches as Wayne whispers something against Eddie’s ear, and how Eddie’s eyes seem to swim with emotion, nodding against his shoulder. Steve has to look away.

He wonders why Eddie would lie about Wayne having night shifts. He wonders if it’s even worth it to bring it up. But not here — not on today of all the days.

Eddie looks over Wayne’s shoulder where Steve stands, offering him a little smile. It doesn’t look like his normal smile, though, it’s more restrained.

***

Eventually they stop hooking up. With school being out and Eddie’s van being fixed, for some reason, Eddie stops reaching for him all together. Steve tries, once or twice, to invite him back home with him, to brush their hands together but Eddie always says he can’t, pulls away when they’re in a group setting and eventually the sting of it is too much that Steve stops as well.

He thinks, maybe, Eddie just needs space. That when Eddie is ready he’ll come to him.

Two more weeks pass like this, and Eddie doesn’t come.

Steve doesn’t know what he did.

***

There’s a party, and Steve is invited.

It’s Nancy’s party, so that’s why.

Her parents and Holly are away for the weekend, up visiting grandparents or something and for whatever reason Nancy decided she had to be the one to throw a Class of ‘86 graduation party. She claims it's a party for the people who wouldn’t be invited to the jock and preps party, so it includes Robin’s band friends, and her newspaper friends, among other groups shoved to the corners of high school society. Nancy says she’s invited a good amount of people, but hopefully not too many to make it too crazy.

Still, though, Steve and Robin show up a few hours before the party starts to help Nancy and Jonathan lock the valuables in the basement.

“Thank god this door locks,” Nancy mutters, putting the key into her pocket.

“I’m shocked you managed to convince Mike to clear out,” Steve observes.

“It was easy once I told Will he had to invite everyone over for a sleepover,” Jonathan says. “No one can say no to Will, it’s almost a curse at this point.” Everyone laughs at that, because it’s true — the asshole kid knows it too, uses it to his advantage.

The four of them spend the next few hours making sure the house could survive it if chaos broke out. Steve was seen as the oracle of knowledge in this fact, which, yeah he figured he was. They took down the glass knick-knacks, locked away Mr. Wheeler’s nice alcohol (that he would definitely notice was missing.)

Eddie, it seemed, was the guy with the alcohol connections. He arrived almost an hour before people would likely start showing up with a few bottles for them to leave out for people to use. Steve can’t help but stare at him, because yeah he looks really good, okay? He’s wearing his usual black jeans with rips at the knees, but this time wearing a dark button-down with about two buttons too many (just enough) undone so his chest is peaking out, tattoos on the edges and everything.

They’re left with Jonathan to set everything up — filling the fridge to get their drinks chilled, carrying a keg in as fast as they could so the neighbours wouldn’t see.

“Going to do a keg stand tonight, King Steve?” Eddie jokes, knocking his shoulder against Steve’s which fills him with so much warmth it’s almost embarrassing.

“My years of keg stands are long behind me,” Steve laughs. He thinks he would throw up if he tried it now. “You heard of my keg stand prowess, though?”

Eddie rolls his eyes with a smile on his face. For a moment it feels like they’re getting back to somewhere.

“Do either of you like The Smiths?” Jonathan asks. Eddie shrugs, but Steve nods a yes. Jonathan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tape. “They just released a new album. Nancy surprised me by getting it on tape but I had already bought it. Do you want this copy?”

“Sure,” Steve says, taking the tape and looking over it in his hands. The Queen is Dead. “Thanks, man.” Jonathan gives him a nod, and then they continue their pre-party jobs.

Nancy and Robin come in with bags of chips in their arms, and start to pour them into large bowls.

“If any of you guys want to crash here tonight you can,” she says. “We got loads of room, and the basement can be free once everyone clears out.”

“Sure,” Steve says, reaching into a bowl of chips and shoving some into his mouth. Nancy whacks his hand away.

“Is it okay if Vickie stays, too?” Robin asks.

“Sure!”

“I’ll stick around,” Eddie agrees.

So it’s decided then, and a few hours later the party is in full swing. Steve loses Eddie pretty quickly, it doesn’t surprise him, he feels as if Eddie had been avoiding him since graduation. The two of them in the kitchen earlier today was the most Steve has seen of him in the past few days.

When Robin asks if Steve would want to do a shot with her, he agrees. A bit later, Jonathan presses a drink into his hand, which he sips at as he meanders through the party. He spends most of his time sitting with Vickie and Robin and trying not to feel too much like a third wheel.

People seem to be having fun, it’s loud, and there’s music playing and people dancing. No one’s too unruly, which is good, but it’s definitely not calm. The idea of it is nice, though. Steve doesn’t recognize anyone, which sends him on a whole other spiral to make him feel shitty.

Steve goes to get another drink when he runs into Nancy, she gives him a warm smile.

“Not drinking?” he asks her, noting her empty hands.

Nancy shakes her head. “I had my one drink earlier in the night, and that’s all. I don’t want to get too…out of it,” she mutters, a little shy. “You know, people in my house and everything.”

Steve just nods.

“Do you know where Eddie is?” Nancy asks.

Steve scoffs, not thinking better of it. “No, I don’t.”

Nancy gives him a strange look. “Is everything—”

“I’m really not in the mood to talk about it,” Steve mutters quickly. He doesn’t really wait for her to respond, and finds himself taking his drink and heading back into the living room where Robin is sitting on the couch next to Vickie and some other people from band. Steve sits on the arm of the couch next to Robin, his drink in hand, who gives him a dopey smile. He leans over and presses a friendly kiss to the top of her head.

He doesn’t pay much attention to anything around him as he finishes his drink. The only thing running through his mind is wondering where the hell Eddie went off to. It wasn’t like he had many friends here, Steve thinks bitterly. His drinks have him feeling buzzed, but not in a pleasant way.

Then, he lifts his gaze and sees Eddie across the room in the doorway leading towards the front hallway. He has his hands in the pockets of his jeans, leaning against the inside of the door. He’s talking to someone Steve doesn’t know, a girl, brunette. She has dark eyeliner and dark lipstick and she’s sipping away at a drink in a red solo cup, it leaves an imprint of her bottom lip on the outside. The two of them are just chatting and smiling and talking. Steve watches them, eyes low, sipping at his drink, something twisting in his stomach.

Eddie looks like he’s having a good time, like he’s talking to this girl who he probably graduated with just a few days ago. She looks nice, too. She has a nice smile and she seems to genuinely enjoy talking to Eddie, which Steve thinks is fair because if more people just gave Eddie a chance anybody would fall for him.

He grinds his teeth.

“Who's that girl Eddie’s talking to?” he mutters in Robin’s ear.

Robin looks at her for a moment. “Uh, I think her name is Jennifer? But I don’t really know her. Why?”

“They just look cozy,” Steve says.

Robin shrugs. “I guess,” she says, and then she’s distracted by something Vickie says and is gone again.

Steve finishes his drink.

Jennifer is laughing at something Eddie said, and Eddie’s eyes are crinkled at the corners. Steve wonders if Jennifer thinks Eddie looks adorable when he does that. Eddie reaches a hand towards her, brushes a lock of her long hair behind her shoulder and Steve has to bite on his tongue hard to not start screaming. After another moment, Jennifer seems to excuse herself with a squeeze on Eddie’s arm — slow and pointed and Steve hates it because he knows what it feels like to touch Eddie like that.

When Jennifer steps away, Eddie’s gaze finds Steve’s. They stare at each other for a few moments, Steve’s jaw is tense. He jerks his head up, and then walks out of the living room, past Eddie, and up the stairs. He can feel Eddie following him.

There aren’t many people upstairs. There’s a few lingering on the stairs as Steve walks up them, taking two steps at a time. Eddie is lingering behind him. Steve opens the bathroom door, finding no one inside. With a quick glance around, noticing that no one is paying any attention to them, he grabs Eddie by the scruff of his shirt and pushes him inside, locking the door behind him.

He grabs at the collar of Eddie’s shirt, and pulls him in for a kiss. Eddie gasps against his mouth, his hands grasping at Steve’s hips, and Steve pulls them back so his back hits the door and Eddie is pressed up against him.

“Steve—” Eddie mutters against his mouth, pulling away, and Steve just pulls him closer. He’s so, so fucking sick of Eddie pulling away. Eddie turns his head away, breathes between them, “We can’t here, someone could find out—”

“We can,” Steve says. “We can, no one will find out.” He brings his hands up to Eddie’s chest, slipping them under the open vee of his shirt, on his skin where his tattoos lie and his collarbones are just there. Steve wants to put his mouth on them, but he also needs Eddie to kiss him again — they haven’t in so long — so he brings their mouths together.

This time, Eddie falls into it for a long, blissful moment. Steve sighs against his mouth, then turns it a bit dirty, biting at Eddie’s bottom lip and slipping his tongue into Eddie’s mouth.

“Steve, stop,” Eddie pulls away with a gasp and turns away, leaving Steve against the door. Steve stumbles forward, trying to follow him.

“What is it?” Steve asks him.

Eddie shakes his head. “Are you drunk right now?”

“I’m fine,” Steve says. “I only had, like, two drinks.” His head feels a little buzzy and he’s warm, but that could have been from the kissing, too. Eddie doesn’t say anything, he just leans his back against the vanity sink, hands on either side of his body on the counter. “Eddie,” Steve says, steps forward, grabs him by the hips and pulls him in to face him. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Eddie mutters.

“No,” Steve says. “It’s not nothing.” His voice is pained and he feels a little stupid from how choked up he sounds already. He grips Eddie’s hips, not letting him turn away. “I’m not stupid, okay? I know — something’s going on and you’re — you’re pulling away, and you’re lying — your uncle isn’t on day shifts, he told me. Just — just tell me what I did, and I can fix it, okay?” The last words come out soft, quiet, and kind.

Eddie’s shoulders slump, he looks so, so sad. “Steve, can we not do this here?”

Steve ignores it. “What did I do?”

He watches as Eddie’s throat works, how he won’t make Steve’s gaze. An ugly feeling settles over Steve’s chest, constricting and pulling at him. He thinks about Eddie back in March, shoving cereal in his mouth saying, bad news first. Always.

“Spit it out,” Steve hisses. Tells himself he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to cry.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” Eddie says. He says it quickly, it strikes through like a knife.

Still, Steve’s voice comes through wilted and bleeding when he says, “What?”

Eddie looks down, away. “I think we should stop.” He closes his eyes, and says, “I want to stop.”

Steve drops his hands from Eddie’s waist.

“It’s just getting too complicated, and—”

“Who was that girl downstairs?”

Eddie looks at him now, bewildered. “What?”

“You were talking to a girl downstairs.”

“Her name was Jenn, we were talking about music.”

Jenn? “Music?”

“Yeah, Steve, music,” Eddie spits out, and good, Steve thinks, now he’s angry and Steve can work with angry.

“What kind of music?” Steve bites out. “Ozzy? Black Sabbath? You know, I still think I got your copy of Led Zeppelin II down in my car if you want to give it to her next.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mutters, turning away from Steve, he leans against the sink again, breathing loudly through his nose. He turns back to Steve, eyes wild. “What do you want from me?”

If that isn’t the question, Steve thinks.

Steve shrugs. “Just thought if you were gonna fuck me and leave, I at least deserve to know who’s next on the roster.”

Eddie scoffs. “Excuse me?”

“You’re telling me you’re not going to go home with her?”

“So what if I did?” Eddie spins around and hisses at him, and okay, wow. Yeah. Here he is. There’s the Eddie Munson that Steve knew about in high school. His eyes are wild, and he’s angry, it’s simmering underneath his skin. Steve can practically taste it. “So what if I fucking did, Harrington? It’s not like you wouldn’t do the same if given the fucking chance.”

Steve opens his mouth to say that no he probably fucking wouldn’t, but Eddie just shoves him back at the chest again.

“What, you’re feeling threatened now?” Eddie says. “You feel a little jealous because I haven’t gotten you off in, what, two weeks so you’re pissed off at me for it?”

“No,” Steve blurts out, back to feeling choked up. “I’m pissed off because you’re essentially breaking up with me right now—”

“We’re not fucking dating, Steve!” Eddie almost screams it, his face red like he was struggling to keep his voice down. “We aren’t dating, we’re fooling around and it’s—it’s not fucking real.”

Both of them just stop. Steve knows there is music playing downstairs; he had heard it before but now all he can hear is a high pitched ringing in his ears. And he wonders what is on his own face that has Eddie’s anger morph into such twisted remorse.

“Right,” Steve chokes out. “Not real.”

It wasn’t real. And suddenly Steve is seventeen — almost eighteen — and in a party bathroom with Nancy Wheeler hearing it’s bullshit, you’re bullshit and Steve wonders, desperately, will he ever be enough for someone?

“Steve—”

“Fine,” Steve mutters. Fast, quick, because he needs to get out of here before he fucking dies in this bathroom. “You want done, we’re done.” And then he’s bolting out of the door, not even bothering to check to see if there’s anyone he might run into, when he runs chest first into Nancy.

“Steve?”

“Great.” Steve can’t hold it in. “Just fucking great.”

“Are you okay?” Because of course she knows something is wrong. “What’s wrong?”

Before Steve can answer — which, side note, he does not want to — Eddie blows past the two of them and is almost running down the stairs, weaving through people and closing the front door shut behind him.

Nancy’s eyes follow Eddie, and then she turns back to look at Steve, her hand reaches out for Steve’s arm. “What happened?”

Steve pulls away. “Just,” he breathes through his teeth. “You know, I’m bullshit, it’s bullshit, the whole thing was bullshit.” He laughs. “You’re familiar with how it is,” he sneers.

Nancy looks taken aback, eyes wide. “Steve—”

“No offense, Nance,” he thinks for a moment. “Or take offense if you want, I really don’t care, but you are quite literally the last person I want to see after getting my ass handed to me in a party bathroom yet again so,” he grabs her by the shoulders, moves her out of his way. “I’ll see you around.”

And then Steve is down the stairs and out the door. The door closes shut behind him, muffling the music coming from inside. He doesn’t know where he was planning on going, and Eddie is gone — probably drove away in his van he fixed when he wasn’t sleeping next to Steve.

He feels — he feels so fucking stupid. He feels beyond stupid and he just — he brings the heels of his palms up to his eyes and presses until it hurts. He takes in deep, shaky breaths and walks over to his car. He unlocks the door and sits in the back behind the driver's seat, leaning his head back and just sitting in the quiet of it, paying attention to how his breathing is coming in slowly and shakily. He shifts, awkwardly, something in his pocket poking awkwardly at him — he reaches and pulls out the tape Jonathan gave him earlier that day and throws it so it bounces around somewhere in the passenger side of the car.

So it wasn’t real, then. That made sense. They weren’t dating, Steve wasn’t Eddie’s boyfriend. So it was fine, that it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real when Eddie would sleep next to him every single night, or when they would wake up the next morning and Steve would make them breakfast. Or when they would laugh, and Eddie would smile at him. It wasn’t real in all the gentle touches, and the way Steve felt when he was with him, or that night after prom when Steve knew.

Or even just a week or two ago, right before prom —

Eddie woke up with another nightmare, though they were becoming less frequent. But this night Eddie jolted awake, and Steve crowded into his space, pressed a kiss to Eddie’s temple, held him through it, reminded him of where he was.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asks him. Since he always does, even though Eddie’s answer is usually no.

This time though, Eddie tells him.“Just — you know. The usual. Ceiling, bones breaking, eyes bursting out of their socket.”

Steve grimances. He couldn’t even imagine it, all he ever saw was Max floating and that was still like a living hell.

“Chrissy?” Steve asks.

“Um,” Eddie says. There is a bitter humour hidden there. “You.”

Something swoops deep in Steve’s stomach, fear mixed with something else. “Me?”

“Yeah you,” Eddie whispers. He shifts where they’re laying so he can look at Steve. It’s dark, it’s hard to make out each other’s features, but he feels Eddie’s eyes on him. “You sound surprised about that.”

“I just didn’t think…”

“What?”

“You dream about me?” Steve asks, suddenly.

“Yeah,” Eddie muses, quiet in the darkness of the room. “ I do.”

He brushed a kiss against Steve’s mouth, and then —

There’s a tap on the window. Steve looks over and sees Robin at the passenger side, he waves at her and she opens the door and peeks inside.

“Hey,” she says. She knows something, he realizes. She never greets him without a joke in normal circumstances. He feels his throat tighten, he can’t greet her back. She knows something. “Steve? I hope you’re not planning on driving right now because I don’t think your legs would be able to reach the pedals.”

There’s a joke there. A bad one, but Steve relaxes at it. “Nah,” he says. “Just needed air. Somewhere quiet.”

Robin climbs into the back of the car. She sits beside Steve with her feet on the seat, knees pulled up to her chest and angled so her back is slightly against the window. “I just talked to Nancy, she said, uh — she said you probably shouldn’t be alone?”

Steve taps out a shitty beat on the seat in front of him. “Probably not.”

“What’s wrong? Seriously, because you look—” she cuts herself off. “Is it something with Nancy? Did something happen?”

Steve grimaces, lolls his head back against the seat and faces away from Robin. “You’re going to be mad at me.”

“No I won’t.”

“You will,” Steve lets out a sad, bitter laugh. “You will because I’ve been lying to you for weeks.”

Robin takes in a sharp breath. Steve feels as her hand reaches towards him and takes a hold of his. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. He can tell her, he can, it’s Robin.

“I’ve been sleeping with Eddie.”

The silence is palpable, but Robin’s hand only squeezes tighter. “How long?” she asks.

“April-ish.”

“Holy shit.”

Steve almost breaks. “You’re mad,” he chokes out.

“No,” Robin says immediately, she moves so she’s sitting on her knees now, moving further into Steve’s space. “Steve, no, hey — look at me.” He does. “I’m not mad at you. That’s just not what I thought you were going to say, like, at all. Then again I’m not totally sure what I thought you were gonna say but it definitely wasn’t that, like, holy shit Steve — fuck. Sorry. I’m a little drunk.”

Steve drops his chin to his chest. It hurts to look anywhere right now — it hurts to fucking breathe, to exist. Robin’s hand is still holding his, her thumb rubbing back and forth over his knuckles.

“What happened? Talk to me.”

Steve clears his throat, rubs at his eyes again. He shifts forward in his seat, props his arm up that isn’t being held by Robin so that his elbow rests on the headrest in front of him, his hand coming and running through his hair, forehead in his palm. He stays there, breathes for a moment.

“I fucked it up, that’s what happened,” he says. “Just like I fuck up everything. It seems no matter which way I go I can’t help but be dumped in bathrooms at parties. And I can’t but wonder, you know,” he takes in a choked breath. “Is it me, Robin? Because I’m starting to think I might be the problem here.”

Which, of course, is partly a lie. Steve has thought this for much longer than just tonight.

“Steve…” Robin breathes out.

“Because it always comes down to me. I’m the only common denominator, it’s like no one wants—” he forces himself to say it, it’s about time he started to realize it, “me.”

“That’s not true,” Robin tells him.

Oh, but it is, isn’t it? Robin has barely known him a year, doesn’t know who he used to be — or she did, and she hated him. Isn’t that what she said once? But what she doesn’t know is who he was when he was with Nancy. How he changed everything he was to be with her, which was for the best, and he’s glad for it and would do it again — he would do it a million times over even without Nancy — but even then it wasn’t enough.

How then he would go on date after date with these girls who he thought he really could like, only for it to turn into sex, for them to be able to say they dated Steve Harrington — do you remember that guy from high school? The guy who peaked in the eleventh grade. Like some sort of check on a bucket list.

How now, even Eddie was only interested until Steve became too much, because he is too much. And suddenly Steve realizes that he’s said most of this, or a version of it, out loud through sobs because Robin is looking at him with shocked, wide eyes and so sad, shifting forward and holding so tightly onto Steve’s hand.

“Don’t tell him,” Steve sobs. “I know we’re all friends but—”

“I won’t,” Robin promises, trying to shush him.

“Don’t tell him I told you and that—” that Steve is a mess because of him, that Eddie held the power to do this to him. Because Eddie had been holding his heart in the palm of his hand for the past few weeks — fuck it, few months. And now Steve isn’t talking anymore because he can’t, he can’t get the words out and he is just crying like he doesn’t think he has cried in years.

“I won’t tell him anything,” Robin says. “Steve, hey…” she pulls him against her, his head falling onto her shoulder and arms wrapping around him. It should feel good, it should feel comforting but instead Steve feels so, so fucking stupid. That anyone could have the power to make him like this, and that he has to be comforted because of it.

He hates it. He hates how he feels, the way the emotions just don’t stop coming. He wishes he could just push them away, bury them down somewhere, but he can’t because they’re already here and he is feeling them. What he has been doing for months with Eddie, how it had felt real to him. It felt so, so real. He had wanted it to be real, he realizes with desperation.

He thinks about Eddie now, how he’s driving home and he’ll be alone tonight in that trailer where they had sex for the first time. Steve remembers how he asked Eddie if they should have talked about it and Eddie had said there was nothing to talk about. It really hadn’t been real? That whole time?

They had existed in this delicate balance between talking and not talking. Steve had realized it before, the fragility of the two of them. Steve had sworn to himself he wouldn’t be the one to break this but it was him in the end. How he wanted too much, how he needed too much from Eddie.

Maybe if he had kept his mouth shut in that bathroom none of this would have happened. He could have dealt with Eddie pulling away, he could have figured out how to survive that. There would have been time to. But not this, not it just ending in a moment because Steve couldn’t help but need him.

He thinks he could have lived off the scraps of what Eddie was giving him forever.

Chapter Text

“I just want to go home,” Steve tells Robin, his forehead tilted against the window of his car.

“There’s no way I’m going to let you drive yourself home right now,” Robin tells him, a comforting hand still on his shoulder.

He felt sober enough. But Robin was probably right. “I’ll walk.” From here it could take an hour, maybe. It might be nice to clear his head.

He doesn’t know what Robin’s face is doing. He can’t look at her, he purposely focuses his gaze out the window. He can’t hear the dull thrum of the music inside the Wheeler’s house, but the lights are on and there’s definitely still movement. It probably isn’t even past midnight yet and he’s already tapping out. For a brief moment, he thinks about what his sixteen-year-old self saw him now, he would probably think about how lame he was. Tapping out of a party before 3 a.m. But then again that guy sucked, so.

“Nancy told me before I came out here that she could drive if you needed it.”

Steve can’t withhold the groan that comes out of him. He has no real reason to be so mad at Nancy right now, but he supposes old wounds have been reopened and it’s just — it hurts. The idea of being in a car with her right now just hurts. Part of him just can’t believe he’s back in this hole. But all he wants is to go home.

“Fine,” he relents.

He waits outside as Robin steps back inside the house to grab Nancy. The two of them come out together cautiously, Steve doesn’t look at Nancy, but he notices Robin has her bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going home with you,” Robin explains.

“No,” Steve almost pushes her back towards the house. “No way, you’re not.”

“Steve, you—”

“I’m fine.” It comes out strained. He knows that was pretty unconvincing given the fact Robin just watched him sob in the back of his car for half an hour. “Just — please, don’t. I just want to be alone and go to bed, and you were having a good time in there with Vickie and your band friends.”

“But you—” Robin tries to say.

“No, Rob, please it’ll just make me feel shittier if you have to leave because of me. Please don’t.”

Robin sighs. She looks uncertain. She even seems to look behind Steve where Nancy is standing to get some sort of reassurance, but after another beat she just steps forward and wraps her arms around Steve’s middle, pulling him into a tight hug. Steve just lets her, he hugs her back. He won’t cry again, he tells himself, honestly doesn’t think there’s anything left in him to cry.

She pulls back. “Call me tomorrow,” she commands.

Steve nods. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, an attempt at a joke. It falls pathetically flat.

Nancy, who has been standing awkwardly off beside her car this whole time, says nothing. After saying a goodbye to Robin, Steve turns towards her, not meeting her eye, and just climbs into her passenger seat.

Their car ride is blissfully quiet, which Steve is grateful for. Nancy doesn’t even turn on the radio. He rides with his head against the window, feeling too tired to put any effort into holding it up. The tension between them grows, so thick, that by the time they pull up to Steve’s house, he thinks he might choke on it. He can tell Nancy has been watching him out of the corner of her eye the entire drive.

Nancy puts the car in park and turns off the ignition. They sit in the silence for a split second. “Steve?”

Steve lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

“What you said upstairs…”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. “What about it?”

“We never really talked about what I said to you that night. At Tina’s Halloween party,” she says. “I mean, things got so crazy with Will and the lab, and then we went right back into school and we never really…talked.”

Steve feels so, so tired. “I think you made yourself pretty clear.”

Nancy’s head tilts to the side. “Steve—”

“Nance,” he says. “I appreciate the gesture you’re attempting here, I think, but…I can’t do this with you tonight. I just can’t, so,” he undoes his seatbelt, opens the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Steve!” she calls out after him, a foot out of the door. God, she doesn’t give up does she? Wasn’t that something he used to love about her?

“I just need you to know, us breaking up had nothing to do with you. I was so fucked up about everything with Barb, and let’s face it, I still am. But I never should have taken it out on you that night, and you were a good boyfriend.”

Double whammy on Steve Harrington tonight, huh? Steve just nods, understanding.

“But you didn’t love me,” he says. He gives her a sad smile. “I know, Nance.”

Nancy’s face twists. “No, that’s not what I—”

“Goodnight, Nancy,” he mutters, getting out of the car and shutting the door on her. Maybe it’s mean, and maybe he should apologize, but right now he’s starting to think the only thing he has energy for is getting himself up and through his front door.

He doesn’t look back to wave at Nancy once he gets through the door. He only hears her car start again once he switches the lock.

Walking up the stairs, Steve has the sudden realization that coming home tonight was a really, really stupid idea.

This house feels covered with the two of them.

Steve has been kissed up against these walls, Eddie had spilled pancake batter down the hall in the kitchen and Steve had found a spot they missed cleaning a week later.

He wonders now if there’s anything else they missed.

Steve drags himself up the stairs. Somehow, he manages to fall asleep in his own bed. The other side is cold and empty.

***

For the first time in a long time, Steve sleeps past the sunrise. He wakes a few times, but each time he flips over and pulls the blankets up and around him and forces himself to fall back to sleep. In each moment of consciousness, he remembers.

The phone rings at some point. He can hear it downstairs, but he doesn’t crawl out of bed to go answer it.

He just wants to sleep the day away.

Eventually, his body won’t let him sleep anymore. He gets up. He figures he may as well just…continue whatever it is he does in the mornings. He takes a shower, he does his hair how he likes it, he actually gets dressed (shorts and a light sweater.) He goes downstairs, he finds cereal and milk. It’s good enough.

The phone rings again.

He looks at the clock — it’s only eleven in the morning, he wants to tear his hair out and scream.

He eats the cereal.

***

There’s nothing on TV. And he doesn’t want to listen to music. So he just watches the screen, flicking through channels one by one until they repeat. The phone rings again.

It’s the afternoon when his front door is unlocked and Robin steps through the door. She appears in the doorway of the living room and looks pissed.

“What?” Steve asks.

“I told you to call me.”

He shrugs. “I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Steve nods. “Did you forget to answer the phone this morning, too?”

“I didn’t hear it.”

Robin storms into the room and shuts off the TV despite Steve’s protests. “I don’t believe you. We don’t do this, remember?” She gestures between the two of them. “We don’t ignore each other’s phone calls, we don’t shut off from one another and we always, always call when we promise we will.”

Steve stares at the ground. He thinks the carpet could probably use vacuuming.

“Steve!” Robin barks at him.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For not calling when you asked me to and for not answering the phone this morning. You called three times.”

“Four, actually.”

“Well then I genuinely either slept through one or was in the shower and didn’t hear it. I’m sorry.”

Robin crouches in front of him. She doesn’t look as angry anymore. “Have you eaten something?”

“Cereal.”

“Okay.”

Steve fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “Do you want to watch a movie, or something?”

Robin stares at him. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“Steve, look, I want to be your nice, kind, supportive, gentle friend Robin right now. But, I’m sorry, you cannot just dump on me that you’ve been sleeping with Eddie for, like, three months and then refuse to talk about it any further.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Steve says, shoulders pulled high in defense. “It’s — it’s done, anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”

Robin’s eyes stare up at him, sad and soft. “Steve,” she says kindly. “Whatever happened last night was not fine and it does matter. You have to talk to me, please. I’ve never…” she doesn’t finish whatever she’s thinking, but Steve knows what it is. She’s never seen him like he was last night.

Between the two of them, when it came to crying on someone’s shoulder and falling apart, it was usually Robin. Especially in those first few weeks after Starcourt and the beginnings of their friendship—shared trauma does a number on the rapid progression of friendship. It’s where the always call rule came from. They need to know the other is alive.

Steve confided in Robin, they talked to one another about practically everything in their lives from parents to girls, but they both know that last night was uncharted territory for them.

“I don’t know where to start,” he says.

Robin pokes him playfully. “At the beginning is preferable.”

Okay, yeah. He could start there. “Do you remember when Eddie gave you the Metallica tape? And you didn’t like it?”

Robin nods.

“Like, the next day.”

Robin sighs, stands, and goes and sits down beside him.

***

The story itself is easy to get through. In a way, it’s rather short. They started sleeping together and now they’re not. The end. Robin doesn’t need all the dirty details, but there is a moment after Steve’s about halfway through where she looks around the living room, the couch below her and says, “When you say you guys usually were here, do you mean, like, here?”

Steve doesn’t answer, but his burning face does.

“Forget I asked,” Robin mutters quickly.

And then later, “Wait, wait, when I came in here that morning after I asked Vickie out and Eddie was here because he slept over…it was not just him crashing here for the night?”

“I mean, he did crash for the night he was just…in my bed?” Steve supplies.

“Oh my god, I am so dumb,” Robin murmurs to herself.

When it comes to the events of last night, there’s something in the way of his words. Like they’re stuck in his throat. He tells Robin they argued, because he’d been feeling Eddie pulling away, because Steve had probably had enough drinks to loosen his tongue just enough. He doesn’t mention Jennifer, but says he acted like an asshole. He says Eddie told him he wanted to end things. But when it gets to the end of the conversation, those last things Eddie said to him, he can’t get the words out.

“He just reminded me that it wasn’t like we were…together, or whatever. It was just messing around. I just got in my head about everything.”

Robin just sits beside Steve, deep in thought. She isn’t saying anything, which is so unlike her that it sets Steve on edge. She looks nervous.

“Is it so weird to think that Eddie and I were fooling around?” Steve asks, a little hurt.

“No!” Robin gasps. “That’s not it, I just…” she trails off, unsure of herself maybe. She groans in frustration.

“Robin, whatever it is you can just say it. Full permission for whatever is on your mind, okay?”

Robin takes another moment before she seems to work up the courage to talk again. “Okay, so the thing is I don’t think it’s weird at all. The reason I’m so…” she waves her hands around her head and makes an oooo-waaaaaaah sound, “is because I am shocked to learn it’s already happened. I just thought the two of you were, like, being flirty and stuff in a cute-sy, pre-dating sort of thing. I thought you maybe had a crush on him that maybe you weren’t ready to admit to.”

“Oh,” Steve says. His chest feels heavy.

“Yeah, oh.” Robin says. “Because there’s the whole, you know, Eddie’s a guy thing.”

“Yep, I am aware of that,” Steve says. His hands go to the pilled fabric on the couch, pulling at it, smoothing it out underneath his fingertips.

“I guess I’m just afraid that I’m going to say something about what I think might be happening, and it’s going to send you into a panic.”

“I think I'm past that,” he mumbles. Steve hates this. He hates how Robin is talking around the subject, he hates how delicate she’s being with him. He just wants her to talk, to say something because she’s really good at the talking thing. He wishes he could, too.

“Steve,” Robin begins, her voice kind and gentle. Her head tilted softly to the side, and she’s talking so, so carefully. “There is a word for it, you know. Liking both guys and girls, it’s called bisexuality. Vickie’s bisexual. I-I know the words can be scary, I only got comfortable calling myself a lesbian this year. But, you don’t have to choose. You can like both.”

Steve looks at her. He takes a deep breath, and then slowly lets it go.

“I know,” he says.

That did not seem to be what Robin was expecting to hear. “Huh?”

“I know you can like both,” he says, carefully. “I’ve known since I was thirteen.”

Robin’s brow is furrowed in confusion. She’s blinking a lot, like she’s trying to process what Steve has said, and he thinks — Steve thinks maybe, it’s finally his turn to talk.

“Do you remember my friend Tommy H?”

“Yeah….”

“Not him,” Steve interjects quickly.

“Oh thank god.”

Steve shakes his head fondly, the corners of his mouth twitching. Anyway, he had a point here — “Do you remember why he’s called Tommy H? Besides the fact that we went to school with a million different Tommies. But, back in middle school we had another friend. I don’t know if you remember him, his name was Tommy Baker. Before my parents moved us out here, we lived down on Mulberry next to the Bakers. Tommy B. and I were, like, inseparable from the third grade on. We would hang out every day, we did everything together. He was my best friend.”

Steve pauses, he chances a glance over to Robin who still looks equally as shocked but now she’s silent. She’s waiting, Steve realizes, for him to continue.

“He moved away when we were thirteen, just before we started high school. His dad got a job out in New York, or something. I remember the day he left, we spent the whole morning together, and then he was leaving in the afternoon. I can remember just staring at the car as it drove away, and I was crying. And I went home crying. I was just so fucking sad because he was my best friend and he was just gone.

“My dad…” Steve pauses again, a bitter laugh escaping from him. “My dad saw me. He grabbed me by the arm and he looked me in the eyes and he said, ‘you don’t cry over men, it makes you look like a queer.’ And I was so fucking mad at him that night. Because it was like I knew what he said was wrong? But also the more I thought about it, and about what he said, the madder I got because I knew he was right. About me.

“I liked Tommy,” Steve admits, quieter now. “I liked how he made me feel, I liked when he would pay attention to me and not Tommy H. I wanted to spend every waking moment with him, and I practically did and even then he would go home at night and I would miss him. It was a crush. It was a stupid pre-teen, childhood crush. And I…I — fuck…” he lets out a shaky breath. He can feel the words falling away, he tries desperately to cling onto them. In the panic, Steve reaches out for Robin’s hand and she takes it. So he continues.

“I figured this out and I just knew that whatever it was, I couldn’t. I liked girls, and so I clung onto that and…the rest is history, I guess. It never felt like lying with girls so I didn’t think about anything else.”

A moment of silence washes over them. Robin just stares at him, eyes wet and it reminds Steve of sitting on a bathroom floor with her not even a year ago.

“My point is,” Steve says. “I know you can like both. But I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” Robin snaps back, kind but determined. Steve loves her for it. “Fuck that. Fuck your asshole dad and fuck what he said to you. There’s so many things wrong with what he said and we’ll go over those at a later date but fuck him Steve. If you like guys, then you can like guys. And if you like girls, you can. And if it’s both, then that is fine, Steve. That’s good. You can like both.”

“I’m too scared,” Steve whispers.

“Okay,” Robin says, immediately softening again. “I know that feeling. Trust me, I do. Can I ask you a question?”

Steve nods.

“So in high school there were no guys you knew who were gay, or bi, or whatever and you weren’t even thinking about the fact that you could like guys, so it just didn’t happen.” It’s not a question, but Steve still nods in agreement. “Then what about Eddie? Why Eddie?”

Steve pulls his legs up to his chest, wraps his arms around himself and rests his chin on his knee. He thinks about it for a long time, and Robin just patiently waits for him.

“I guess,” he says eventually. “With Eddie, it didn’t seem so scary.”

***

If you had asked Steve what heartbreak felt like two days ago, he would have gone off of how he felt when Nancy dumped him. He’s often compared it to feeling like someone shot a gun through his heart, or a goddamn bazooka. Nancy Wheeler had shot a hole straight through his chest and had left him out to bleed. And he had bled, he had oozed that pain out everywhere he went. It was raw, and it hurt, and it only healed with time.

Or maybe he would have compared it to what it felt like when he realized his parents weren’t coming home. He was concussed — the first time, thanks to Billy Hargrove — and he was laying on the couch by himself. There was no one to call, and no one checking in on him. That heartbreak felt like a concussion, throbbing, repetitive, amplified by the quiet nature of the house. That’s the kind of heartbreak Steve doesn’t think time is ever going to heal.

This — Eddie — feels very different. Which he thinks is very apt, since everything with Eddie had felt like something new. The only thing he can describe it as, is nothing. He feels nothing. Because he thinks whatever he had, Eddie had taken it with him. Steve has been completely hollowed out, and in its wake the nothingness is a constant, dull ache. He doesn’t know how to explain this to Robin, so he doesn’t.

She spends the afternoon with him in his living room. They eventually do find a movie, and they make popcorn. Robin asks at some point if he wants to get out of the house, go grab something to eat. He says no. He isn’t interested.

Robin leaves just before it gets dark. She hugs Steve again, says to call her if he needs anything. Steve isn’t sure what he needs.

He tells her — almost begs her, really — to not “tell Eddie anything about this, please.”

She replies, “Who do you think I am? I would never. You’re my favourite guy.” She says it so sincerely it makes Steve’s heartache all over again.

When Robin leaves, he goes back to his bedroom.

The whole house is quiet. Steve is used to a quiet house, especially in the past two years. But the past few months he had rarely spent an evening alone. Eddie had always been here and they were either talking, or laughing, or Eddie was playing his guitar or they were arguing over what they could listen to on Steve’s stereo. Or, you know, the other stuff.

Eddie had a lot of his shit here still. He had taken some of it back with him over the past couple weeks, but Steve could see clothes in the hamper that he knew weren’t his, and he could see a stack of tapes on his dresser that were definitely Eddie’s. He had known Eddie would be everywhere, but he forgot just how much he had wormed his way into every aspect of Steve’s life. He had fit so seamlessly — Eddie the Freak in King Steve’s bed. It’s the first time Steve actually laughs at how ridiculous the whole situation is.

Only the laugh isn’t humorous. It’s painful, and it’s full of longing, and the ache that builds in Steve’s chest feels like it could burst — with what Steve isn’t sure. If his fifteen-year-old self could see him now, he thinks he would be standing, hands on hips, saying, “Seriously, dude? I thought we talked ourselves out of this shit. You’re going to ruin everything.”

No, he wasn’t stupid, and no, he wasn’t oblivious. There are just things Steve has learned throughout his life that are better off staying in the very recesses of his mind, and his attraction to guys was one of those things, if not top of the fucking list.

It was hard to think about boys (there’s a pun there, he thinks.) There was so much risk in liking a boy, and Steve likes girls. He likes taking them out on dates, and holding their hands, and bringing them flowers and everything he knows he’s supposed to do. It all came so goddamn easily to him when it came to girls, and so the concept of boys? No way. No way at all would that ever be happening. And since he liked girls, he would still be able to date them, and love them, and marry them and eventually have lots of children. So what was the point of even looking at guys?

It popped up in strange moments. Admittedly when there was violence being inflicted upon him — he thinks briefly about Jonathan leaning over him, punching the daylights out of him in that alleyway way back when, Billy Hargrove in the gym, (though the concussion he gave him later was decidedly less sexy) and then that bottle; that fucking bottle Eddie had held up to his throat that day when he was pinned to the wall that made his breath catch in his throat. That was the moment, wasn’t it? Jesus Christ there is something seriously wrong with him. Maybe Robin was right, maybe he needed therapy.

But Eddie had been different. What had started as a brief, ‘Huh! He is strange and appealing!’ attachment to him grew into something more, and more, and more. It’s not so much a realization, as there is nothing for Steve to realize. He knows. He has known. Eddie had practically moved into his home, his bed. Steve was cooking for the two of them, he was kissing him, he was asking Eddie to fuck him. Of course he knows. Of course he’s known.

Falling in love with Eddie was the easy thing. It was letting his brain acknowledge that it was there that was the hard part. He felt it after prom, he knows he did. And now that it’s there, now that Steve is letting himself see it and feel it for what it is. He realizes another thing — he was right. This was breaking him.

***

A week passes. Then another, and in those two weeks, Steve leans into his routine. He’s certain Keith hates him, so he is working the afternoon through closing. He wakes up, shoves dry cereal into his mouth for breakfast. Washes his hair, sometimes, brushes his teeth and then he’s running out the door to start his shift, because he always seems to be running late now. If he wakes up in time, he gets recruited to pick up whatever thankless teenager wants to go to the arcade. He works. He goes home, eats something from the fridge for dinner, goes to bed, occasionally laying awake for hours until he eventually passes out, repeat.

He doesn’t see Eddie in that week. He’s stopped showing up at Family Video. Which, you know, makes sense.

Robin doesn’t mention him, either. But Robin is a good friend, so Steve is sure she’s checking in on him or seeing him outside of work. Steve doesn’t let himself think about that much, though. They don’t really talk about Eddie, either. Steve doesn’t want to, and Robin understands that.

Now that school is out, the kids start flocking back to the arcade, which means when they’re bored, they flock to Family Video. A month ago Steve probably would have found this annoying. Actually, it is still annoying — he’s trying to get work done and get through the day. It’s July in a video store, they’re usually swamped with people — but in some ways, the distraction is welcome.

“Not even like, the teeniest little peek?” Dustin asks. “Thirty seconds, open the curtain, we stare, you shut them. We’re in, we’re out, no one has to know.”

“No way.” Steve rolls his eyes — they have been trying to sneak a peek at the adult video section for the past fifteen minutes.

“It’s not like you have the movies playing back there,” says Mike.

“Exactly, so why the hell do you even want to see it?” Steve throws back at them.

The two of them gape like fishes, turning to look at each other, then back to Steve. Dustin cries out, “Lucas! A little help here?”

“And risk it getting back to Max? No thank you, we just made things official again,” Lucas replies from across the store. Momentarily, Steve feels his heart swell for Lucas and Max. At least some people are figuring their shit out.

Mike opens his mouth. “Will—”

“Don’t even try.”

“Fair enough.”

“Stop being gross and horny,” Steve mutters. “You’re supposed to be annoying kids not stupid teenagers. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you back there, I would get fired on the spot and I need this job.” Mike and Dustin just glare at him.

The bell dings, Steve looks up.

It’s Eddie.

Steve swears the entire world turns on its axis. It completely flips, and Steve feels like he’s suddenly being dangled over the edge of an abyss. He feels a little dizzy.

“Eddie!” Robin calls out from where she is putting movies away on the other side of the store. She rushes over to him and gives him a hug. Which is, uh, weird. Eddie and Robin don’t hug — Robin isn’t usually a hugger, she’s been more affectionate to Steve as of late for…reasons. But then Steve notices she’s whispering something in Eddie’s ear, and Eddie is nodding and carefully avoiding reaching anyone’s gaze.

When they pull back, Robin carefully wanders behind the desk where Steve is.

“I thought I told you little jerks to wait outside the Arcade,” Eddie mutters, very pointedly talking to the kids.

“It’s hot and there’s air conditioning in here,” Dustin replies.

Eddie just mutters a yeah, yeah, yeah. Then, he is walking up to the front counter, just as Will is calling Dustin and Mike away to look at some movie they’re thinking of renting. For a moment, Eddie’s eyes trail after them in panic and Steve also begins to panic because it’s just the two of them. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say. He’s imagined a version of these events for the past two weeks, but admittedly his daydreams always end in a way he is certain won’t be happening.

To his surprise, Eddie leans against the counter, like he sometimes used to, but not as close. He says, “Hi, Steve.” Soft, and kind, and so Eddie. Steve hates it.

“Hi,” he says, eyes dropping down and away. And then he’s pushing away from the front counter, and going over to the computer, clicking into the system just to find something to stare at that isn’t Eddie’s eyes gazing at him.

“How’s your summer going?” Eddie asks. As if he doesn’t fucking know already, as if he wasn’t the one who put it off on the shittiest start in the world.

“It’s fine,” Steve replies.

Eddie doesn’t say anything else, Steve thinks he might want to. Steve wants to say something, too, but the gaping chasm in his chest that on the best of days is a dull ache of reminder feels like it’s being cracked open and something stupid might spill out.

Like Steve saying, I miss you. Like Eddie’s mere presence is weighing down on him and Eddie himself is reaching his hands in and pulling Steve apart with just his gaze, just from breathing the same air and Steve just hurts.

“If you guys want the ride you all so desperately begged for, then you better be wrapping shit up real quick,” Eddie calls out to the four boys. The sudden volume of his voice almost makes Steve jump in comparison to how gently he just spoke to Steve.

For some goddamn reason, the twerps listen to Eddie and Steve rings them through. (He mentally files that away as something to complain about to Dustin, later.) They file out one by one, Eddie holding the door open for them all, and then with a brief wave to Steve or Robin, he’s not really sure, he’s gone again.

Steve somehow lets out a breath that, yep, he wasn’t even aware he was even holding. He leans against the counter, dropping his head down between his shoulders and onto the cool counter.

“Steve?” Robin checks in quietly.

“I need some air,” Steve murmurs. “I’m going to take out the garbage.” Robin doesn’t say, it doesn’t need to be taken out yet, because she’s a good friend.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Steve says, as he ties the bag shut and walks through the back door and out to the back. He throws the bag in the dumpster, and then kicks the hunk of metal for good measure. It doesn’t make him feel any better. But he’s fine. It’s something he’s been saying for the past two weeks. He’s fine, it’s fine, everything is fine.

It’s fine that Eddie can just walk into Family Video like it’s no big fucking deal, and it’s fine that he can just so nonchalantly ask Steve how his summer is going — because his summer is going fine. He’s feeling fine. So fine that Steve spends the next ten minutes sitting on the tarmac against the dumpster. And if anyone asks, he’s fine, he’s not crying quietly, shoulders shaking and feeling so small and silly he thinks it might just kill him.

The back door of Family Video opens, and Steve immediately raises his head and wipes at his eyes. At least it’s only Robin, but she has her big sad eyes on her face.

“Don’t,” Steve says. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“What am I looking at you like?”

“Like I’m — pathetic, or broken, or something. I’m — fine.” It’s never sounded convincing when he’s said it but now least of all. “I just need…time or whatever. It’s going to be fine.”

“Okay.” Robin’s leaning in the doorway her arm holding it open. “Look, I’m sorry, but people are starting to swarm in there and I can’t do it alone.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, standing and dusting off his jeans. “How do I look?”

“Pathetic,” Robin says.

And Steve actually laughs, it feels nice, and so he playfully shoves at Robin’s shoulder and mutters, “Fucking asshole…” and Robin is pushing him back and for a minute, he feels a little bit like himself again.

***

At the end of the night, they close up quietly together. He drives Robin home, and when he gets outside her house he puts the car in park and turns off the ignition. Robin doesn’t move immediately.

“I’m going to say something, and…” Steve breathes out through his nose. “And I don’t think I can handle it if you react to it in any way. I just want to say it out loud. Okay?”

Robin nods. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Steve looks over to Robin. “I think I was in love with him.” Nevermind — he turns away, he can’t look at Robin and say this. He stares at a streetlight off in the distance. “Or — or I could have been. I know maybe it was too soon, and I know I went in too deep. But I think maybe, you know,” if it was real, “I could have fallen in love with him.”

Robin, to her credit, doesn’t appear to have any sort of reaction. Steve isn’t looking at her, but Robin experiences emotions viscerally. Steve was expecting a full body reaction. Instead she is quiet, and solemn, and if the situation weren’t so fucking sad Steve would probably be checking her pulse to make sure she was actually alive.

“Can I say something?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Steve relents.

“I think you need to talk to him—”

“No way,” Steve shakes his head. “No fucking way is that going to happen.”

Robin just sighs. If Steve was looking at her he’s sure would be rolling her eyes. “Okay Steve, you’re a big kid, you can do whatever you want.” She sounds upset with him, and Steve swallows around the bitter feeling in the back of his throat.

Just as she’s getting out, she leans down into the footwell of the car and picks something up. She passes a tape over to Steve. “This was down there,” she mutters, before saying goodnight and crawling out of the car.

Steve holds The Smiths tape in his hand, remembering Jonathan had given it to him at the party. He decides, fuck it, he probably could enjoy listening to some music. He likes The Smiths, he's listened to them before this. As he drives home, the music feels like a comfort, he hasn’t really been able to listen to much music since…since. The music feels upbeat, and it’s nice. Steve taps his fingers along to it as he drives. The second song he listens to in particular is fun.

Then, the next song. It’s slower, and usually Steve isn’t able to pay much attention to the lyrics in songs, he likes to go off the beat and the energy but this one…

I know it’s over, still I cling, I don’t know where else I can go. Over…

Steve swallows, biting down on his bottom lip. He really can’t get a fucking break from this, can he? He blinks away tears, feels his face heating up just like it did outside of Family Video today. He doesn’t think he has cried this much since—since when he told Robin he cried when he was just a stupid kid.

And I know it’s over, still I cling…I don’t know where else I can go. Over and over and over and over…

He drives, though he probably shouldn’t, with tears running down his cheeks, blinking them away as they blur his vision. There’s a part of him that thinks maybe he should turn the music off, but in a masochistic way, he wants to hear what it says. He’s been pushing this all away, he knows he has. Robin’s always telling him emotions are a normal human experience, so he should lean into this. So he does.

I know it’s over, and it never really began…

But in my heart it was so real.

Chapter Text

All day long I think of things

But nothing seems to satisfy

Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify

Can you help me occupy my brain?

Paranoid, Black Sabbath (1970)

Steve Harrington is kissing him on his bed. And yeah, okay, it’s good. The guy lives up to the rumours, blah, blah, blah.

Of course it’s fucking good, Steve created a whole make out spot under a rock in a forest. Eddie thinks you’d have to be better than just good at kissing if you can convince multiple girls to follow you through a forest to make out under a rock.

Steve Harrington is laying back on Eddie’s bed and he is bringing Eddie down with him and they are still fucking kissing. Eddie is shocked he doesn’t burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. But far more absurd things have been happening to Eddie recently, and fuck if he hasn’t been wanting something like this for weeks.

Steve Harrington’s tongue is in his mouth, and he’s kissing over Eddie’s skin, and his hands are touching Eddie, and it might be the hottest night of Eddie’s life thus far and all they did was rut against each other like animals. He has a smoke after, a smirk on his lips and anxiety tight in his chest because he’s been here before. Once or twice, now. He’s fooled around with the straight boy who in their post-orgasm high realized it was a huge mistake.

Steve asks, should we talk about this? And Eddie essentially tells him no, because why in the world would he actively give the guy the opportunity to give him the, I’m straight, but talk?

Though, Steve is different. He doesn’t bolt out of the bed to leave, he takes his time though he does seem to be leaving. He’s being fun and…flirty? (What the fuck?) He looks like he might just kiss Eddie again and Eddie might just be stupid enough to let him.

Steve does leave, and it happens again because Eddie is idiotic and horny and shoves him up against a dumpster to make out and maybe a quick little blowie, but then Steve is inviting him to his house and then they’re hooking up again, and again. And then it kind of just keeps fucking happening.

Eventually, Eddie changes his mind. He’s fought demon bats in an alternate dimension, he’s been accused of being a serial killer and then had those accusations revoked. He’s had to sign an NDA thicker than his school record (which is pretty sizable.) Becoming Steve Harrington’s fuck buddy is officially the weirdest thing to happen to him this year.

I’m a wild child, come and love me

I want you

My heart’s in exile I need you to touch me

‘Cause I want what you do

Wild Child, W.A.S.P. (1985)

The thing is, this is not a typical friends with benefits situation. That much is very clear to him. Most men Eddie has fooled around with don’t want to kiss him, for one thing, and Eddie has also never slept over at a guy’s house. He’s never even slept in a guy’s bed before, most of his escapades have stayed strictly vertical.

For the most part, Eddie doesn’t think about it. There’s two aspects to it — he’s busy. There’s school and army crawling to graduation. He's planning the best D&D campaign of his life because, yes, he's twenty years old and, yes, he wants to impress fifteen-year-old Will Byers when he meets him.

They could talk about it, Eddie thinks, sometimes. Steve doesn’t seem like the type of guy to punch Eddie out for merely asking, but he’s still wary. Call it trauma, or whatever the fuck. But, mostly, Eddie just forgets to ask. Sometimes it’s hard to form any sort of sentence around Steve especially when a lot of their conversations now end up with them being horizontal and naked.

Really, they’re just stupid teenagers. Eddie can’t get enough of how he feels when he gets around Steve, totally drunk on the emotion of it all, and Steve is just so beautifully responsive to touch. A breathy moan, a sigh against Eddie’s mouth. His skin is soft, and his back arches up under Eddie’s touch. The fact that anyone could look and feel so beautiful under Eddie’s own hands is such a mystery to him that he can’t let go of it. Why would he want to? Why would he risk it all ending by engaging in the idiotic act of talking about it?

If Eddie was smarter, he wouldn’t had let it get this far with Steve. Because Steve is nice. Two months ago if you had told him he would be becoming friends with Steve Harrington from Hawkins High, he probably would have admitted himself to some mental hospital. But no, just as Eddie had him walking in the woods in an alternate dimension, Steve was good. Unshakably loyal, painfully kind, and he cared about people, especially those goddamn kids. Cared about people in the way where it’s clear he asks for nothing in return, even if Eddie thinks he might be owed a little bit of something.

But Eddie is not smart, in fact he’s rather stupid. He wants to kiss Steve until he can’t breathe. He wants to drop to his fucking knees anywhere and everywhere Steve will let him because, seriously, you blow Steve Harrington once in the back of your van and it’s the only goddamn thing you’re able to think of for weeks afterwards. Eddie has personal experience with that one.

It’s probably the best sex of his life, though Eddie’s sexual history is reserved mostly to quick hand jobs in bathrooms at bars, and giving blowjobs to repressed jocks and never speaking to them again. Steve is the first one to touch Eddie and actually seem to want to, he’s the first one to basically beg for Eddie to touch him — which, by the way, super fucking hot. He’s the first person to go down on Eddie and Eddie is too fucking embarrassed to even tell him, but then again it’s hard to say much of anything except for, “That’s good baby, like that Steve — oh.” Because of course Steve Harrington gives life altering head the first time he gets his mouth around a dick.

Steve is cute when he’s flustered, when Eddie can make him squirm in public with a look, or a single sentence. It’s addictive how Steve’s entire fucking body seems to light the fuck up when Eddie calls him baby. And he looks ridiculously hot in Eddie’s clothes. He has to know what he’s doing, he fucking has to, right? When he wears Eddie’s vest to their friend’s barbeque, and holds onto Eddie’s ankle when he’s talking about his past relationships, or when it’s just the two of them at night, and Eddie sleeps in Steve’s bed and Steve holds his hands, kisses his knuckles like he’s some goddamn princess that Harrington saved. But then again, Steve doesn't say anything, doesn’t ask Eddie again if they should talk about this.

There is the Steve that Eddie knows now. The one who is good in every sense of the word. He would never do anything to hurt any of his friends, and Eddie doesn’t think it’s too presumptuous at this point to believe himself included in that crowd. But then there is the Steve Harrington that Eddie knew about. Whose prowess was talked about in the halls by guys and girls alike. Steve doesn’t fuck around. Steve dated girls, even if it was just for a week. He took them to the movies, he brought them flowers, and to dances, to his stupid little make out rock in the forest among other places.

Steve dated Nancy and whatever went down there, Eddie thinks fucked Steve up something good. He asked Robin once—at lunch and school, after Steve had greened out and slept in his bed at the trailer. Robin had given him a grimace, said, “Steve doesn’t really like to talk about it. I only got the specifics out of him after a good few drinks.” They left it at that, and Eddie didn’t pry.

Except for when he did. Steve’s voice was biting and short and if that was how Steve reacted to something he didn’t want to talk about, Eddie is a little scared to bring up the other conversation. (So… your dick… my dick…? Crazy, huh?) Steve said it himself, he’s just taking a break from girls. He’s affectionate because that’s just who Steve is. And Eddie is there, and the sex is good, and they’re friends and they get along.

It’s cool, it’s fine. They’re friends who have sex a lot and sleep in Steve’s bed most nights. Cool! Except for the little fact that Eddie is so far gone for him it’s embarrassing. He may as well be Timmy stuck at the bottom of the well, screaming, “Help! I have a crush on Steve Harrington!”

He’s done. Caput. Finished. There’s no coming back from this, is there? Steve fucking Harrington of all people. King Steve. The Hair Harrington. Each stupid high school nickname he remembers makes it even more un-fucking-believable. If Eddie’s sixteen-year-old self saw him now he’d probably say something like, you’re seriously still in high school? Followed very closely by, You’re sleeping with Steve Harrington?! And then keel over and die or something.

Eddie wants Steve in any form, in any iteration he can have him, to the point where the idea of anyone touching him that isn’t Eddie makes him practically see fucking red. Eddie’s never been a particularly jealous person. Or, well, that’s a fucking lie, isn’t it? He’s a totally jealous person. He realizes pretty quickly: no one is able to want Steve like Eddie wants him.

Which is really difficult because girls flirt with Steve all the fucking time. The girls at Family Video, sometimes when Steve picks him up from school, Eddie sees girls check him out — can’t blame them on that one, the guy’s ass is next level. It makes Eddie wonder how many girls flirt with Steve when Eddie isn’t there to see it. He wonders if, on the off evenings when they’re not together, if Steve is wanting to go out on dates. He wonders if Steve ever flirts back.

It makes him do dangerous things like follow Steve into his boss’s office during the middle of the day, but god, he needs to fucking know — that he can still make Steve lose his mind. That Steve still wants him and not the random girls coming into Family Video, and not Nancy Wheeler. (Nancy is great, but holy fuck, if Eddie isn’t an insecure asshole.)

Eddie needs Steve to want him, so he pulls Steve close and doesn’t let him get what he thinks he wants. He grabs him by the hair — because he did that once when they were in Steve’s bed, naked and sweaty and writhing together, and Steve had gasped — and tilted his head back, until Eddie thinks he sees what he wants. How Steve’s eyes dilate, how he’s waiting for Eddie to kiss him.

He’s so fucked.

Babe, baby, baby, I’m gonna leave you.

I said baby, you know I’m gonna leave you,

I’ll leave you when the summer time

Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin’

Leave you when the summer comes along

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, Led Zeppelin (1969)

He wants a fucking smoke, but he doesn’t want to go outside. He’s also afraid of waking Steve but eventually his jittery nerves get the better of him, and so he slides out from beside Steve on the bed and goes over to the window.

He cracks it open, and grabs his pack of smokes from his dress pants (Steve’s dress pants) on the ground. It takes him a minute to find them, they had been so fucking desperate after prom. He carefully drags a chair from the unused desk over to the window, cracking it open so he has somewhere to blow the smoke out. He lights it, tags a drag. Eddie glances over again.

Steve is laid out on the bed like a fucking work of art. He’s on his back, head tilted to the side against the pillow. The blanket low on his hips, an arm thrown over his stomach, the other palm up by his head. His neck and his skin speckled so beautifully with all those little freckles and moles. Eddie had spent an afternoon tracing them with his tongue, once. He wants to spend so many more afternoons like that with Steve.

The way the moonlight is cascading through the window and across Steve’s body makes him want to fucking weep. If he was an artist, he would paint it, if he was a better songwriter he thinks he could write a million songs based on this image alone.

He breathes smoke into his lungs, because the other option is tearing out his hair and screaming until he cries. He should have been more careful, he should have guarded his weeping heart more. (That’s a good lyric, maybe he should write that down.)

Steve Harrington is the most beautiful man on the face of the planet and he’s Eddie’s.

Except he isn’t.

Eddie had been so goddamn happy today. At the stupid fucking prom, with their friends and with Steve. They had been flirty, and stupid, and they had all danced together. Steve’s knee brushing his, their legs pressed together under a table, Steve’s hand briefly on Eddie’s hip and whispering in his ear. Stupid. Dangerous. Maybe the sexiest thing to ever happen to Eddie — it’s at least making the list. (The list comprises mostly of Steve at this point.)

Eddie had never gone to a school dance before, for multiple reasons. They sounded stupid, he didn’t really have anyone to go with (friends or a date.) But if they were like this, friends spending time together, laughing, dancing.

There had been a moment, sure, a flicker of doubt when he watched Steve and Nancy dancing together. (I’ve been in love before, the song crooned. The hardest part is when you’re in it.) But then Steve didn't want to go to the party. He wanted to stay with Eddie. And Eddie had been so fucking happy. The images of the night keep replaying over and over again in his head, and he has to close his eyes against them. How Steve looked underneath him, how gently Steve had kissed him, pushed his hair out of their faces. Their hands pressed together into the sheets. Eddie had never done that with anyone, and now he had with Steve. It’s stupid, and virginal, and it meant something to him.

And Steve — sure, maybe it was the first time he had sex with a guy like that, but, he had a reputation. Eddie knows he isn’t the first person to sleep in this bed next to him. It’s just sex. That was all. He’s just the guy that Steve has been screwing around with, because that is all Eddie has ever been to any guy.

He always does this to himself, Eddie thinks, he takes the things that make him happy and he twists it around until looking at it only brings him pain. He thought he had been doing an okay job at not thinking about it, but something has cracked and fissured. Looking at Steve right now is wringing pain straight out of him, like Steve has him on a string and is pulling it upwards out of his chest. This would have been so much easier if he had just stopped at one hook up, if he hadn’t started sleeping in the bed next to him, if they had just gone to the stupid prom after party instead.

Steve’s lonely, and Eddie is filling that void, and they’re friends. Eddie knew, from the first time he slept with Steve he knew. God, it kills him a little bit inside, but this thing could only ever have been temporary. It never could be anything more.

“Eddie?” Steve murmurs. Eddie’s heart is going to fucking break out of his chest one of these days at the way Steve says his name. He’s half asleep, or appears not fully conscious, eyes not open but an arm reaching out beside him, to the empty space where Eddie usually sleeps.

He aches, and he’s a fool. He stubs his cigarette out on the window sill (he’ll clean it up tomorrow before Steve notices.) Eddie crawls over the bed, slips again under the blankets and pulls them up over them both. He slides up beside him, and Steve seems to move on instinct, letting Eddie wrap an arm around his waist, Eddie’s front to his back.

“Where’d’jago?” Steve breathes out, still half-asleep and soft. Eddie presses a kiss against Steve’s bare shoulder.

“Nowhere,” he whispers. “I didn’t go anywhere. Go back to sleep.”

Steve does, and Eddie buries his nose in the back of Steve’s neck, where his hair is still damp from the shower they took together. He smells like his stupid fucking salon shampoo, and Eddie loves him. He lets it kill him.

He will let himself drown in Steve for a final time tonight, and maybe the next morning when Steve drives him home. Eddie kisses him goodbye — he’s never done that before — and Steve doesn’t know. He smiles at Eddie so sweetly and he doesn’t know that within this kiss is the beginning of Eddie’s goodbyes.

Chapter Text

The thing is, Steve knows when he’s being an asshole. He spent years as an asshole, it’s arguably second nature for him at this point. But there is a part of him right now, the part of him that feels like he’s drowning at all times, that doesn’t care. He likens the feeling to the final year his parent’s spent in the house with him in 1983, before they essentially gave up on him.

He clings to his routine, which at the end of the day means he doesn’t see anyone besides Robin and those who happen upon Family Video. Outside of work, Steve finds it unbearable to be in the house again, a familiar feeling, but exacerbated by the three months where it was full of something he thought was special. Instead, after work he tends to drive around the town. He’ll go park by the water and look out at it until he feels like he’s going to pass out and then he just drives home. When he is in the house, he lays on any flat surface he can find and listens to The Smiths new album on repeat.

July turns into August and Steve does not pay attention as the exact date passes when it has been a month since he and Eddie stood together in the Wheeler’s upstairs bathroom. In the time since Eddie walked into Family Video without a care in the world, he has begun to do it more often. Each time puts Steve on edge, but he figures this is his life now. Eventually his feelings for Eddie will fade, and they can go back to being friends. Or so he tells himself. Steve is aware that Robin wants the two of them to talk, but Steve thinks he’d rather go up against the Mind Flayer again than talk to Eddie about anything that happened between them.

For the most part, Eddie is coming in to see Robin, or he’s been recruited by Dustin for another ride home. (What the hell happened to Dustin’s bike, Steve doesn’t know. The kid is majorly spoiled.) When Eddie comes in, he always says, “Hi, Steve,” and Steve is equal parts torn between punching him in his fucking face and throwing him against a wall to kiss him. Eddie is gentle and kind when he speaks to Steve in a completely different way than when their hands used to brush, or how Eddie would smile at him when they were alone together. Eddie now feels almost pitying.

So Steve grunts a hello to him when he comes in, but otherwise essentially ignores him. Ignores him in the way that he won’t engage with Eddie directly, but will watch the line of Eddie’s back out of the corner of his eye as he talks quietly to Robin. Or when he hovers next to Dustin as he chooses a movie to rent. It’s practically torture, all but amplified by the fact that Eddie’s summer clothing seems to consist of old, worn t-shirts with the sleeves cut out, the fabric hanging low underneath his arms.

He doesn’t come to Family Video a lot, and when he does it isn’t to stay for long. It’s nothing like how it used to be, but then again nothing is.

***

It’s hot outside—it desperately needs to rain but it just hasn’t yet so it’s practically miserable. Family Video isn’t much better, there is AC but it can really only take the edge off. On days like this, Steve misses slinging ice cream.

Today, Eddie shows up without the kids in sight, wearing an old, ripped, Metallica shirt and black jeans cut off above the knee. Steve has to look away.

Three slurpees are set down on the counter, already weeping condensation. Steve thinks if he picked one up it would be slippery.

“Hi, Steve,” Eddie says, like he does. It sounds like a mockery at this point.

Each time he does, Steve feels his heart clench and pound in his chest. He wants to rip it out, he thinks it would be less painful than having this conversation with Eddie. “Hi.”

“You’re a godsend,” Robin says, appearing behind Steve’s shoulder and reaching for one of the slurpees and immediately sucking it down.

“You like cherry, right?” Eddie asks, and it takes a few seconds to realize Eddie is still talking to him. He picks up one of the two slurpees left on the counter and seems to hold it up towards Steve.

Steve doesn’t react. “Sugar makes you dehydrated,” he says blandly, and then turns away, taking a stack of VHS tapes and going to reshelve them across the store. It’s his job, after all.

Lately, he’s been listening to music at work when it’s quiet, unable to handle the constant conversations with Robin. He had found his walkman in the bottom of a drawer. Now, he puts his headphones on and turns up the volume loud. Not The Smiths—that’s ‘home only’ music. Just something mindless that’s a distraction enough to make him forget that Eddie is standing behind him. He just…isn’t interested in playing whatever game Eddie is trying out right now.

Steve’s been trying to make sense of Eddie’s actions for the past month, and everytime it just doesn’t make sense. He wanted to stop fooling around, fine. He didn’t know the extent of Steve’s own complicated feelings, sure. But to just act like nothing is different? Steve doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know how to act as if nothing has happened.

After he’s gotten through about half of the tapes, there’s an aggressive tap on his shoulder. He lifts his headphones off one ear and turns around to Robin, hands on her hips. “Yeah?”

“Eddie was just trying to be nice. Trying to reach out to you,” she says. “You didn’t have to act like a complete dick to him.”

After a brief glance, Steve notices the store is empty, even of Eddie. Then, his initial reaction is to quip something stupid back like, yeah, well, Eddie can suck my dick but — yeah. Well. Instead he says, “I’m not interested.”

Robin bites her bottom lip, seemingly conflicted. “Steve,” she says.

“What?” Steve shrugs.

“I really think you should try talking to him,” Robin says, carefully, eyeing Steve. “You know, outside of work.”

“I thought I could do whatever I wanted,” Steve snarks.

Robin’s demeanor changes immediately. “You can,” she says, not backing down. “But do you want to know what I think?”

“You’ve never really held back before,” Steve says under his breath. He crosses to another aisle to get to where the last few tapes go.

Robin follows him. “I think this is going to eat you up inside until you have nothing left. I think it’s going to absolutely ruin your friendship with Eddie if you don’t just have an honest conversation with him about how you felt. I get that the break up—”

“Never together,” Steve mutters, he puts the last tape back.

“Whatever you want to call it. I get that it hurts. I’m not blind, I can see that it’s really hurting you. But I think maybe if you just talk to him—”

“About what?” Steve asks her sharply. “What could I possibly say to him that wouldn’t make me look like a fucking idiot? ‘Sorry you smashed my heart into pieces, maybe we can still be friends?’”

“Do you want to still be his friend?”

“Sure,” Steve says. Because of course he does. Because the idea of Eddie not being in his life at all is another layer of hurt he barely wants to touch. But it’s hard right now—it’s too fresh.

“Then you’ll have to talk to him—”

“You know what, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Steve says in a rush. “I don’t want to talk.” He passes Robin to walk back towards the front desk.

After a beat Robin says, “You’re impossible, sometimes.”

Steve stops, turns back to her. “I’m impossible?!”

“Yes, you are!”

Steve barks out a laugh. “Okay, if I’m so impossible, why don’t you go bother Eddie? Why is it on me, huh? Go force him to talk to me.”

“Oh trust me, I’ve been trying,” Robin spat. “But perhaps unsurprisingly, you two are some of the most stubborn people I have ever met. You guys fooled around for weeks and apparently never bothered to have a single conversation about what it could have meant. How were you even ‘friends with benefits’ if you didn’t even have a conversation about that?”

“I know what it meant,” Steve snaps, voice rough and biting. His tone finally seems to make Robin stumble over herself. Before she can say anything else Steve jumps back in. “And he made it very clear to me that whatever I thought wasn’t what was really happening. So, forgive me, if I don’t want to enter yet another conversation where he can tell me that it meant nothing.”

Robin was quiet. “He said that?” She sounds sad and disappointed.

Steve has to look away. “A version of it.”

“I didn’t know that.” An observation.

Steve rolls his eyes, bites out, “Yeah, I didn’t tell you.”

Robin looks away. “Yeah. Even though you apparently had no issues talking to Nancy about it.”

And that—wow. Robin could only know that by talking to Nancy—about everything—which…she should know better than to do at this point. Rage rises up from his core, and he takes a step towards Robin, finger pointing at her chest. She looks so fucking confident and Steve wants to rip that confidence apart with his teeth.

“Don’t fucking talk to Nancy about me,” Steve hisses at her. “She only knew because she figured it out—looked right at me and saw it. It’s not my fault you were so oblivious and obsessed with your shiny new girlfriend that you didn’t bother to pay attention to anything else.”

Robin’s face drops, and the bitter part of Steve feels somewhat vindicated, but it is barely overshadowed by the swallowing feeling of guilt. He has never talked to Robin like this—he doesn’t think they have ever fought about anything.

Before the conversation can go better or worse, the bell dings and Steve goes to help whoever they are, fake grin plastered on his face.

***

Robin calls Vickie to give her a ride home before they close for the evening. She doesn’t bother to try and be subtle about it, and Steve doesn’t bother trying to stop her.

He goes home. Follows his routine, eats something for a late dinner, stares at the ceiling of his living room while laid out on the couch. He knows he was a dick, he knows, but Robin pushed—she fucking pushed at him. Shouldn’t she know him better by now? He thinks about where they were only a year ago—fresh out of Starcourt, starting their jobs at Family Video. Figuring each other out, establishing rules like always calling when they say they will. Robin doesn’t call today, and Steve understands why.

Part of him wonders if he even should have told Robin about Eddie. Sometimes, the knowledge that she knows—albeit, not everything—makes him feel squirrelly. She hasn’t asked him much more in terms of sexuality, of everything they talked about that afternoon. He thinks she at least gets that wherever he is, he isn’t at the place to talk about that. Still, he is all too aware of the fact that he essentially came out to her. Which then means he is also aware that he has something to come out about.

Once or twice now, he has spent part of an evening in the bathroom staring at the mirror. He looks at himself, and tries to visualize the word. He tries to attach it to himself. Bisexual. He can’t make himself say it. He figures there’s no point in denying it anymore—knows it’s true. But he figures there isn’t a reason to force himself to say it. He thinks it’ll be a while until he can think about another guy the way he thought (thinks, don’t be an idiot, Harrington) about Eddie.

Eventually, he falls asleep on the couch.

The next day, Steve isn’t working, so he ends up laying around the house. He cleans the kitchen, because he always seems to let things pile up on the days he works. He considers calling Robin, but she’s probably with Vickie, and she’s probably mad at him; and honestly Steve is a little mad at her and isn’t ready for whatever conversation she probably wants to have to fix their fight.

Steve spends most of the day hiding upstairs, anxious. He feels on edge, more so than he usually does. He listens to music, he has a few books Robin has loaned him in the past but picking them up just bums him out.

Eventually, he orders himself a pizza for dinner because he cannot be bothered to dig through the fridge for something. As he’s eating on the floor in his bedroom, The Cure playing in the background, the walkie Dustin gave him comes alive with static.

“Mayday, mayday — Mom’s gone to her Tupperware party and I need a ride out to Eddie’s for D&D! Over.”

Dustin then has to walkie it several more times before he even answers, because Steve spends most of his time pacing back and forth, deciding if he wants to risk even driving over to Eddie’s.

In the end, Dustin is persuasive, ( meaning loud) and Steve recognizes he probably won’t even see Eddie if he just doesn’t get out of the car. So he agrees, and in the next hour he’s gone to pick up (thankfully only) Dustin, who immediately starts talking. At this point, he’s not even sure what it’s about—definitely a lot of nerd shit, the last conversation he had with Suzie, the usual reminders of how everyone is so excited to have Will back. Eddie flits in and out of the conversation—apparently he’s been pouring everything into this new campaign, spending all his time on it. Dustin is clearly very excited for tonight.

Steve nods along to what he is saying, gives him an uh-huh, the occasional, cool, man.

“Is everything, like, okay with you?” Dustin asks, after they’re halfway to the trailer park.

“Yeah,” Steve says automatically.

He isn’t looking over at him, but he can tell Dustin is giving him a funny look. “Are you sure? I feel like we’ve barely seen you outside the video store this summer.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

“You know—work.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. Annoyance is piling high up in him.

“Is it something with a girl? Nancy?”

Steve bites down on his tongue so he doesn’t scream. “It’s nothing with any girl, but especially Nancy. Can’t you get it through your skull that Nancy and I are done? She’s with Jonathan. Respect that.”

“Okay, okay, jeez.” Dustin breathes out. “But, seriously dude. Something seems off and no offense, you seem pretty miserable right now.”

Steve shrugs. “Just, uh,” he grips at the wheel, stares ahead. “Sometimes shit with my parents hits harder than other days.” It’s not really a lie, because the absence of his parents does hit harder every once in a while. Steve also knows this is a topic Dustin won’t pick at until it bleeds. He’s one of the few people Steve has confided in about his parents, though sometimes Steve feels a bit guilty for putting the knowledge on a literal kid.

“Do you maybe want to come to D&D tonight?” Dustin suggests.

“No,” Steve grits out. “How many times, dude, I’m not interested in playing your nerdy game.”

“You don’t have to play, you could just hang out with us! You wouldn’t have to be alone, Eddie has beer he doesn’t let us drink—”

“I’m good.” After a silence, Steve glances over at Dustin and sees his eyes closed in little slits, observing him. “What?”

“You’re fighting with Eddie, aren’t you?”

A cold chill settles over Steve’s skin. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s kind of obvious, now that I think about it.” Steve has to hold in a groan. Dustin has his detective voice on. “Eddie’s been spending less time in Family Video and more time with us. Whenever I call for a ride, he’s able to do it when a few months ago I would call and he never would answer. Now suddenly he’s home most of the time—speaking of which I should probably get him a walkie somehow…” Dustin trails off in thought for a moment. “Anyway, all that being said, you claimed to be the best of buds over the past few months and now you don’t even want to be in the same room as him? Kind of suspicious.”

Jesus Christ — this fucking kid, huh?

“You—you’re suspicious,” Steve mutters. “Besides, who said I don’t want to be in the same room as him? He comes into Family Video—”

“—to pick up the Party. And if it’s no big deal, why don’t you just hang out with us tonight?”

“Because I don’t want to!”

“Oh come on, Steve,” Dustin says. “Just tell me what’s up.”

“No, because nothing is up,” Steve says. “We’ve just been busy.”

“Jesus Christ, whatever it is it must be bad.”

Steve grinds his teeth. “Or, have you ever considered it’s just none of your business?”

“Aha!” Dustin cries out. “So there is something going on!”

Steve turns sharply into the trailer park, jarring Dustin in his seat. They pull up to Eddie’s trailer, and Steve considers it a success that he doesn’t throw up in his lap at the sight of it, his chest feels so fucking tight.

“It’s something to do with Robin, isn’t it?” Dustin says. “She has been spending a lot of time with Eddie too…they like each other don’t they? Are they dating? And you’re jealous! Dude—I told you if you didn’t snag Robin up when you had the chance she’d find someone else.”

“Eddie and Robin are not dating,” Steve hisses. “We’re all friends.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Dustin seemingly studying Steve’s gaze, leaning forward, eyes squinted.

“Whatever it is, I’ll figure it out,” Dustin says nonchalantly, sitting back. “There’s nothing you can hide from me.”

Steve snaps. “Just — Jesus Christ, Dustin. Do you ever just shut up? Not everything in my life is a fucking free for all for you to know, okay?”

A deep silence crawls across the car. Dustin just sits there, eyes shocked and wide. The two of them fight like brothers, Steve scolds him like a parent sometimes. But he has never raised his voice to Dustin like that. Dustin reaches for the door.

“Dustin—” Steve gasps, dread seeping through every inch of his body. “Wait, Dustin, I didn’t mean—”

Dustin’s opening the door, slamming it shut behind him. Steve follows, getting out of the car and runs around the front. He moves to grab Dustin’s shoulder, but is stopped by a hand held up to stop him.

“Fuck off, Steve. Don’t follow me.”

So Steve doesn’t. Watches as he enters the trailer, the door swinging shut behind him.

“Fuck,” Steve hisses, hand rubbing over his mouth. He turns around and kicks the wheel of his car. It hurts him more than it hurts the car, but it isn’t enough. He wants to scream, but that would obviously draw unwanted attention. He opens his car door and sits back down, slamming it shut. He hits the steering wheel a few times until the heel of his palm feels numb.

He hates this part of himself. Robin told him once it was self destruction, but it’s been a while since he’s felt this level of anger just constantly simmering beneath his skin. No one knows, or understands really, just how angry Steve really is. He’s angry all the time, at everything. All of high school was like that, senior year was bad for it, too, because of the added layer of loneliness that he found himself wrapped up in. No Nancy, no Tommy H. or Carol, or anyone, really, because Billy was the high school cool guy then. He had no one in senior year, no one except for Dustin.

And then Robin came along in the summer, when things were a little bit better, but also worse, because of his parents and all the college shit. Russians and monsters made of humans and rats aside, Robin made that summer so much fucking better. Little by little he felt that loneliness ebb away. It wasn’t a lot, but he had the two of them, and it was good.

Now, within a twenty-four hour period Steve has managed to go and piss them both off, and that anger and loneliness has started to creep back up in him. It had been hiding in his darkest corners since Eddie left, but he was so tired of thinking about Eddie, of talking about Eddie.

No matter what Robin said, he didn’t need to talk to Eddie. What he needed was for all of this to have never happened. What he needed was to not have started sleeping with Eddie in the first place or to just get over this already. He didn’t understand why it was so hard.

It makes him feel guilty, because on some level he’s realizing he’s wishing that he and Eddie had never met (or re-met). But in so many ways, it would have been so much better if Eddie had just remained that weird guy from high school. The one who Steve would never admit he was jealous over because of his friendship with Dustin. Those feelings were so much easier to live with.

He can’t go home. Dustin had mentioned on the walkie that Eddie was dropping everyone off when they were done, all Dustin had needed was the ride there. But Steve feels sick with the guilt, it wraps around his gut, and he can’t just leave Dustin here. A small part of him considers storming into Eddie’s trailer to talk to Dustin but that’s…dramatic and might ruin Dustin’s night even further. Also, uh, Eddie’s there.

So, maybe the more insane option, he decides he’s going to just wait it out. Eventually Dustin will have to come out, and when he does, Steve will apologize. And tomorrow, he should probably call Robin. Give in and just talk to her, say sorry for being a dick, because he knows he’s being one. And he knows that no matter what is going on with him, he can’t lose either of them over this. That would be the final nail in the coffin, he thinks.

He leans his seat back and settles in. He knows he’ll probably be waiting a long time—these games take hours, but he’s made his choice.

***

He must doze off at some point, because he wakes to a gentle tapping on the glass. He opens his eyes to Max peering in through the passenger window. He sits himself up, and waves her in. She gives him a weird look, but opens the door nonetheless.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks, a shake to her shoulders.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Steve mumbles, rubbing at his eyes, blinking away blurry sleep. “Is it okay if I don’t get into it?”

“Whatever,” she says, and sits down in the seat next to Steve. “You’re not going in?”

“No,” Steve says. “Not tonight.”

“So you’re just going to wait out here all night like a total loser?”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay,” Max shrugs. “Want to listen to some music?”

“Aren’t they all waiting for you?”

Max laughs. “What, you think I was going over there to play? No, I was going over because I know my mere presence will distract Lucas and that pisses Dustin off.”

Steve snorts. “Okay.”

“So do you want some company, or not?”

“Sure.”

He notices then that Max has her headphones around her neck, like she usually does, and pulls a tape out of her walkman. She pops it in Steve’s car, he makes sure the car’s on so it all works properly. The voice of Kate Bush comes through the speakers, and he grimaces.

“You can still listen to this?” he asks.

“Sorry.” Max actually sounds it, too. “We can listen to something else, if you want?”

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “It’s okay. But it doesn’t, I don’t know, fuck you up?”

Max just shrugs. “It’s still a good album,” she says.

It is. They settle down into it, listening to the first few songs in silence. It feels nice, Steve thinks. But mostly it feels nice to listen to something other than The Smiths.

After a few songs, Max leans over and turns the music down. She asks, “Are you okay?”

Steve is quiet for a moment. He thinks about leaning into his typical I’m fine routine. He also isn’t interested in telling the full truth, so he just gives a version of it. “I guess I’m just going through some shit right now.”

“Aren’t we all,” Max muses.

Steve isn’t sure where his next question comes from, but it spills out of him. “Are you ever just so angry for no real reason? Or for a particular reason, but the only thing you can do with that anger is just…take it out on everyone you care about?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “Absolutely, I am. That was, like, my entire freshman year.”

Steve nods. “I’m angry all the time right now,” Steve tells her. He doesn’t really know why. “And now I’m taking it out on people who care about me. It’s like, I know I’m being an asshole but I can’t stop. And, no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Max replies. That actually makes Steve laugh for a moment.

Steve tilts his head over to look at her. “Are you still angry?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Max says. “But you know, I think I’m slowly realizing all the things I’m angry about…aren’t my fault. Like, the situations I’m in, the reasons I’m there. I think that’s what makes me the angriest. But, like, having people to talk to about it helps.”

“Like Lucas?” Steve questions.

“Sure,” Max says. “And El, too, now that she’s back. It was hard to talk to her when they were in California—she’s not really a good phone conversationalist. But, yeah, talking actually helps.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

They listen to the rest of the tape, and then Max leans forwards and ejects it from the console.

“I did say I would make an appearance tonight,” she explains. “You sure don’t want to come in with me?”

“I’m okay,” Steve says. “Thanks, though.”

Max gives him a small smile — something rare with her, so very welcome. Steve gives a weak smile back, and she slips out of the car, jogging over and disappearing into the trailer.

***

After Max leaves, Steve turns on the radio and listens to whatever is on there. Eventually, he thinks he dozes off again. The time passes faster than he thought, he checks his watch every time he stumbles out of a light sleep.

It’s almost 11:30 by the next time the door to the trailer opens.

It’s Eddie.

In an instant, their eyes lock. Or, Eddie’s eyes lock onto Steve’s car—it’s dark, Steve isn’t sure if Eddie can see him. Eddie walks down the trailer steps, slowly making his way over to Steve, who climbs out and walks around to the passenger side facing the trailer. Steve shoves his hands deep in his pockets. They stand together for a moment.

Feeling a bit mean, Steve says, “Hi, Eddie.”

Eddie, immediately catching on, actually laughs. It feels real, how the smile crawls across his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling together. “Hi, Steve,” he says. His gaze drags over Steve, his car, he raises an eyebrow. “Have you…been waiting out here all night?”

“I’m waiting for Dustin,” Steve instantly replies. Because it’s the truth, but also because he doesn’t want Eddie to think something else, even though Steve probably is desperate enough to wait for hours outside Eddie’s trailer just so he would notice him.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why he’s in a foul mood tonight, would you?” Eddie asks the question lightheartedly, which means Dustin probably hadn’t said anything. “It made for an interesting game but he’s still all snappy.”

Shame floods through Steve. He looks down and away. “Yeah, uh, that was me. We…fought on the way here. I yelled at him.”

“Why?”

Steve shrugs. “Because I’m an asshole?”

There’s a bit of a pause. “No you’re not,” Eddie says.

“I can be.”

“Everyone can be,” Eddie replies.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Steve mutters under his breath, but just loud enough, and Eddie goes still. Then Steve grimaces, says, “Sorry. See? Asshole.”

Eddie just hmms at that. Steve hears some shuffling and then a box of cigarettes is being thrust in his line of vision. “Want one?” Eddie asks.

Steve doesn’t smoke much anymore, (Robin hates it.) So, usually, when Eddie used to ask if he wanted to, nine times out of ten Steve said no. This time must be the tenth.

“Sure,” he says, and takes one.

Eddie moves closer, leans back against the car beside Steve, their shoulders maybe an inch apart. He lights their smokes with his zippo and for another moment they’re just sharing each other’s space. Steve thinks about how maybe a month ago they would have shared one cigarette between them. He smells good, Steve thinks, like smoke right now but also whatever soap he uses. His presence makes Steve feel warm, and then he feels stupid for feeling like that. He takes a long drag of the smoke to clear his senses.

“They’re just cleaning up in there,” Eddie waves a hand towards the trailer. “Should be out in a few, so…” he trails off, sentence not going anywhere. Steve doesn’t say anything, just nods along. Then, Eddie says, “I’m sorry.”

Steve just shakes his head a little, he looks up towards the sky. He wants to say, it’s fine or for what? But his throat feels tight and so he just takes another drag of the cigarette between his lips.

“I am an asshole. I know I fucked everything up,” Eddie tells him, which Steve thinks is silly, because all Eddie did was be honest with him. “I know you’re pissed. But…before everything else, we were friends and I think in between the messing around we were friends. And I really, really liked being your friend.”

Steve’s heart aches, in the way it used to when Eddie would smile at him. In the good way, not the bad way. “Me too,” he says.

“Are we still friends?” Steve can’t help but notice how Eddie’s voice shakes a little as at the end of the question.

“Yeah, man,” is Steve’s automatic answer. Because of course he still wants to be friends with Eddie. He thinks Eddie might be one of his best friends, a very close second to Robin. But as they stand together now, the silence cascading over them, Steve thinks about if Eddie was just a friend to him, he would know what to say next. If Eddie could just be a friend, it wouldn’t hurt so much to stand here next to him. So then, almost without thinking about it, the honest answer that comes out is “No.”

“Oh,” Eddie whispers.

“I mean—” Steve starts. “I want to be,” he explains. “I just can’t right now.”

When Steve is next able to look over to him, at Eddie, he’s staring down at his feet intently, cigarette between his lips, smoke coming out in little puffs. Steve thinks he had been getting so good at reading what Eddie was feeling, but he can’t figure this out.

The two of them haven’t been alone together in over a month. Steve thinks about how Robin wanted the two of them to talk, and here they are. Maybe Steve should just rip off the bandaid. He already feels like an idiot, so what’s it going to do to just finally admit how much of one he really is? He should just finish it off.

“It was real.” He doesn’t know how, but he manages to keep his gaze on Eddie, who is suddenly standing shock-still beside him. His head turns slowly towards Steve. Just before their eyes meet, Steve drops his gaze away. “It felt real to me. And I totally respect your decision, and I get that it wasn’t like that for you. But I can’t just hop right back into being your friend. I just need…some time to, like, get over this. To get over you.” He offers Eddie a sad little smile. Jesus, he’s fucking pathetic.

The door of the trailer opens, and the kids start piling out. Mike, Will, Lucas and Max (hand in hand) are all followed very closely by Dustin, who looks like he’s still sulking. Steve is hit with a whole other wave of hurt.

When he turns over to look at Eddie, his eyes are wide and deep in thought. He looks panicked. Steve gets it, he just wholly embarrassed himself in front of the guy, it makes sense that Eddie is probably freaking out.

“Steve,” he says.

“I gotta get Dustin home,” Steve replies.

“Wait—”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dustin calls out to him.

“I’m driving you home,” Steve tells him, taking a step away from Eddie. He takes a final drag of the smoke and then drops it on the ground, boot crushing it in the dirt.

“Eddie’s driving me home,” Dustin corrects him, and shit, the kid doesn’t even know the double whammy that comment brings.

“You’re going with Steve,” Eddie tells him, voice stiff.

“What?” Dustin hisses.

“You heard me,” Eddie tells him. “You’re going with Steve, end of discussion.”

And, like always, Dustin listens to Eddie. (Though this time with a bit of under the breath grumbling and swearing Eddie appears to actively ignore.) They don’t say goodbye to one another, in fact Steve doesn’t look Eddie in the eye as he gets into his car and waits for Dustin to join him. Steve is pulling away before Eddie even gets Mike, Will and Lucas into his van, and when Steve glances back through the rearview mirror he can see Eddie watching them as they turn out of the trailer park.

***

Steve gives Dustin a chance to be the first to talk, because the kid usually does, and he thinks Dustin deserves to yell at him for a bit if he feels like it. But when they’re almost to the Henderson’s, and Dustin still hasn’t said a word, Steve realizes that tonight of all nights is the one time the kid has decided to be quiet. Which, Steve remembers then, is exactly what he told him to do. He swallows around the lump in his throat.

“Dustin,” Steve says, hands gripped tightly to the wheel. “I’m sorry.”

Dustin just scoffs, turns his head away from Steve to look out the window.

“Hey, man, come on,” Steve says.

“Whatever, Steve,” Dustin replies.

“No, it’s not—” Steve bites his tongue, angry at himself again. He hits the wheel again with the heel of his palm, not hard or loud, just hits. He pushes a hand through his hair, elbow resting against the window. “It’s not whatever. I fucked up, I shouldn’t have yelled. It was a mean, shitty thing to do. I’m sorry.”

Still, Dustin doesn’t say anything.

“Look,” Steve grips at the wheel until he feels the skin around his knuckles pull. “You’re right, okay? There’s something going on right now. But I just—it’s not something I’m ready to talk about with you. I can barely talk about it with Robin. It’s my own shit, and it’s personal. So, no, I’m not going to talk to you about it, or tell you about it because—because you also do need to learn some boundaries, dude, seriously.” He chances a glance over to Dustin, whose head is still turned away from him, out the window.

“I—I have all these emotions sometimes, and they all build up. And then I have people in my life—you and Robin, who mean well but you just poke and poke and then I burst, and I know it’s not fair to you. I’m an asshole. I’m a really—shitty person, sometimes. And I’m really, really sorry for snapping at you, Dustin.”

Dustin is quiet for the rest of the ride, but it at least doesn’t feel so tense anymore. When they pull up to Dustin’s house, he undoes his seatbelt but stays in the car. He turns to Steve. “You’re not a shitty person. I’m sorry for…poking. You just have looked pretty upset about something for a while.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “But you have to accept it when I tell you no, man. And you can’t—you have to stop saying you’ll just figure it out, that’s—fucking stressful for me. You have to trust that if I don’t want to tell you something, or talk to you about something, I have a pretty goddamn good reason to.”

“Okay, but you also tend to bottle shit up and not talk about anything,” Dustin tosses back. “How am I supposed to know what is personal and you being emotionally thick for no good reason?”

Steve laughs at that, a little wet and bitterly. “I don’t know!”

“Fine,” Dustin relents. And he doesn’t sound angry, he doesn’t sound upset. It’s just fine, and maybe it really is. “Whatever it is, you should know I’ll always be there for you. You die, I die, right?”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks. “I’m not sure if that’s applicable here.”

“Well then it’s like…” Dustin shrugs. “You hurt, I hurt or something, then. You can tell me, I’m not saying now and fine, I’ll stay out of whatever it is. But whenever you want to, you can tell me.”

Steve feels so much relief for a moment, and part of him considers it. He could tell Dustin about Eddie, and about boys, but the second he considers it, it’s like his entire body tenses up. His throat feels tight, like it used to when he would think about telling Robin. Like it did even while he was telling Robin. The words are once again, just stuck in him.

He stares ahead. “I’m not brave enough,” he says.

“You’re the bravest guy I know.” There is no hesitation in Dustin’s voice, like he didn’t even have to consider the truth of the words before he said them.

And fuck if that doesn’t almost set him off. He rubs a hand over his eyes. “Not about this.”

Dustin is quiet for a long time. Then he says, “Maybe one day?”

He nods. “Maybe one day.”

***

Between dropping Dustin off and driving home, it starts to pour rain. (Steve thinks, we needed that, as he flicks the windshield wipers on.) He doesn’t know if he feels better or worse after talking with Dustin. But it happened, and at the very least, Dustin isn’t going home mad at Steve, or feeling like shit. Tomorrow is probably the time to tackle Robin, which might be more difficult since she’s more stubborn than Dustin can be.

The rain is coming down hard, but as Steve pulls into the driveway he notices it—Eddie’s van parked outside. Steve’s heart leaps into his throat. He doesn’t have anything in the car to shield him from the rain, so he accepts that his hair is just going to get ruined.

He doesn’t see Eddie until he steps out of the car.

He sits on the ground, soaked by the rain with his back against the front door of the house. Steve can hardly make his face out — the only light they have is above the doors, but it’s not too bright with the rain.

Though it’s not so much a matter of what Eddie looks like because the entire energy around them has shifted. Steve feels anxious because he can tell Eddie feels anxious; and from the thick smell of cigarette smoke that still lingers in the air even with the rain, he wonders how long Eddie has just been sitting against his front door chain smoking.

“Eddie?” Steve questions, blinking through the rain. Eddie stands before him.

And then it’s a matter of Eddie’s voice, tight, and panicked when he rushes forward holding onto Steve’s arm—he hasn’t touched Steve since the Wheeler’s bathroom—and says, “Can we—can we keep talking?”

Chapter Text

Eddie won’t stop fucking looking at him. His eyes are big, and Steve can hardly deal with that, with having to exist under Eddie’s gaze again—it’s always been too overwhelming. He gets the front door open, can still feel Eddie’s eyes on the back of his head as he does it, his hands are shaking.

Steve gets them both inside, pulling Eddie in by the elbow to the laundry room. Eddie’s clothes are completely soaked through.

“Steve, I—” Eddie tries.

“We’ll talk, okay?” Steve mutters. “Just—you’re soaked. Let me find you some dry clothes, okay?”

Eddie says a quiet, “Okay.”

There’s a basket on top of the dryer of shit Steve has yet to put away. He digs through it and finds a pair of sweatpants and an old Dio shirt that was Eddie’s. He hands the clothes to Eddie, who is just standing next to him looking akin to a drowned rat.

“You can wear these,” Steve says. “I’m just…going to go change upstairs. You can put your clothes in the dryer.”

Eddie nods, and Steve escapes. He runs up the steps, two at a time, and goes into his room. He digs through his drawers and pulls out another pair of sweats and a Hawkins High swim team hoodie, the AC has him feeling a bit cold and shivery. Or maybe that’s the anxiety of Eddie being downstairs. What the fuck is happening right now?

After changing, he glances up at himself in the mirror. He runs a hand through his hair, wet with the rain, but he hadn’t gotten as soaked as Eddie. Which meant Eddie had probably been sitting out there for a little while as the rain came down. What the fuck is happening right now?

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he takes a few steps over to his bedroom door and pulls it open, only to find Eddie standing on the other end of it, fist up and seconds away from knocking. He’s wearing the clothes, barefooted and hair wet and dripping onto the shirt. He brings his hand down, nervously begins wringing his hands together, fiddling with his rings.

“Your hair,” Steve says stupidly. He turns away and goes to find a towel he has draped on his desk chair. It’s dry right now, and maybe a little gross to give Eddie a used towel but also he and Eddie have showered together at points, so.

“It’s fine, man,” Eddie says, following Steve into his room, but Steve forces the towel into his hands anyway. Eddie takes it, towels off his hair roughly until it’s not dripping but damp and stringy, then throws the towel on the floor and waves his hands in a ta-da sort of motion. “Good now?”

Steve swallows, nods. He looks down and away, suddenly feeling a little stupid and shy. “You wanted to talk?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “You said, uh, you were saying back at my place…um…” he trails off. Steve glances up at him, Eddie’s head is tilted forward ever so slightly, as if he’s encouraging Steve to talk. What? Eddie wanted him to say all that shit again? Embarrass himself all over again?

Steve takes a step back, buries his hands in the hoodie’s pocket, shoulders slumping down. “Don’t—don’t be a fucking dick. You heard what I said. I’m not going to fucking repeat it just to stroke your ego, or something—”

“What?” Eddie interrupts. “Steve, no—shit. That’s not what I meant, I just—” he groans, hand coming up to his hair, running frustratedly through the top, making his bangs all askew. “I don’t know how to do this,” he says. “I don’t know how to say this. You just completely fucked things around for me, do you know that? I had this all figured out, how I was going to handle this—handle you, and then you go and flip everything around on me. You’re always fucking up my plans.” He doesn’t look mad, Steve thinks. Almost fond.

But still, it hurts to hear Eddie’s words. Steve already knew this, he knew talking to Eddie wouldn’t help anything, all it was going to do was show Eddie how fucking stupid Steve was.

“I’m sorry…” Steve whispers.

“I’m not saying this right,” Eddie mutters, he looks upset now. He takes a step forward and grabs Steve by the waist, he grips at Steve’s hoodie. Steve’s hands come up, can’t help but touch him, they grip onto Eddie’s forearms. If Steve was a stronger man, he thinks he would push Eddie away, but he can’t, he just holds on.

“Please don’t apologize,” Eddie says. “Listen to me, okay? It was real.” Eddie’s voice is quiet and shaking like he’s scared. “I’m trying to tell you that everything we did, all the times I was here, were real for me, too.”

Steve tries to pull back with the shock of it, even with him holding onto Eddie and Eddie holding tightly onto him. It’s like they take a step back together. He blinks a few more times, still confused, like his vision will give him mental clarity. But — “But you said…”

“I know what I said,” Eddie says, pulling Steve a little closer, on the edge of panic. “I know what I said but that’s because I’m stupid. I’m the biggest idiot in the world, and I—Steve. Do you know how unfuckingbelievable this whole thing is? You and me? It goes against everything I’ve ever thought I knew. Liking men? Yeah, sure I dealt with all that when I was twelve. Liking you and not just liking the sex—liking you beyond the sex, liking you before the sex.”

Steve feels himself burning red. “Before the sex?” Liking him?

Eddie gives him that sad smile. “It was so stupid. I was being framed for murder by a guy killing people from an alternate dimension and there was a little part of my brain going, oh my god do I have a crush on Steve Harrington right now? It was mortifying, and I flirted with you like crazy.”

“You flirted with me?!” Crush?!

Eddie tilts his head to the side, eyes large and a wistful little smile on his face. “Steve,” he murmurs.

Steve takes a steadying breath, he rubs at his eyes. Is this real? Is he dreaming right now? Did he actually crash on the way home and this is what his subconscious has dreamt of to fuck with him? He thinks his hands might be shaking a little, like maybe if Eddie wasn’t directly in front of him, his fingers digging into his sides, that he would fall right over.

“So you…lied?”

Eddie seems to falter for a moment. “It’s more complicated than that,” he says. “I said what I thought was true. What I thought I needed to say because I was…” Eddie looks away, his grip twitching against Steve’s waist.

“You were…?”

“Because I felt like I was falling apart. Because there was no reality, at least one that I lived in, where you would ever feel anything like that towards me. Because I thought you thought it was just sex.” Eddie pauses for a moment, like he’s waiting for Steve to do something, then says, “It wasn’t just sex, right?” Eddie’s breath hitches. “That’s what this whole ‘real’ thing is code for, right? That this is…something more?” There’s humor in his voice, but the edge of worry isn’t gone.

But Steve just laughs, can’t help it, he feels a little hysterical himself. “I didn’t know we had a code.” His hands trail up Eddie’s arms, to his shoulders where his t-shirt feels a little damp from his wet hair. “You’re not fucking with me right now?” he whispers between the two of them.

Eddie laughs quietly, emotion in it. “I’m not fucking with you. You’re not fucking with me?”

“No,” Steve whispers. He leans forward, their foreheads pressing together, their noses brush and Steve’s eyes are fluttering shut.

He didn’t mean it to be a come on, not really, just wants to feel close. Their interactions lately have been so cold, so calculated and clinical, but Steve feels lit up now. Now Eddie is here and touching him.

Now, Eddie kisses him again.

Once, Eddie had kissed him and he had felt like he was drowning, and this is a little bit similar. It’s also a little bit different. He sighs into Eddie’s mouth, melting against him. It’s a release, it’s all the pent up anger seeping away, and it’s just Eddie, his damp hair between his fingers, and Eddie’s own arms wrapping tightly around Steve’s waist, hands up his back, their chests and stomachs pressed together, breathing against each other, into each other.

It feels a little bit like coming home. Steve’s shocked he’s able to place it—he’s never known what that felt like before.

Eddie’s tongue slips into his mouth, curls against Steve’s. And oh fuck—shit—Steve can’t believe he almost forgot what this felt like. He walks them back, he can’t help it. At the very least it’s a practiced motion between them. Steve sits down on the bed, pulling Eddie down with him, their mouths never parting. They had always been very good at this part.

“Steve,” Eddie mumbles against Steve’s mouth. “We should—” Steve kisses him again, briefly. “Keep talking.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, but pulls Eddie back in. His brain feels all soupy and warm, and Eddie’s hands are so firm where they are on his chest now, still clinging into the fabric of his sweater. Steve lays back on the bed, pulling Eddie into him until they’re lying down with Eddie settled in between Steve’s legs, and Steve’s hands buried in his hair and they’re kissing, warm and deep, and Steve feels so alive.

After a long, blissful moment, Eddie pulls back, drops his forehead against Steve’s neck and laughs. The feeling of it reverberates through Steve’s body. Eddie’s warm breath ghosts over Steve’s skin, as he presses a chaste kiss there. “Dude, you’re so fucking distracting,” he says.

Steve blinks at the ceiling. “Oops,” he says. He doesn’t feel very oops, though.

Eddie leans up on one arm, bracing himself over Steve and just looks at him again. A hand comes up, palm smoothing over the side of Steve’s face, Eddie’s fingertips threading through the hair on Steve’s temple. It makes Steve want to pull away, to hide away in Eddie. He can’t believe he almost forgot how it felt to exist under Eddie’s gaze like this. He almost thinks about kissing him again, just to distract him, because now he knows that works. Maybe he knew that before, though.

“‘Real’ is code for something more,” Steve says.

“Huh?” Eddie looks confused.

“What you said earlier.”

“Oh,” he bites his lip over a smile. “Right.”

Steve offers his own nervous smile in return. After another moment, he taps on Eddie’s chest, signaling that he wants to sit up. Eddie scrambles back on the bed, but he doesn’t stop touching Steve, somehow. His hands trail down his chest, over Steve’s hip, to his knee and leg, until they are both sitting criss-crossed on the bed facing each other, and Eddie’s fingertips are dancing across the skin of Steve’s ankle. It makes him shiver.

“Why did you think I only wanted sex?” Steve asks. He doesn’t quite know where else to start.

“Because you’re Steve Harrington—”

Steve just grimaces. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some sort of otherworldly entity. Like I’m not—a person, or something.” Part of him wants to say like I’m not real, but that word sits differently in his mouth now.

Eddie’s hand squeezes around his ankle. “Of course you’re a person.”

“Why would Steve Harrington,” he stresses his own name with the same inflection Eddie always does, “only want sex from you? What is so confusing about the idea of me being interested in you?”

Eddie’s eyes dance around his face for a moment. He shrugs. “Maybe because I don’t understand why you would.”

And that, like many things about Eddie, takes Steve’s breath away.

“No one has ever wanted me,” Eddie tells him. “My mom was sixteen when she got pregnant, eventually left me with my dad who definitely did not want me. I’ve been with guys, sure, but not longer than once. Maybe for a night, but more often than not it’s more like the ten fucking minutes—tops, by the way—it takes for them to blow their load. After which they looked like they would hit me if I so much as breathed the wrong way. So, yeah, it’s pretty fucking wild to me that you, Steve Harrington, ex-jock man and decently well known, popular high school guy; but moreso the nicest person I have ever met, would want to be doing anything sexual with me, let alone repeatedly and with enthusiasm.” Eddie stops, breathing heavily. He looks upset now—mad, even—and looks away from Steve.

“Hey,” Steve says, trying to catch his attention again.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says.

Steve shakes his head. “No, you don’t need to—”

“But I do.” Eddie looks at him again now, brow furrowed and serious. “Because I let all of that—all my past shit—influence what I thought about this. I made all these assumptions instead of just, like, talking to you.”

“I didn’t talk to you either,” Steve reasons. “I could have tried harder to talk about it, but I just thought…” he sighs. “I mean, honestly, dude I wasn’t thinking at all. I was categorically not thinking about it, about what it obviously meant to me. Because some part of my brain knew that thinking about it would open up a whole can of things I was trying not to think about.”

“What were you trying not to think about?”

Steve bursts out with a hysterical laugh. “The whole being into guys thing? The fact that I liked you and I couldn’t hide it, not even from myself.” He can feel his face burning, he can feel the way his throat wants to close up. But it’s Eddie—and they’re talking. “You’re not the first guy I’ve been…attracted to. But you’re the only one I’ve liked like this.” He reaches towards Eddie, to the damp ends of his hair, his fingers cradle the back of Eddie’s neck. “I didn’t know what to do with it—I still don’t.”

Eddie leans into the touch. “So that’s not just me, huh?”

“Not just you. It’s like you’re the only thing I think about right now. It’s like you appeared out of fucking nowhere—one moment you were just a new friend of mine, and the next you were kissing me on your bed—”

“Wait, hold on,” Eddie interrupts. “You kissed me.”

Steve feels affronted suddenly, he jerks his head back. “Uh, no, I’m pretty sure you kissed me first.”

“Dude, I thought you were one of the straightest guys on the planet. There was no way I would have kissed you without thoroughly investigating the vibes first.”

“Was that not what you were doing by making me dinner?”

Eddie’s mouth is practically hanging open, a glint in his eye, the corners of his mouth twitching up. “I made you fucking hot dogs and macaroni, is that what you consider a getting laid kind of meal?”

Steve laughs. He honest to god throws his head back and laughs. Because—holy fuck—this is ridiculous, right?

Eddie’s laughing, too, Steve realizes. He’s looking at Steve like he’s a little insane, which he might be. Are they actually fighting about who may or may not have kissed who first? How was Steve eating pizza and sulking only a few hours ago?

“What the fuck?” Eddie laughs. “We’re quite the pair, huh?”

Eddie smiles, and Steve laughs again—hasn’t stopped, really. He reaches a hand over and links their fingers together. Because Eddie is there in front of him, Eddie is real, and he thinks maybe they are real.

But Eddie had definitely kissed him first, the fucker.

***

It’s well past midnight now, but neither of them are feeling very tired. Or that’s what they tell each other. Steve asks if Eddie is hungry—he has leftover pizza in the fridge—but Eddie insists that he and the kids ate junk all night long and he’s far too full. Instead, Steve tells him he could make hot chocolate, like that one time, and Eddie blushes, says yes. Steve likes the color on him. They both pad down to the kitchen without another word spoken.

This time, it’s Eddie sitting on the counter beside the stove. He has his head tilted back against the cabinet. “You asked me something here, once, that confused the hell out of me.”

Admittedly, Steve doesn’t remember. “I did?”

“You asked me about guys and girls. And about me liking both, if I did.” He waves a hand around in the air. “All that shit.”

“Oh,” Steve blushes. “Right.” He remembers now.

“You would do that, sometimes. Ask me shit, or do something, and it would send me spiraling,” he says. “So, do you wanna tell me what the fuck that all meant?” Eddie’s tone light and playful, and Steve just laughs at it.

“Um.” He actually tries to think of something. “I was curious, maybe…I was really obsessed with trying to figure out if it was just me. Like, if I was alone in feeling the way I did about you. I think I was just genuinely curious about if you just liked guys, or something.”

“Would anything have been different, if I had only liked guys?” Eddie asks.

Steve shakes his head. “Of course not.” He stirs the milk. “Do you?”

“Only like guys?” Eddie asks, and Steve nods to confirm. “No. Well,” Eddie shrugs. He picks at the fabric of his borrowed sweatpants. “Remember I said it was complicated? It was—is. I remember having crushes on girls as a kid. The whole…guy thing, I also just sort of knew about. That just clicked in sometime in middle school. I don’t know. I know there’s names for all this shit—gay or queer or whatever—but figuring out which one is for me sounds so exhausting, and I never had someone to share it with anyway so it didn’t make a whole lotta sense putting in the effort to figure it out.”

Steve nods, swallows around his feelings. He stirs.

After another moment, Eddie’s hand reaches out and pulls at the string of Steve’s hoodie. “It’s okay if you have it figured out, though—or want to figure it out. Don’t listen to me—I think we’ve established that I have weird, convoluted views of situations.”

Steve smiles, he feels a bit more relaxed. “Fair enough,” he says. “I am figuring it out and I’ll—I’ll tell you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie replies. His hands are still playing with the hoodie strings, thumb pressing into the frayed edges. “So, when did you start thinking about it? You and me?”

Steve tucks his chin forwards into his chest, a little shy. “Well I mean, I was aware of it on some level. It’s not like I wasn’t aware that whatever was going on wasn’t just hooking up. It kind of clicked in for me around prom. Or, after prom. When you and I—” Steve blushes. “You know.”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, I remember what we did after prom, Steve.”

There’s a little dark glint to his eye, making Steve’s stomach do a familiar swoop. Then it morphs into something a little sadder.

“I really am a fucking idiot, then,” he whispers.

“Why?”

“Prom was like the moment for me—when I knew I was in way too deep with you. I guess I just panicked—I had no clue what to fucking do, and I was so certain that all this was only ever going to be fooling around with you. I was pathetic about it, honestly.”

It all starts to fit together for him. Eddie pulling away, the lying, the excuses he made so he didn’t have to sleep at Steve’s house with him anymore. Because, yeah, everything they were doing did not come across as two dudes just having sex to let off some steam, or whatever. Steve’s known that—apparently Eddie’s known that. The whole full blown sex together had really been the doorway to realizing that, it seems. They’re really fucking stupid, aren’t they?

“What was your plan, then?” Steve asks. He tries to keep the bitter feeling down. “I was the one who wanted to talk that night—at the party—not you.”

“Look, I don’t want to argue about this—because I very much agree that I acted like a piece of shit that night,” Eddie begins. “But you didn’t want to talk. You pulled me into a bathroom, tried to hook up with me, and then when I didn’t want to you started accusing me of sleeping around with some girl. I wasn’t ready to talk about everything that night, and you were drunk and upset—”

“Because you weren’t talking to me! Because you were avoiding me!”

Eddie looks downright miserable at Steve’s words. It makes it really hard to continue to be stern about this—because it is obvious, with everything Eddie has told him recently, that whatever Eddie was going through these past few weeks, and before, was also pretty shitty.

Steve sighs. “I’ll give it to you. Maybe that night wasn’t the best night to talk. But if not then, when? Because you were doing a pretty good job at avoiding me.”

“I’ve told you once before, Steve,” Eddie whispers. “I’m a coward. I run.”

Steve’s clenches and unclenches his jaw. He opens his mouth to say something, because he hates it when Eddie talks about himself like that—but Eddie just shakes his head. Asking him to stay quiet.

“I should have told you before,” Eddie says. “Well—I mean, I think we’ve established that any line of communication would have been beneficial for us before this point, but, what I mean is, if I was so sure that it had to stop, I should have been outright and said it. I just…” Eddie stops. When he speaks again it’s quieter, a little more pain-filled. “I am so into you, man. But I was also so fucking afraid. I didn’t know what to do with everything I felt for you—and when I didn’t think you felt the same, that feeling felt like shit.”

Steve is familiar with it. “So you thought it was better to just…leave?”

“I thought you would just get bored and move on to someone else.”

Steve gets it—a part of him really gets it, the fear, the running away. But still— “You think that little of me?” he asks, quietly.

Eddie reacts in an instant, panicked, hurt crawling across his face. He doesn’t seem to know what to say in response, but then it clicks. Oh, Steve gets it now.

“You think that little of yourself?”

Steve drops the whisk for a moment and stands in front of Eddie, wrapping a hand behind his knee to pull him a little closer.

“You’re an idiot,” Steve says fondly. He squeezes behind Eddie’s knee. And only when Eddie tilts his chin up to look up does Steve kiss him. Deep, and a little bit of tongue, just because he can, and when he pulls back Eddie looks a little winded, distracted, maybe.

At some point through the kissing, Eddie brings a hand up to Steve’s chest, resting on the neckline of his sweater. Eddie grips gently at the fabric. “You can’t just—you can’t just kiss me after we’ve been discussing what a fucking dick I’ve been to you.”

“It’s fine,” Steve tells him.

Eddie blinks at him. “I don’t think it is. Steve—I am sorry, for what I said that night, for pulling away and not wanting to talk about it. I was trying to figure out how to deal with myself, my feelings—I was being selfish.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “So what if you were? Maybe I was being selfish by not talking to you about what I was going through. We were both being stupid. You were just trying to not get hurt. Eddie—I understand.”

Eddie drops his gaze. “You’re going to burn the milk…”

Steve pulls away, reluctantly. He goes back to stirring, adding the mix. A few moments pass between them—everything is almost ready.

“For the record, man, I’m never going to get bored of you.”

Eddie just snorts. “You don’t know that.” His tone is joking, edging on more lighthearted, but there is something heavier underneath there, Steve sees it in Eddie’s eyes when he glances up at him.

“No, I do.” He turns the stove off. He takes a step back, looking out the kitchen window where it faces the backyard. “Maybe it’s too much, maybe I am too much, but if we—if we’re going to do this, if we’re going to be more than just friends, or just two guys who hook up and never talk about it, then you have to know that I am one hundred percent in this. I am, like, totally obsessed with you.”

Eddie hops down from the counter, and takes a step towards Steve. “You are never too much for me.” He grabs onto Steve by the pocket of his hoodie. “And the feeling is very much mutual. Quite frankly I don’t think I’m ever going to let go of you again.”

Steve smiles. “Good.” He leans in, and so does Eddie, his hand preemptively sliding into the hair on the back of Steve’s head. Before Steve can kiss him, Eddie tugs gently, tipping his head back and his mouth away.

“Don’t forget about the hot chocolate,” he whispers.

Steve lets out a little breathless laugh. “Mean,” he says.

“You said you would make me hot chocolate,” Eddie replies factually, a little pout on his face.

“Mean and needy.” He manages to slip away, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out two mugs.

“Oh, you wanna talk about needy?” Eddie replies, sliding up behind Steve, a sly little grin on his face that only makes Steve flush, then laugh as he turns away.

“We are so not at the point tonight where you can joke about what I’m like in bed.” He pours the hot chocolate into the mugs. When he’s done, Eddie’s hands grab at his hips, pulling at Steve until his back is flush against Eddie’s front. His arms come and wrap around Steve’s waist, just holding him close. Steve closes his eyes for a moment, relaxes back into it.

“I’m serious about this, Steve,” Eddie says. “You and me. I’m one hundred percent in it.”

Steve just breathes, his eyes still closed. He runs his hands over Eddie’s arms around his body, holds them steady, holds them close.

“You’re here with me?” Steve whispers.

“I’m right here, baby,” Eddie whispers back.

The relief that floods through him sets his entire body alight. He feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and is glad for a moment that Eddie can’t see him.

He doesn’t know how long they stand there together, but Steve just listens to his own breathing, focuses on the press and the rise and fall of Eddie’s chest on his back. He thinks on some level they’ve been here before, holding each other like this. But it’s never been like this, where they have both said it. The simple acknowledgement of it makes Steve feel a little silly, but still just so fucking happy. He lets himself fall into the feeling of it all.

***

They go to the backyard to drink their hot chocolate. It’s stopped raining, and the night air is much cooler. Eddie sits with his feet dangled in the pool—Steve, a little further back on a chair. The stars are bright tonight, and Steve enjoys watching Eddie looking up towards the night sky.

They talk a little bit more. He explains how he also fell into the easy rhythm they seemed to develop. They don’t talk much more about prom, or the bathroom, but they laugh together as they realize the idiocy that extended into both of them.

At some point, Steve drifts off sitting in the chair. He wakes to Eddie’s gentle nudging, a hand pulling him up. They don’t even bring their mugs back inside, he just follows Eddie through the house and up to his bedroom. He crawls onto the bed, on top of the sheets, wraps his arms around a pillow and presses his face into the fabric.

He hears a quiet chuckle from Eddie somewhere in the room, there’s a shuffling of drawers, and then Eddie is crawling up beside him. When Steve looks, Eddie’s wearing a pair of his boxers. Steve smiles. Eddie still remembers where everything is.

He strips down to just his own boxers, throws the clothes he was wearing across the room, and Eddie just laughs at him. Then they crawl underneath the blankets and end up lying facing each other. The moonlight from the window cascades across Eddie’s face, and Steve smiles at it.

“Want to sleep?” Eddie asks him quietly.

“Not yet,” Steve says. “Wanna keep talking to you.”

“Okay.” Eddie runs a hand through Steve’s hair, tucks it behind his ear. “Tell me something embarrassing.”

Steve scrunches his nose up. “I don’t like this pillow talk.”

Eddie pokes his cheek. “I’ll tell you something embarrassing first.”

Steve lets out a little yawn. “Sure.”

“After prom, after we fell asleep, I sat by the window over there and smoked,” he says, eyes focused behind Steve where the window is. “You looked all pretty laying in bed and I wanted to cry looking at you.”

Steve screws up his face. “Eddie that’s not embarrassing, that’s just super fucking sad.”

Eddie laughs. “That’s why it’s so embarrassing to tell you.”

“I didn’t like that story,” Steve mumbles, sleepy but not wanting to admit it.

“Your turn, then,” Eddie says.

Steve thinks about it for a few moments. “Uh, Jonathan beat me up in my junior year.”

“That doesn’t count—everyone heard about that,” Eddie says.

“Okay, that’s embarrassing.”

Eddie laughs, presses in a little closer, the tips of their noses brush. Steve closes his eyes, feels Eddie’s breath ghosting over his face.

“Why d’ya want to know?” he asks.

“Anything you want to tell me,” Eddie whispers. “Just want to know everything about you.”

Steve smiles, letting out a long mmm sound from the back of his throat. He reaches out, slinging an arm across Eddie’s waist, his hand slipping underneath the shirt Eddie is still wearing and splaying across his back. His skin is warm, and Steve wants to burrow down inside it.

Eddie tips his chin forward, and then they are kissing again, the soft press of their mouths together. Eddie’s lips are a little sticky and sweet from the hot chocolate, and Steve pushes on his lower back, pulling him ever so slightly closer as he does.

After another moment, Eddie is leaning back on the bed, and Steve is following him, swinging a leg between Eddie’s so he’s half lying on top of him. He wishes he had the energy to press himself up and over Eddie’s body, but he feels lazy, and tired, all he wants to do is have Eddie close to him.

Eddie’s own hands slip around Steve’s waist, the pads of his fingers pressing into his skin. Steve kind of wants him to drag his fingers all along his back, tug him down harder. He hums and smiles against Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie laughs as well. Steve presses a kiss to his neck, likes to feel the rumble of his laugh.

“Do you want to sleep now?” Eddie whispers.

Steve presses in closer, pushes up so he is practically laying on top of Eddie now. He feels heavy, and loose, he wonders if he’s too heavy on top of Eddie. But Eddie just hooks his leg around Steve’s, rocks up. Steve thinks they’re both half hard where they press together, at the very least he is.

They stay like that for a long time, kissing, slow and syrupy. Steve pulls away to kiss down the expanse of Eddie’s neck, soft skin and warmth, where it smells like him—he’s back to smelling like his old shampoo, not Steve’s, which Steve has conflicted feelings about. They rock together slowly, soft sighs slipping out between them, breath hitching, and Eddie lets out a quiet little moan as Steve sucks a mark behind his ear. It doesn’t go much further than that, though.

“Don’t think I could get going right now,” Steve eventually whispers, pulling his mouth away from Eddie’s. He presses his face into Eddie’s shoulder, closes his eyes. “M’tired.”

“S’okay. It’s almost three in the morning,” Eddie says, breath ghosting over Steve’s ear.

Steve slides off Eddie, but still stays close, sidles up next to him as Eddie’s arm wraps around his back, and throws his own arm over Eddie’s stomach. Steve still rucks Eddie’s t-shirt up a bit to press his hand against his warm skin.

“You’ll be here in the morning?” The question slips out of Steve’s mouth. He wishes it hadn’t—too desperate, too needy. Embarrassing.

“I’ll be here for every single morning you want me to be,” Eddie replies, and then maybe Steve doesn’t feel so stupid anymore, because that is—oh, a very nice thought.

They get the blankets settled around them, warm and wrapped up in each other. Steve is practically laying on top of Eddie again—on his side, head resting on Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s arm is still wrapped around Steve’s back, hand tangled in Steve’s hair. He presses a kiss to the top of Steve’s head.

“I fucking missed you, man,” he whispers, Steve can feel his lips form the words. “I missed you so fucking much.”

Steve almost cries again. He turns his head inwards, presses it against Eddie’s chest, presses a kiss through the fabric of his shirt. He mutters, “I missed you too. No idea how much.”

Eddie’s fingers scratch through Steve’s hair. The pressure is nice, relaxing.

Steve is so tired, feels himself starting to nod off. He’s not afraid to, now. Because Eddie is going to be there, and Eddie missed him, and Steve missed him back. Eddie is real, and he is laying beside Steve in his bed, and they are wrapped around each other, and they are real. Steve thinks that’s more than enough for now.

Chapter Text

Everything is calm and warm as Steve wakes. Eddie is there, like he said he would be, and Steve is wrapped up and pressed along Eddie’s back, an arm thrown over his waist. He smiles—can’t help it. He kind of wants to punch the air in celebration, because he never pictured this working out for him. He could never have believed Eddie would end up beside him in his bed ever again.

Steve’s hand trails along Eddie’s waist, up his chest, and pulls Eddie tighter against him, Steve hooking his chin over Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie shifts in his sleep, leaning back into Steve’s touch, his eyes fluttering open. Steve tilts his head towards him, presses a kiss to the soft part of his cheek. Feels Eddie’s face spread into a smile.

“Good morning,” Eddie says.

Steve settles down behind Eddie again, his nose dragging a line from Eddie’s jaw to the back of his neck. “Good morning.”

Eddie pushes his hips back, and Steve lets out a little gasp—realizing a little belatedly that yeah okay, morning wood and all. Christ, Eddie must feel it. But he can’t seem to help it—sleepy brain, and it’s Eddie. Steve pushes his hips forward, rubbing the line of his dick against Eddie’s back. Steve sucks in a breath as he does it.

“Sorry,” Steve murmurs.

A small rumble of a laugh comes from Eddie’s throat, gravelly with the morning. “Don’t need to apologize for that.”

Eddie slowly pries himself out of Steve’s grasp for only a moment as he turns around in the bed, their knees knocking together as they end up facing one another. His cheek presses into the pillow, his hair a little wild, and Steve thinks he looks so cute he might die with it.

“Hi.”

Steve smiles, dopily. “Hi.”

Morning breath and all, he drags Eddie in for a kiss. He means it to be mostly chaste, you know, just a good morning. But Eddie’s skin is warm and flushed, and his mouth is so soft. And to be fair, Eddie is the one who smooths his tongue along Steve’s bottom lip, and it’s Eddie who tilts and presses himself in a little bit further. But Steve really isn’t complaining.

Last night's kisses were softer, but more rushed. There was an air of desperation, they were the embodiment of disbelief crashing back together. This is slow, and deep, and definitely practiced. Steve makes a probably embarrassing sound into Eddie’s open mouth, which only seems to spur Eddie on further. He shivers as Eddie trails a few fingers down the line of his spine.

Steve pulls back, a wet smacking sound between them as he does. He breathes out slowly, as Eddie trails his wet lips across Steve’s cheek, nudging his jaw up with his nose, and pressing a slow kiss to the soft skin there.

“How awake are you?” Eddie asks.

Steve blinks once, then again. Then asks, “Huh?”

“How awake are you right now?” Eddie asks again. His voice is still low and gravelly, it seeps down into Steve’s skin, it sends a thrill through his entire body.

“I’m awake,” Steve says. “Why?”

Eddie smiles against Steve’s skin, he can feel the nip of his teeth as he presses another kiss to the side of Steve’s neck. “No reason,” he whispers, slow and gentle.

He brings his mouth back to Steve’s, slipping his tongue in and pressing it behind Steve’s teeth, to the roof of his mouth. Steve doesn’t know what comes over him, (a lie, he does know: it’s Eddie) he sucks a little on Eddie’s tongue, on his bottom lip. Eddie breathes in sharply through his nose, pushing in further. Steve’s hand curls around Eddie’s hip, slides down his back and rests on the slope of his ass.

Eddie shifts, rolling further into Steve, not pulling his mouth away. He gets his knee between Steve’s legs, his hand splays out on Steve’s back, urges his hips forward. Steve’s dick rides up along the curve of Eddie’s hip, trapped underneath his boxers. He hisses at the friction at first, pulling his mouth away, his head tilting back to let out a gasp. It’s nothing crazy, just the simple press of the two of them rubbing against each other but it gets Steve going like crazy. It’s been a while, and Eddie has always made him feel so much wilder than anyone else he has ever been with.

“Are you—are you sure?” Steve whispers. “Because, we can—we can keep talking—”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Eddie says, halfway between a groan and a laugh. He presses his hand again onto Steve’s back, it curls around his hip, and pulls Steve against him again. “Jesus Christ, come on, Steve.”

Steve laughs; laughs and then lets out a moan as he grinds up against Eddie again—again—and then – he has never been one to be very selfish in bed – so he shifts their positions, gets one of his knees beside Eddie’s, in between Eddie’s legs. Eddie’s still wearing a shirt—a fucking travesty, honestly—but Eddie’s got him feeling desperate, a little crazy. Steve shoves his hands up the back of it, both hands smoothing up his skin. He jerks forward in Eddie’s grasp, his hard dick grinding up against Eddie’s stomach, Eddie’s own pressed into the curve of his hip. He groans, head tilted against the pillow.

“Fuck, Steve,” Eddie whispers, presses another deep kiss to Steve’s mouth, his hand grips at Steve’s waist, keeps urging him forward. “Come on, come on.”

Steve feels lit on fire in the best way. He breathes out sharply, he pushes up, rolling the two of them over so that he is mostly hovering over Eddie. Eddie, again, gets his knee up between Steve’s legs, giving Steve something to rub against, to get the friction he needs. Steve attaches his mouth to the bolt of Eddie’s jaw, trails his tongue there, sucks on the skin until Eddie is moaning quietly, a hand gripping at the base of Steve’s hair.

“Do you want more?” Steve asks quietly, against his ear. “What do you want?” He thinks of all the times Eddie’s asked him that. He thinks of all the nights he just had thinking about Eddie, and what they would do, thinking he would never have it again.

“This is good,” Eddie says. “God—fuck—this is so good, keep going.”

Steve moves his hips in a tiny, circular rhythm. He knows how to do this bit well—how to treat someone underneath him to a good time. And he’ll get to that, he will, but Eddie’s hands are gripping at his hips, pulling him down as he goes, grinding against Eddie’s thigh and his hip.

“Shit,” Steve whispers, pulling his mouth away from Eddie to gasp. He rocks forward, chasing the feeling.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes out. “Get yourself there, baby, you feel so fucking good right now,” he murmurs. Which is…new. Eddie wasn’t one to hold back from expletives but the talking, Jesus Christ—that was new, something a little different. Something he thinks he really likes. It seeps in, digs deep down into him and pulls something out.

Steve whines. He buries his face against Eddie’s neck. Eddie’s hands feel like they’re everywhere, in his hair, on his waist, his ass, pulling him down. And he must know, Steve thinks, like he always seemed to know what drives Steve absolutely fucking crazy.

Because Eddie keeps muttering things like, “You look so fucking good,” and, “Fuck, yeah baby, keep going.” He talks, presses his mouth right up next to Steve’s ear where he keeps his face buried, until he gasps, and twitches forward, losing his rhythm for a moment and comes in his fucking boxers.

Steve breathes slowly, he releases all his body weight on top of Eddie, though he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s pressing a kiss to Steve’s temple, smoothing his hands up and down Steve’s back, to the back of his head, fingertips brushing through his hair.

After another moment, when Steve feels like he’s come back to himself, he can still feel the hard press of Eddie beneath him. And Eddie’s been so patient, he thinks. Steve rocks forward, causing the both of them to hiss—Eddie from the pressure, Steve slightly from the overstimulation. Steve trails his lips down Eddie’s neck again, sucks a hickey to his skin. He leans up and moves so that he’s fully sitting over Eddie’s lap. He shifts forward, and traps Eddie’s dick underneath his ass, and then he rocks back and forth.

Eddie moans. A sound Steve wants to drink up with his mouth, but Eddie looks so incredible spread out underneath him like this. He feels high with it. Eddie is still wearing his fucking t-shirt—Steve kind of regrets not getting it off him, but he thinks maybe it’s too late now. Instead he rucks it up with his hands, pushes the fabric so that it rests under his armpits. Steve smooths his hands over the skin, thumbs over Eddie’s nipples until they peak, loves the way it makes Eddie buck up underneath him.

“Fuck, Steve,” Eddie whispers. “You look fucking incredible right now.”

Steve smiles, he doesn’t stop moving his hips, runs a hand up Eddie’s neck, cups his jaw. “Me?”

Eddie chokes out a laugh, hands gripping at Steve’s hips. “God, yeah.”

“You should see yourself. You look beautiful,” Steve says. Eddie flushes, tries to dip his head away, but there’s nowhere he can go. Steve’s hand moves to Eddie’s chin, takes it between his finger and thumb, leans over and tips Eddie’s mouth to his for another kiss. Steve makes it a little dirty—licks into his mouth, pulls at Eddie’s bottom lip with his teeth—because he knows Eddie likes it that way. He remembers.

Steve grinds down on Eddie’s dick. Another image comes to him in a split second—Eddie spread out like this, Steve rocking in his lap. But different—deeper.

“God,” Steve breathes out. “Next time we’re doing this it’s with you inside me.”

Eddie chokes on a strangled sound. Says, “Oh my fucking—Steve—” grips hard at Steve’s hips, pulls him down and grinds up so that he is lifted ever so slightly off the mattress. He moans, neck red, and flushed, and he’s so beautiful. He’s so fucking beautiful.

Steve kisses him as he comes.

***

They shower in Steve’s ensuite bathroom, though separately. As Eddie exits the bathroom, a cloud of steam follows him, a towel wrapped low around his waist. He’s rubbing another one roughly through his hair. “I missed your water pressure, man,” he says.

Steve just rolls his eyes, a fond smile on his face. “I’m so glad that is what you missed.” He’s sitting on the side of his bed, already dressed—another pair of sweats and the Dio t-shirt Eddie slept in. (No stains, he checked.)

Eddie gives him a little smirk. He slides up to Steve, stands in between his legs. He runs his thumb along Steve’s collarbone. “Are you jealous of your own shower, Stevie?”

“I mean, the shower did just get to see you totally naked,” Steve muses, sighing a little dramatically.

In a quick movement, Eddie drops the towel.

“Better?” he asks. There’s a stupid shit-eating grin on his face.

Steve just gapes, mouth feeling a little dry. They just got off—but he’s only nineteen and uh—Eddie naked. He reaches out and runs a hand along the side of Eddie’s waist, across his scars. He stands, and brings Eddie in for a kiss by the back of his neck.

Eddie leans into it, hums, and his hands gripping Steve’s shoulders, and after another moment he pulls back. “Nice shirt, by the way. Have you ever listened to Dio?”

Steve just scoffs. “Shut up,” he says. Pulls Eddie in for another kiss, buries his hands in Eddie’s wet hair, but then remembers, uh—Eddie naked, and slips a hand down his back, to an asscheek, squeezes and pulls Eddie further against him because he can.

Downstairs, Steve can hear the front door open. He pulls away from Eddie with wide-eyes. They look at each other.

“Hello?” Robin’s voice calls from below, and Steve immediately relaxes, only for then another kind of anxiety to rise in his chest. He and Robin haven’t spoken since he snapped at her at Family Video. “Steve, are you there?”

Steve quickly reaches up to cup Eddie’s face between his hands, smooths a thumb along his neck as a way of comfort. “I have to go talk to her for a second. I was kind of a dick to her recently.”

“I should maybe not be naked,” Eddie says.

“Shame.”

Eddie laughs, kisses Steve quickly. “Go. Talk to her. I’ll give you guys a few minutes.”

Steve, very reluctantly, pulls away. He stops with a hand on the doorknob, feeling a little shaky. “I’m probably going to tell her about you. Um—about us. Is that okay?” He doesn’t turn around when he asks it, keeps his gaze fixated on the doorknob.

There’s a beat. Eddie says, “Steve. Can you look at me?”

Steve turns around. He feels a little small when he looks at Eddie now—a towel back to being wrapped around his waist, so at least he’s not naked. What a stupid conversation this would be if Eddie was still totally naked.

“Of course it’s okay,” he says. He smiles, and all at once Steve feels cracked open and stitched together.

He bites his lip, he smiles back. He slips out the bedroom door, closing it behind him.

When he turns around, Robin is at the top of the stairs. He freezes again, feeling a bit like a deer caught in the headlights. They stare at each other, not saying anything.

Robin looks him up and down, and immediately her eyes fixate on his shirt. She gives him a weird look, and then her eyes go wide, she gasps, hands coming up to her face. She points at the shirt. She turns around and points down the stairs, presumably to the front door, she points to Steve’s closed bedroom door.

“Shut up,” Steve says, his face blushing hot. He dives forward, giddy and embarrassed. He grabs her wrist, pulls her back down the stairs.

“Oh my god!” Robin practically shrieks. There’s no way Eddie isn’t hearing this. “That’s Eddie’s car outside isn’t it?! I was so confused, I thought it looked familiar—Steve—holy shit!”

“Let’s talk downstairs, okay?” Steve begs as he drags her down the stairs. She’s still gaping like a fish, pointing between Steve and the door. He has to grab her around the waist and practically carry her back down the stairs.

Once they’re at the bottom, Robin starts laughing, a little hysterical. “Oh my god—oh my god—you’re wearing his shirt—”

“Rob, seriously, just come into the living room, okay?”

In the end, they get there. Robin is gripping at her hair, staring at Steve with wide eyes and a wild smile on her face. She immediately grabs Steve by the shoulders and shakes him around a little bit. Steve laughs along with her for a moment—he can’t hold it in, really. He has a moment of allowing himself to feel the joy along with her.

“I came over here for an entirely different reason,” Robin says. “But I think you have to go first right now. Go on, tell me.” She juts her chin up a little bit, confident and a smile on her face.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I talked to Eddie.”

“And?”

“Well he’s upstairs in my bedroom now, so…”

Robin does a little dance, claps her hands together. “So I was right.”

“Really? That’s what's important right now?”

“Absolutely,” Robin says. “Always.”

Steve laughs, rolls his eyes in a fond way, just looks at her. He realizes he has really missed her—it’s only been, like, two fucking days. But the past month had been shit, he hadn’t done a whole lot of laughing with her, not like they used to be. He thinks, maybe part of that is his fault.

He takes a steadying breath. “Look, Robin…”

Robin looks like she’s expecting whatever is coming next. Steve watches as she gets a little physically smaller, crosses her arms across her chest. It makes him so fucking sad, when people get smaller in preparation for something he is going to say.

“About the last time I saw you, um…I just snapped that day. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t okay, and I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I don’t think you’re oblivious—”

“Well, I am.” Robin gives a shrug. “I barely noticed Eddie’s van that is literally parked outside.”

Steve shakes his head. “No. You not noticing one thing about me—something I was trying to hide from you as well—doesn’t make you oblivious. You don’t have to notice everything about me. And you are allowed to be distracted—exciting things were happening for you.”

Robin gives a shy shrug of her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again. He hopes she just knows how much.

Robin sighs. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have brought up Nancy. At least not like that. It hurt a little that she knew before me, even if accidental. But I shouldn’t have said it at all.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve sighs, “maybe I should learn to talk about Nancy a little bit more.”

Robin rolls her eyes, fondly. “Maybe not when the guy you’re sleeping with is hiding upstairs in your bedroom?”

Steve laughs, bashful. “Yeah probably.” He twists his hands together. “And, uh, Eddie is…more than just a guy I’m sleeping with. Just so you know.”

A little closed-mouth smile crawls across Robin’s face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean—I guess we haven’t put any specific label on it yet, but—” He shrugs. “It’s more…it’s something.”

“God, finally, the two of you were insufferable.”

Steve screws up his face in confusion. The two of them?

“I knew some stuff, maybe,” Robin admits. “About Eddie’s side of things.”

“And you didn’t tell me?!”

“I couldn’t!” Robin cries out, gripping at her face. “I promised him I wouldn’t say anything, and also it had to come from him. It just had to, Steve. Why do you think I was trying to force the two of you to talk? It was the only way this thing was going to get fixed—whatever that meant.”

“What did he say?” Steve wonders, suddenly curious. “Like…about me?”

“Yeah, no,” Robin says. “Talk to your boyfriend about that.”

There’s a gentle knock from the door of the room. The two of them turn to find Eddie standing there. He’s dressed now—back in his jeans, ripped at the knee and a black t-shirt. He looks a little awkward, cheeks flushed pink. Steve wonders how long Eddie’s been standing there, trying to find a way to make his presence known. Fuck—did he just hear Robin call him Steve’s boyfriend?

Robin turns to him, hands on her hips. Eddie seems to grow even shier in her presence, a smile on his face, but his shoulders sulking. “Hi, Robin,” he says. Steve almost barks out a laugh—is saying hi to someone he’s nervous to speak to his thing or something?

“You’re an idiot,” Robin says fondly. She takes a few steps over to him, wraps her arms around Eddie’s neck in a hug, which Eddie reciprocates, glancing at Steve from where his chin is hooked over her shoulder.

It reminds Steve of the first time he saw Eddie after the party, when he came to Family Video. Things really start to make more sense to him now.

“Wait a minute—did you talk to Eddie about me?” Steve asks Robin.

Robin turns back to him, gives him one of her really, Steve? kind of looks.

Eddie seems to get it, he looks at Steve with a smile on his face. “The only thing she would ever say was that I needed to talk to you. And then I would try and talk to you, and you would shut me down, so Robin would say you were upset.”

“He was upset,” Robin reasons.

Steve ignores her. “When were you trying to talk to me?” he asks Eddie, confused.

Eddie gives him his own confused look. “Literally every time I’ve seen you since Wheeler’s party,” he says.

“What? When you’d say hi?” Steve asks. Eddie nods. “How was that you trying to talk? You going, ‘hi, Steve,’” he mimics a deeper voice than his own. A little Eeyore, to be honest, “is not a clear invitation to talk!”

“I do not sound like that!” Eddie calls back, finger pointed in the defensive.

“Okay!” Robin claps her hands. “I’m going to go. I’ll let you guys work out how stupid and idiotic you’ve been on your own.” There’s a laugh to her voice, as well as Steve and Eddie’s—despite all the banter.

Steve walks with Robin to the front door, Eddie trails along behind them.

“We’re okay, right?” Steve says quietly.

Robin reaches out and squeezes his arm. She nods. “Yeah, we’re good. I mean the next time you raise your voice like that to me, I won’t be holding Vickie back. It’s a shock to me that your house is still standing, she threatened arson.”

Steve scoffs. “Noted. But I’m also never, ever going to say anything like that to you, ever again.”

Robin smiles. She turns to Eddie. “Bye, Eddie,” she says, in her own deep, Eeyore voice.

“Oh my god,” Eddie mumbles in exasperation, mostly to himself. “I do not sound like that,” he says, louder.

Robin only laughs, until Eddie gives her a little smile, and then she is waving and slinking her way through the door with a promise from Steve that he will call her later tonight. They probably deserve a classic Steve-Robin check in.

The door closes shut, and Steve turns back to Eddie. They laugh when they look at each other again, a bit embarrassed and shy—or maybe that’s just Steve.

“Hey,” Steve takes a step closer to Eddie. “I didn’t tell Robin you were my boyfriend, I just said we were…something more—not that I don’t want you to be my boyfriend,” he adds in a hurry, blushing red now. “I just know we haven’t really settled on a word for it, or really even talked about it, the whole ‘us’ thing, and I don’t want to assume anything…” he trails off, feeling stupid. Eddie is looking at him with a closed mouth grin, dimples and everything. “In case you haven’t noticed, I somehow turn into a fucking idiot around you,” Steve continues, opting for an attempt at humor.

Eddie takes another step forward, wraps an arm around Steve’s waist. “Don’t worry. I get it.”

Steve relaxes against him. “I want to be all calm, cool, and smooth around you.” He laughs. “Instead I think I just end up embarrassing myself.”

“It’s cute,” Eddie laughs.

Steve just groans. “You’re not saying I’m not embarrassing!”

Eddie just laughs more. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “You’re not embarrassing.”

Steve laughs, presses his forehead against Eddie’s shoulder in defeat. He thinks he just has to accept that when it comes to Eddie, he loses any ability to be cool and suave.

“You can be my boyfriend,” Eddie whispers, with Steve’s forehead still pressed into his shoulder. He can feel Eddie’s breath against his ear as he murmurs out the words. Steve thinks maybe he’s a little nervous, too. “If that’s what you want to call this.”

“I want this to be a relationship,” Steve says, easily. “A...real one.” He has to laugh at the usage of the word. “So I guess that makes you my boyfriend.” Eddie’s arms tighten around him.

“I’ve never been one before,” Eddie says, like it’s an observation.

“I’ve never been a good one,” Steve says back.

“Way to sell yourself, man,” Eddie says. Which only makes Steve laugh, it comes from the pit of his stomach, he tilts his head back up to smile at Eddie.

“I’ll be good for you,” he says it with a smile on his face, but once it’s out there he realizes how true the statement really is. More seriously, he says, “I want to be.”

For a moment, Eddie just looks at him again. He’s looking—eyes large, and his gaze is so full of something, Steve doesn’t know what to call it; for a moment Steve thinks he might cry—which causes a brief panic, he hasn’t ever seen Eddie cry—but instead Eddie just kisses him. He kisses him deeply, and for a long, long time.

They pull back to breathe—because unfortunately they have to. Eddie keeps his forehead pressed against Steve’s. He only says, “Me too.”

***

They make something to eat, and then spend the rest of the day on the couch in Steve’s living room. They find a pile of old childhood movies. They really just become background noise for the two of them to laugh, to talk. To make out a little bit, get in some heavy petting. They have a whole month of wasted time to make up for.

Eddie finds The Muppet Movie in the pile, admits that it was his favourite childhood movie. He was big into the muppets, apparently. Which Steve finds unbearably endearing.

They decide to watch it—or Steve says they can, even though Eddie mumbles a, “We don’t have to…” but Steve is already putting the tape in and settling back in on the couch next to Eddie.

Steve’s seen the movie before—he owns it. But it had been a while. And it’s always so much more fun watching someone enjoy watching a movie. And from the very beginning, Eddie is engrossed, quietly mouthing along to the songs, knowing the plot to a tee. It’s endearing to see Eddie like this, he seems so relaxed. It makes something warm and pleasant curl in Steve’s stomach.

Halfway through the movie, Eddie turns to him, sees Steve watching him. “What?” he asks.

“Just enjoying you enjoying this,” Steve says, turning his attention back to the TV. Eddie is momentarily flustered by this comment, sticking his tongue out at Steve in reply.

They finish the movie sometime in the late afternoon. He and Eddie carry things to the kitchen, placing cups and bowls in the sink.

“You absolutely have Gonzo energy,” Steve says.

“Not Animal?”

“Maybe with the hair.” Steve reaches his hand over and fluffs up Eddie’s hair, which only makes him laugh. “Do I have a muppet persona?”

“Maybe Kermit the Frog,” Eddie replies, saying the name in, frankly, an awful Kermit impression.

“That’s the obvious choice.”

“Miss Piggy,” Eddie says, a little grin on his face. “You’re both divas.”

“Oh, whatever,” Steve rolls his eyes, a smile on his face. He shoves Eddie playfully against the counter, steps into his space. “Are you staying tonight?”

Eddie reaches for him, taking the hem of Steve’s—Eddie’s—shirt between his finger and thumb. “Don’t read into this but tonight is Wayne’s night off. I promised him we’d have dinner together.”

Steve just gives him a look.

“I swear!” Eddie laughs, nervously. “You can call my place right now, he’s probably already there.” Eddie looks like he’s about to make a move for the phone on the wall, but Steve just holds onto him tighter.

“I believe you,” Steve says. “Call me when you wake up tomorrow?”

“I can do you one even better and call you after dinner,” Eddie says. “That is if Wayne doesn’t suck me into watching something on the TV with him.”

Steve smiles. “I’m probably calling Robin tonight,” he says. “I promised I would and…”

“And you guys went almost forty-eight hours without speaking to each other so now you’re feeling needy and deprived.”

Steve blinks. “That wasn’t quite what I was going to say—”

“Are you going to gossip?” Eddie asks, suddenly. He has a silly little smile on his face. “Are you going to stay up all night and gush about little ol’ me?” He bats his eyelashes.

Steve looks at his watch. “Wow, look at the time! I bet Wayne is really getting worried—”

Eddie laughs, reaches his hands up and cups the back of Steve’s head between his palms, tilting Steve’s head back so he can press in for a final kiss. A final kiss that lasts for long final moments, a kiss that has Steve pressed up against the hard line of the counter behind him, and both of them smiling against each other’s mouths.

Eddie goes home fifteen minutes later.

***

Summer was coming to an end. The kids show up on one of Steve’s days off and force their way inside, saying they’re here to have a pool day. Steve just sighs and grumbles under his breath at them. It’s the early afternoon and he was just about to make himself lunch. He lets them into the backyard and gets to work on making everyone grilled cheese sandwiches—requested by El.

Once the kids are outside, he calls Eddie. He stands before the counter with the phone gripped between his shoulder and chin.

“Come over,” he tells him. “I’ll invite Robin and Vickie, we can make a day of it, or something.”

“Like I wasn’t going to come over anyway.” Eddie’s voice is grumbly and low. Steve knows he woke him up by calling, but Eddie doesn’t admit it. After another beat Eddie says, “M’gonna ask a question.”

Steve smiles. “Go for it.”

“I’m not saying we need to make a huge announcement. But how private are we being about the two of us here?”

Steve pauses. He stops laying out cheese slices, tries not to focus on the way his entire stomach has gone cold. The hair on his arms standing up on edge. He switches the phone from one ear to the other, he looks out the window and can see the kids in the pool—already screaming and splashing.

“Any answer is an okay answer here, Steve,” Edde says. Steve realizes then he has taken a while to respond.

“Only Robin knows,” Steve says. “Maybe Nancy. Did I ever tell you that? She knew we were hooking up, uh, and she probably knows something happened at the party, but I haven’t actually talked to her in a long time. But if she saw us together again she might be able to figure it out. I don’t think she’s said anything to Jonathan, I asked her not to.”

“Steve, babe, you’re rambling.”

“Sorry.” He turns away, starts buttering the bread. “I don’t want them to know. Or—I don’t think I’m at a point where I’m ready for any of them to know. They don’t even know about Robin and Vickie, man.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. “I will resist smacking your ass when you walk out in your speedo, then.”

Steve just laughs, rolling his eyes. He knows Eddie is joking. “I’m not wearing my speedo to swim.”

“Aw,” Eddie whines. Sounds legitimately sad about it. His tone changes again, says, “Steve—all I meant is, do I need to act any differently around you? I’m obviously not going to announce to the whole group that we—that—you know—but, you know, I was a little flirty with you before, but I never asked if that made you uncomfortable—”

“Eddie, hey, no,” Steve says. “Stop. You don’t have to change anything about how you’ve always treated me. Okay?”

There’s a pause on the other line. “Okay. I’ll come over in a bit. Want me to bring beer?”

Steve shrugs. “Sure. And bring stuff to stay overnight because you’re totally going to have one too many to drive home and you’ll have to stay over here.”

Eddie laughs. “Oh am I?”

“Definitely. But not too tipsy that I can’t take you to bed,” Steve says.

“The limit is noted,” Eddie muses. “I’ll be there in like, an hour. You should invite Nancy and Jonathan.”

Steve bites on his lip. Jonathan would be okay, but he hasn’t talked to Nancy in weeks. “I don’t know.”

“Do it. I think Jonathan’s friend Argyle is visiting from California or something. It might be nice to have the whole gang. Also, Argyle the guy with the great weed, I wanna talk to him.”

After hanging up with Eddie, Steve takes the coward's way out, and calls Jonathan. Says the kids are over, and he’s inviting everyone. He should bring Argyle. Nancy’swelcometocometoo—okaybye. He hangs up.

Next he calls Robin at Family Video. She is finished in an hour and a half. She’ll bring Vickie along and could bring some snacks.

Steve is finished making and eating lunch by the time Eddie shows up. He greets everyone by wandering around to the back, but then asks Steve to help him carry some stuff inside. Confused, Steve follows him to his car, where Eddie has a single six pack and a pair of swim trunks stuffed into his back pocket.

When they step into the house, Eddie pulls him into a corner, away from the view of the kids and kisses Steve for a bit. Which, okay, is nice, and really distracting. Steve just laughs against his mouth, pulls Eddie a little closer by his belt loops. It’s a hello, a private one. After a little while, Eddie goes and changes into his swim trunks and cannonballs into the pool.

“I thought Dustin said the two of you were fighting,” Mike observes, a few minutes later.

Dustin smacks his arm. “Dude!”

“I apologized and we made up,” Eddie supplies.

“You apologized?” Lucas asks, interest peaked. He has a smile on his face.

“What?!” Max cries out, she swims up beside Eddie, pulls on his arm. “No, Steve messed up, right and he apologized?”

Eddie blinks at her, looking with a furrowed brow at where she is gripping onto his arm. “No. I messed up and apologized.”

The kids—minus Lucas, who appears to be vibrating at a higher frequency—look puzzled, between all of them.

“We both apologized,” Steve supplies.

“Yes,” Max says, turning to him. “But who had more to apologize for?”

Steve shrugs. “We were both—”

“Me,” Eddie says. He shoots Steve a look that is both layered with a I’m sorry and shut up, now. “It was me. We’re good now, we made up.”

Steve bites his lip. Max lets out a groan, alongside Lucas’ loud whoop accompanying him punching the air in…celebration?

“I told you!” Lucas cries. “I told you Steve doesn’t always fuck things up!”

“Hey!” Steve cries out, even though he thinks that was a compliment?

“Whatever,” Max replies. “I don’t have any money on me today so I’ll give it to you next week.”

Eddie appears to catch on faster than Steve. “Did you little fuckers bet on us?”

“Well,” Will pipes up finally from where he is lying on a floaty, “Dustin let it spill that the two of you guys were arguing about something or other. That started an argument over who started the issue. Most people bet on Steve—”

“Hey!” Steve cries out again.

“Calm down,” Will continues with an eye roll. “Me and Lucas were on your side.”

Steve turns to Dustin. “Dude, really?”

“Thanks Will,” Dustin mumbles.

“So you guys aren’t fighting anymore?” asks Mike.

“No!” both Steve and Eddie said at the same time.

“I was also on your side, Steve,” El says. “Thanks for the grilled cheese.”

Steve decides El is his new favourite.

***

The next people to arrive are Jonathan, Argyle and Nancy. Steve is anxious, just quickly ushers them into the backyard. Tells Argyle it’s nice to meet him. He hides at a table where he’s managed to pull together a few snacks and some pop for the kids.

Eddie seems to notice his anxious movements, gives him a little thumbs up just between the two of them from across the backyard. Everyone seems to settle in just fine after a moment, though Steve does notice that the only people who aren’t swimming are him and Nancy. There’s something unspoken between them about that fact.

At some point, the inevitable happens. El didn’t bring a towel, or maybe she did and one of the other kids used it before she could. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because Steve says he’ll go back in the house to get a few more.

He doesn’t notice that Nancy has followed him into the laundry room until he’s knelt down, grabbing a few more swim towels from the back of a cupboard. He turns his head to a gentle knock on the door, where Nancy stands, hand holding her elbow, hugging herself. Steve half thinks about making a break for it and shoving past her.

“Hi Nance,” he says. Super casually. So totally normally. He stands. “What’s up?”

Nancy holds up a hand to stop him. “Can I please just talk for a moment?”

Steve nods, bites the inside of his cheek. Prepares himself.

“I didn’t properly say what I meant that night, after my party.” Nancy, to her credit, looks a little nervous herself. Eyes wide, hands gesturing with almost every word she says. “I also shouldn’t have tried to explain myself at that moment, it wasn’t fair to you. You were clearly having a bad night and I—anyway.” She takes in a breath, looks right into Steve’s eyes. “You are not bullshit.”

Steve’s reaction is almost visceral. He takes a step back—immediately, he wants to escape, but Nancy is standing in front of the door. Probably not a purposeful entrapment, but it almost feels like it is.

“I’m going to say all this once, and then maybe we can put all of it to rest. I am sorry for what I said to you that night, and I should have apologized to you a long time ago.”

Steve crosses his arms tightly across his chest, his shoulders folding in on himself a little. “It’s fine, Nancy.”

Nancy looks annoyed. “And then you say that!” She throws her hands up, as if in defeat. “You’ve always said that. But I’m telling you,” she takes a step towards him, “it wasn’t, and I’m sorry. I was hurting. And I took it out on you that night.”

Steve looks down between them. Sometimes, he sees himself in Nancy. They’re not exactly alike, not really—Nancy has always been better than him. But she has a rage in her, too, like Steve does sometimes. Steve always thought her braver than he was, though. That had been proven to him multiple times.

“I pushed you.” He fully realizes it as he says it. “I pushed you to come to that party when you didn’t want to. I shouldn’t have.”

Nancy shrugs. “But I never should have taken everything out on you. It’s been a while since then, and we’ve met other people.” She holds her hands up, before grasping them together in front of her chest. “I’m not going to assume anything about you and Eddie. And you don’t have to tell me. That’s not what this is about, though I hope the fact that he’s here means the two of you are okay now. This is just to say that I’m sorry; and that I did love you.”

Steve swallows. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I do, because it’s the truth. I need you to know that. I think there are a lot of reasons why the two of us didn’t work out, and I think a lot of them are probably my fault. Don’t argue with me about that, Steve,” she counters, when he opens his mouth to try to speak. “I’ve thought a lot about this, especially since the last time we spoke. But what really stuck out to me was that you thought I never loved you, when that was so far from the truth. It’s important to me that you know that I never once lied to you when I said I loved you.”

“Just not enough, I guess,” Steve mumbles.

Nancy laughs, humorlessly. “Maybe.” She shrugs. “But why do you act like that's your fault? That’s on me, Steve. Not you. If I didn’t love you in the way you deserved, then that is my problem. That shows how I wasn’t right for you.”

Steve considers this. There’s a grain of truth to it, he can at least recognize that. But it still doesn’t feel right. Couldn’t he have been better for her? Isn’t there something he theoretically could have done? “I’m sorry, too,” he settles on. “I know I wasn’t perfect.”

“You never had to be perfect Steve.”

“You were different from all the rest of the girls I’ve ever been with,” Steve says. “I know I told you that a bunch back then—but it was true. It wasn’t just a…pick up line, or whatever. I saw…everything with you. I know it’s cheesy and stupid, but I wanted to have everything with you. It was the first time I ever felt that—especially in a real way. I guess that was just hard to let go of—even if,” he rubs a hand over his mouth. “Even if I could recognize that we weren’t right for each other, in the long run.” He gives her a smile, a real one, something that isn’t filled with too much remorse. “You broke my goddamn heart, Nancy Wheeler.”

Steve watches as the corner of Nancy’s mouth flits into a smile.

“If it means anything, I broke my own as well.”

Strangely, it does. Self sabotage—Steve knows it well.

“I’m glad you’re still in my life,” Nancy says. “Even if part of the reason is because of…interdimensional monsters. I’m glad I can still call you a friend. I still love you, Steve—in a very different way, but I do.”

After another moment, Nancy steps forward and wraps her arms around Steve’s waist, her head resting on his chest. He puts his arms around her shoulders in turn, and they just hug for a moment.

“For the record, I love you, too, Nance.”

It doesn’t hurt him to say it.

***

After that, it’s just a normal day. A day with all the people he loves and cares about—and Argyle, but give Steve a few more hours and he thinks he could very easily love the guy with the same intensity.

Robin shows up after work with Vickie at her side. The kids cheer and splash around when they spot her, and Steve thinks about how this time last year they barely knew her. How easily Robin had slipped into their group and been accepted. How easily they’re accepting Vickie tagging along now—Steve wonders how easily they would accept who Vickie and Robin are. How easily they could accept him and Eddie.

Eventually everyone crawls out of the pool with chattering teeth. They go inside and order Chinese food for dinner, because no one seems to want to leave yet. They blast some music that the kids like, and Eddie cracks open a few of the beers for him, Jonathan, and Argyle.

It’s been a while, but Steve thinks he would describe the day as perfect. Or, maybe it doesn’t have to be perfect—like Nancy said. But it’s a good day, he has everyone he would ever want there in his house with him. Steve stands in the doorframe and watches them.

Robin and Vickie sit together in a corner, Steve can see Robin fiddling gently with the cuff of Vickie’s shirt, talking quietly for a moment between them. Nancy is sitting curled up with Jonathan, laughing at something Argyle is saying or doing. Will and Mike are talking to Dustin, Max and El are painting Lucas’ toenails, who doesn’t even seem to care that they are. It’s good.

“Hey,” Eddie slides up behind him, standing close behind his shoulder.

Steve turns his head to look at him. “Hi.”

“You know, I think I’ve had one too many,” Eddie says, offhandedly. No one else can overhear their conversation, and Steve knows for a fact he’s had half a beer. “I think I might just have to crash here for the night.”

“Such a shame,” Steve replies, he clicks his tongue.

“I know.” Eddie lets out a dramatic sigh. “What will I ever do with my time here, only slightly tipsy, but otherwise coherent, with all my mental capabilities fully intact?”

Steve smiles. “I have a few ideas.”

One of Eddie’s fingers pulls at the back belt loop of Steve’s jeans, pulling him back ever so slightly. Probably only so he can whisper in his ear, “Can’t wait.”

Steve flushes, pushes Eddie away with a laugh.

Maybe perfect isn’t achievable, but he thinks he is pretty damn close to it right now.

***

That night, after everyone leaves, it’s only Steve and Eddie in the house. They clean up the dishes together—Steve washes, Eddie dries—and then Steve goes and takes the garbage out.

When he comes back in, Eddie isn’t in the kitchen. He wanders upstairs, and finds Eddie in Steve’s room, lying face down on the bed, arms hugging Steve’s pillow.

Steve smiles, and crawls up on the bed above him. He presses a kiss to his shoulder.

Eddie hums. “Taking advantage of me already?”

“You’re the one ass up on my bed.”

“I am not ass up. I am just laying on the bed.”

Steve presses another kiss to Eddie’s other shoulder. “Mhm. You look good doing it.” Eddie lets out a pleased noise.

Steve flops over, so he’s laying beside Eddie.

“You seemed okay with Nancy today,” Eddie observes.

“We talked. I think we’re okay.”

“That’s good.”

Steve nods. “Yeah. I think she knows, though. About us. She figured it out before.”

“That’s okay,” Eddie says. “I doubt she’d say anything. How did she know?”

“She just figured it out somehow,” Steve says. “Maybe it’s like…a secret exes language I don’t know about or something.”

Eddie snorts. “Yeah, it’s definitely not just because she knows you.”

Steve laughs. “Shut up.”

Eddie smiles, snuggles down further into the pillow. His eyes fall shut, and for a few moments, they just lay together in silence. Steve’s eyes trail over Eddie’s face. How his bangs droop over to the side as he lays down, the strong line of his shoulder to his arm as it pulls the pillow under his head. The slope of his jaw, the plush curve of his lips. He’s so pretty, Steve thinks. Thinks that maybe he’s one of the luckiest guys in the world.

“Eddie,” Steve whispers. At first Eddie doesn’t respond, his eyes still closed. “Eddie,” Steve says again.

Eddie seems to stir, finally, breathing out gently through his nose and shifting a little so that he’s on his side, facing Steve. “Yeah?”

“What’s your favourite colour?”

Eddie lets out a quiet laugh. “What?”

Steve shifts a little closer, flings an arm across Eddie’s waist. “I want to know you. What’s your favourite colour?”

Eddie, to his credit, seems to think about it. “I like blue,” he says. “But like a dark blue. Like the sky.”

Steve smiles. “I like that.”

“What’s yours?”

“Yellow,” Steve says.

“Cute,” Eddie says.

“Why thank you.”

Eddie laughs. He shoves gently at Steve’s shoulder, and as his hand is drawing back Steve catches it, winds their fingers together.

“Eddie,” he says. The tone shifts, he feels heavier. He feels all wound up and anxious, but also not, because Eddie is there.

Eddie looks at him, this time like he’s checking him over. “What is it?” he asks.

“Nothing bad,” Steve says. “At least I don’t think. I just—I want you to know me.”

“I do,” Eddie says. “I will.”

Steve takes in a breath, controls his breathing. He takes Eddie’s hand, presses the palm to his lips. “I’m bisexual,” he says. He knows Eddie hears it. “I know you’re not into the whole label thing, but I think it’s important for me to know—”

“Steve.” Eddie’s voice is quiet and soft, but stern, and he’s smiling at Steve, just a little one. “Don’t think like that. Just because it’s not important to me doesn’t mean it’s not important to you. If you want the label, if it fits you and it helps you, then take it. It’s yours.”

“It does,” Steve whispers. He feels a little bit like if he’s too loud, this bubble will burst. He doesn’t want anything to break this. “I like men, you—and I did like girls in the past. I did really love Nancy once, it wasn’t a lie. And bisexual—the fact that there’s room for both, it makes sense for me.”

Eddie takes his hand from Steve’s grasp, brings it up to the side of Steve’s head, runs his fingers through his hair. “Thank you for telling me,” Eddie says. His voice is still quiet, like he doesn’t want to burst anything, either. “I love—t-that you told me.”

“I haven’t ever said it,” Steve admits. “Not to Robin. Hardly out loud to myself. I haven’t been ready to say it.”

That seems to hit Eddie anew. His gaze upon Steve seems to soften even more, eyes watery. “You,” he says, “are incredible, Steve Harrington. I am so lucky. I am so proud.”

Steve snuggles in closer, pressing his face to Eddie’s chest. He didn’t think he was going to cry, but he can feel tears leak out the corners of his eyes, onto Eddie’s shirt. He sniffles a bit, so Eddie must know he’s crying. But he just winds his hand into the back of Steve’s head, runs his fingers through his hair, against his scalp the way Steve likes. He hears Eddie sniffling, too, so maybe they’re both crying now.

They lay like that together for a long time. They don’t look at each other, they barely even speak. Steve just presses himself in closer, to the warmth of Eddie’s skin, and Eddie’s arms tighten around him. They hold him close, they aren’t letting him go. Steve tightens his arms around Eddie as well, hopes he’s making Eddie feel as safe, and warm, and loved as Steve feels right now.

Eventually, they fall asleep just like that.

***

The rest of the summer trickles away from them. Steve and Robin work at Family Video, and Eddie starts to visit again, the way he used to. But he still drives the kids around in his van. Steve can tell Dustin knows something has shifted again, but the kid doesn't say anything, just tips the brim of his cap towards Steve once, on his way out of Family Video.

Smug asshole, Steve thinks.

He and Eddie fall back into the way they were before. Well, in some ways—in the staying over at Steve’s place, making dinners and breakfast togethers, and being kind of horny. In others, they are different.

They go over to Eddie and Wayne’s trailer more—Eddie makes them dinner. Burgers and hotdogs using a little barbeque Wayne had recently bought. Steve meets Wayne in a real way now, gets a if you hurt my boy I’ll meet you in the forest with a shotgun talk, much to Eddie’s horror.

They bicker and laugh together more, when Robin’s with them she tells them they’re more like an old married couple than her own grandparents are. Which then sparks an argument on who is the little old man and who is the little old woman. (They never really settle on an answer.)

They are more affectionate, especially when alone. They’re affectionate outside of bed and sex. They watch TV together and Steve will settle back in the crook of Eddie’s arm. He discovers Eddie likes touching his hair—which is only annoying sometimes. Steve likes Eddie’s hair too. He plays with the ends of it, finds the sections that completely curl and wraps them around his finger. Steve will take Eddie’s hand in his, link their fingers together. They fall asleep holding hands a lot now. Steve just likes to know Eddie is there.

There are still things left unsaid between them. Steve sees it sometimes, feels it. When he does, he reaches out, and Eddie is there. They will sometimes talk well into the night—about them, or about nothing at all—until the day breaks and light streams through the window. And though Steve spends the next day like a walking zombie, guzzling coffee, when he thinks of Eddie he feels so alive, like he could run ten miles.

It’s one of those nights, where it’s turning into morning, and they haven’t really slept. They had, for a little while, but then Steve had woken up from a nightmare and woke Eddie up with him. Steve has a feeling he maybe hadn’t been sleeping well either.

At first they just lay together, Eddie’s fingers trailing up and down Steve’s arm. It tickles a little, but it feels nice, so Steve doesn’t ask him to stop. They’re quiet. Then Steve asks Eddie about that one time, a few months ago now. Where Eddie had said he dreamed about him, in the same way Chrissy died. Eddie tells him he did, he does, of course he does.

“Not all of them are nightmares, though,” Eddie says. “You’re a dream in other ways as well.”

Steve scrunches up his nose, he smiles. Eddie kisses him, and they kiss like that. Sleepy, and gentle, and loving. And maybe it’s too soon, maybe Steve doesn’t think too hard about it, or maybe it’s just the easiest thing in the world.

“I love you.”

Eddie is quiet, eyes looking into Steve. He’s looking. For a split second, Steve sees it, he knows what to call it.

“You don’t have to say it back if you’re not ready, or if you don’t—uh. I just want you to know that I—”

He’s quiet even when he says it. It slips out and falls, laid between them.

“I love you, too.”

“Oh.”

It really is as simple as that.

***

He tells Dustin. Eddie is there when he does, feigning a bathroom break or something similar to give them privacy. He steps out of the room, and Steve watches him go, for a split second thinking, wait, don’t make me do this alone.

But Steve wants to. He and Eddie had talked about this.

“Steve.”

Steve turns back to him. Dustin is sitting on the couch in the living room with a bowl of popcorn on his lap. He brought over some sort of cartoon movie about Lord of the Rings that he and Eddie have apparently conspired to force him to watch.

“What?”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re all sweaty and jittery all of a sudden?”

“I’m not.” He wipes his palms on his jeans. He goes to sit down beside him on the couch, and grabs a handful of popcorn.

Eating it is a distraction. He knows he wants to do this, he’s been talking about it with Eddie for days now. He’s almost certain there will be either a positive or neutral reaction, and having Dustin already on their side if they ever tell the rest of the kids will help.

Plus, Dustin’s family. Steve wants him to know.

“So,” Steve says, once he’s done chewing. “There’s actually something I want to tell you.”

Dustin pales. “Oh my god, who's dying?”

“What?”

“Is it, like, your grandma or something?”

“Dude, you don’t even know my grandma—”

“It’s not Robin, is it? Is Robin dying?”

“Robin is fine—”

“Is it you? Oh my god—it’s you and Eddie, you’re dying from demobat rabies, I knew we should have taken you to a doctor—”

“I’m dating Eddie!” Steve blurts it out, then slaps a hand over his own mouth. Groaning and relaxing his body back into the couch. Of course he just blew this. He drags his hand from his mouth to over his eyes.

For a moment, Dustin is quiet. But only for a moment.

“You’re what?!” He practically screams it.

Steve peeks through his fingers at Dustin, who is just staring at Steve; eyes big and wide and shock written all over his face. They just blink at each other for a few moments, and Steve can feel his heart pounding in his ears. He hadn’t really made a plan, he thought it would all just come to him naturally. Now his brain is just all empty and mush.

“Eddie and I…” Steve breathes out. He squeezes his eyes shut for only a moment, trying to regain control over the heavy beating of his heart. “You know you and Suzie?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m aware of the two of us.”

“Me and Eddie are like you guys, we are uh—together. In a romantic sense.”

Dustin blinks.

“And—and I know that’s probably really weird for you, on multiple levels—we’re two guys—”

“That’s not what is weird about it.”

It’s Steve's turn to blink. “Um. It’s not?”

“Dude, I have a gay uncle. It’s fine. I don’t give a shit about that—how long has this been going on?”

Safe to say, that was not the response Steve was expecting. He was prepared to have to explain the concept of sexuality to the guy—but apparently that wasn’t needed. His eyes dart over behind Dustin’s head to the doorway and he sees Eddie lingering. He gives Steve a little nod of encouragement.

“I guess…all in all, since April?”

Dustin gapes. “April?!” He screams it. “How in the hell did I not realize this was going on?”

Steve shrugs. “We weren’t really putting it out there, dude. And, I mean…we’ve only been official since August…”

Dustin doesn’t really seem to be paying attention to him anymore. His hands grip at the side of his head over his cap, eyes wide and staring off into the distance. “This makes so much sense! The summer—when you were really upset. Wait a minute—Eddie!” he screams Eddie’s name so loud that Steve has to cover his ears.

“Jesus H. Christ I’m right here, dude,” Eddie says from behind him. He walks into the room, hovers awkwardly by Steve’s side now.

Dustin points a finger at him. “What the fuck did you do to Steve this summer?”

Steve watches as Eddie flushes red, rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “It’s, uh, a complicated story—”

“Which is none of your business, you nosy fuck,” Steve says. “We’re not here to talk about me and Eddie, we're here to talk about—” he pauses. “Me and Eddie.” Eddie pats his shoulder.

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Fine. I just can’t believe…” he pauses, thinks. “Since April?”

Eddie shrugs. “More or less. This past month, more seriously…”

Dustin seems to look at the two of them now, over where Steve sits on the couch and where Eddie is standing beside him. Eddie hasn’t taken his hand off of Steve’s shoulder yet, as the two of them make eye contact, Eddie’s hand tightens on Steve’s shoulder. As if he’s communicating something to Dustin, some sort of unspoken conversation occurring between the two of them.

“Well…” Dustin says, finally. He nods. “Do anything to hurt him like that again and I’ll kill you, Munson. Probably not physically because I don’t think I’m strong enough, but you me, and a bag of dice and you’re done.”

Steve is about to open his mouth to protest, because, dude, but Eddie just tightens his hand on Steve’s shoulder again. He says, “Noted, Henderson.”

“You’re really…okay with this?” Steve asks. “Even the fact that…Eddie’s a guy?”

Dustin shrugs. “Like I said, my uncle Nick is gay, and he’s awesome. You guys are just like…two more gay uncles. Just don’t start swapping spit in front of me.”

Steve decides against correcting Dustin on the use of the word gay—it doesn’t bother him, and even though it seems to have worked out okay for him, telling Dustin seems to have taken something out of him emotionally. He relaxes back into the couch again, letting out a breath.

“Tell no one, Henderson,” Eddie continues on Steve’s behalf. “We fucking mean it. This is our shit to tell, not yours. Not even for you to lord over your friends’ heads as a secret you know and they don’t.”

Dustin holds up both of his hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll breathe a word to no one. Promise.”

“You better. It was important to Steve that you knew, and I trust him,” Eddie says. “So we’re trusting you. I’m not opposed to kicking your ass if I need to. Without D and D.”

“You won’t need to!” Dustin says. “I get it! I’m not stupid.”

“We don’t think you’re stupid,” Steve says. “We just—”

“I know,” Dustin says. “Seriously, guys.”

“I love you, man,” Steve blurts out, suddenly. Because it’s true, and it’s Dustin. It had been so important to him that Dustin was the first one of the kids to know.

Dustin, for his credit, doesn’t look too caught off guard. “I love you too,” he says, and then is practically diving across the couch and hugging Steve close, who immediately returns it.

Relief doesn’t properly encapsulate the way Steve is feeling now. The fact that Dustin didn’t freak out, didn’t think it was gross or something. He didn’t realize any of Steve’s worst thoughts and he’s so—so fucking grateful. He’s so lucky to have the kid in his life. He squeezes Dustin’s shoulders, tugs him close.

“Can we watch the movie now?” Dustin asks, as he pulls back. The three of them laugh about it, and then Eddie is going over to the TV, pressing play, and settling on the other side of Dustin, so he’s sandwiched in between them on the couch.

Then, nothing about the day changes. They watch their movie, and Eddie and Dustin over-explain absolutely everything to Steve, and they eat way too much popcorn. After they finish, Steve drives Dustin home, since he promised his mother he’d be home before dinner.

As they pull up to Dustin’s house, Dustin unbuckles his seatbelt, then turns and looks at Steve. He’s smiling.

“You were really brave today, Steve,” he says. “To tell me about you and Eddie.”

Steve swallows around the forming lump in his throat. “Yeah, I did alright, I guess.”

“No you were brave,” he says. “I understand more what you were saying to me a while back. I’m proud of you.”

Steve smiles, rolls his eyes, and pushes gently at Dustin’s head so it lolls to the side. “Thanks, kid.”

“I’m not a kid!” Dustin cries out.

“Uh, yeah you are,” Steve says.

“I’m fifteen! I’ll turn sixteen next year, doesn’t that make me a man or something?”

Steve snorts. “Not even close.”

“You say that as if you’re a man.”

“I’m way closer than you are!”

“Oh yeah? Says who?”

“Says my chest hair, you little twerp.”

“Chest hair doesn’t make you a man! And I have so much armpit hair!”

They continue like that for at least another ten minutes.

***

He and Robin spend more time together. They manage to fit it in—between work, and Vickie, and Eddie. It’s important to them, Steve thinks, that they still have time for just the two of them.

They go for a drive, Steve bought them milkshakes. They laugh, and they bicker as they do—over the fact that Robin wanted a strawberry milkshake, over the music—and Steve loves her. He just loves her.

“Do you think one day you’ll tell all of the kids, and not just Dustin?” Robin asks. She sounds nervous. The only people who know about her and Vickie are still just Nancy and Jonathan. Eddie, too, but Steve kind of just loops Eddie in with him at this point. Robin hasn’t said anything to the kids, not that she has to, but Steve thinks there is some sort of block there holding her back. Maybe because she knows some of them look up to her. Steve understands.

“I think so,” Steve says. “Not right now, though. I think telling Dustin took five years off my life. Or at least broke an eardrum.”

Robin laughs. “He was loud?”

Steve shrugs. “I guess he wasn’t expecting it. Which makes sense. I know the concept of Eddie and I is kind of weird—”

“It’s really not, though,” Robin says. “I look at the two of you, and somehow it’s like. ‘Oh yeah! That makes sense.’ I’m sure the kids would feel that way, too.”

“I feel like telling them would be easier, now that Dustin knows. But not yet. I kind of think—it’s a little bit like Eddie and I are in a bubble, just the two of us. I’m not sure if I’m ready to pop that bubble yet.”

Robin claps her hands together. “Yes, it’s exactly like that. I wonder if it’s a queer thing, or a new relationship thing.”

Steve shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I’m still new to all this shit.”

Robin gasps, like she’s having a realization. “Oh my god. Oh my god! There’s so much to teach you, Steve! We have to show you Rocky Horror—”

“Huh?”

“This Halloween. Oh my god we’ll dress you up in little gold shorts.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “I bet Eddie would love that.”

Steve groans. “Please shut up now.” He does, though, have it on good knowledge that Eddie is obsessed with his ass.

Robin cackles. But does a little dance in her chair, seemingly still very excited. “If you would have told me back in the Scoops Days that one day I would be sitting in your car next to you planning on showing you Rocky Horror Picture Show with our respective partners of the same sex, I think I would have shit myself. I still might.”

“Please don’t.”

“Isn’t this crazy, though? Not unbelievable, I guess but—look at us, Steve. Look at us! Even a year ago I couldn’t have pictured this. We’re both in relationships! We were lame and single just a year ago.”

Steve smiles. “We were completely useless.”

“Completely,” Robin smiles.

“It’s pretty cool,” Steve says. “That we ended up here.”

“I certainly don’t have any complaints.”

“I should thank you, maybe,” Steve realizes.

“Huh? Why?”

“You—in the bathroom at Starcourt. You were the first gay person—lesbian, specifically—that I’d ever met. I think that was important to me, even if I didn’t realize it.”

Robin still has a funny look on her face, like she doesn’t quite understand. “How?”

“My entire life I was told that being gay was bad. My dad, society, the fucking news.” Steve looks over at her, her funny confused face, and smiles. “But, you Robin, I met you you turned out to be the coolest person I’d ever met. I told you it all on that nasty bathroom floor. Just because I was stupid and was trying to ask you out doesn’t mean I don’t still think all that about you. You’re the coolest girl I know. Meeting you and finding out you were a lesbian, it’s like it started to rewire my brain of everything I had been told, that I already partly new were wrong.”

“So you’re saying…you’re dating Eddie, because of me?”

Steve shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. I think I’m just saying—I love you. I think you changed everything .”

***

They wake up one morning, Steve works later in the day but Eddie is trying very hard to convince him to call in sick. Eddie presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw, tilting his head up with his nose, breathes into the skin of his neck, whispers, good morning, baby.

Much later, warm and sated, Eddie says, “I want to go somewhere.”

“Let’s go,” Steve says. He calls in sick.

They go for a drive. They drive far out of Hawkins, to another lake, another body of water. Somewhere farther away, where no one knows them, where people will avoid them—the boys with the scars on their ribs.

“Dustin’ll be pissed if he knows we went somewhere and didn’t take him,” Eddie observes.

“He’s at school, I don’t care. It’s probably Robin we need to worry about—I was supposed to work with her this afternoon,” Steve says, which only makes Eddie laugh.

They find a little beach, if you could even call it that. It’s not necessarily swimming weather, but it’s warm enough. They find a little secluded spot, not that the whole place is packed. But at least where they are, there is only one or two other people, the occasional person walking by with a dog. No one pays them any mind.

They brought a large blanket to lounge on and share. They had picked up food on the way—just burgers, nothing special. They lay it out like it’s an immaculate picnic, and they talk about things—about the future. Eddie needs to find a job, Robin is working for one final year with plans to hopefully go to college next fall. Steve is still squirreling away money, knowing he’s all but coasting on his parents not selling the house.

“Maybe we could go somewhere new together,” Eddie suggests. “Not immediately. I know what you’ll say—the kids and the monsters.”

“Well,” Steve shrugs. “Yeah.”

“We’ll give it a bit—and it’s not like I have the money to go anywhere right now. But I’m talking about one day.”

Steve smiles. “You think about ‘one day’ with me?”

“I think about all my days with you,” Eddie says, sickly sweet and knowing it. Steve just laughs and blushes. Because Eddie says these things for a reaction, and Steve fucking loves it.

“Are there places we could go to, uh, be us? More openly?” Steve asks. He’s curious.

“You wanna go to a gay bar, Harrington?” Eddie smirks. “There’s probably places in Indianapolis that are safer. But, you know—”

“People suck.”

“Society, too,” Eddie says, pointing a finger. “Don’t forget about society.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Steve says. “But also, like, are there places we could just be us all the time?”

Eddie looks taken aback for a moment. “Well, like I mentioned, that would probably be a one day situation. We would probably have to get far out of Hawkins. Maybe out of Indiana. Would you want that?”

“Maybe. Not now,” Steve says. “But…not everyone is going to stay in Hawkins forever. I mean, Nancy’s already gone—Robin, maybe, next year. Even one day all the kids will go somewhere, and I don’t want to be left alone here…”

“You never would be,” Eddie tells him, adamant.

“I’d be with you,” Steve says.

“Absolutely, baby,” Eddie says. It makes Steve flush again, so fucking far gone.

“All I’m saying is—one day—we could go somewhere else,” Steve continues. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”

Eddie smiles. “I’d like that. I’d love that.”

“Love you,” Steve replies.

“You’re so sweet on me,” Eddie says.

Steve pokes his finger right in Eddie’s dimple, which just makes him laugh harder, he grabs at Steve’s wrist, pushes his hand away but holds on. Doesn’t let him go.

This thing is still so new. They are still new; but it doesn’t feel as fragile as it once did. There is a part of Steve that is still aware of this power. The power to break him, how Eddie did once. But he thinks he broke Eddie a little, too. He thinks, though, that a small part of loving someone is knowing they have the power to hurt, and loving them anyway; letting them love you anyway.

But with Eddie, he is reminded everyday that he has never felt scared. It wasn’t scary to love him; it had never been scary to be with Eddie. Scary was losing him, scary was a cold spot on the bed beside him, scary was it not being not real. (What a fucking word, huh? Absolutely ruined forever.)

He’s not drowning anymore. They’re alone by the water, and Eddie takes off his shoes and socks, rolls up his pant legs as far as they can, under his knees. He walks out into the water, the sun is shining brightly on him. He turns around, watches as Steve watches him. He looks at Steve. Always looking, and Steve is slowly learning what all of them mean.

Eddie offers him a smile, a little shy, but it’s bright and beautiful just like he is. Steve jumps up from where he’s sitting and runs into the water. He doesn’t care about his pants, barely cares about his shoes, which he does get off. He grabs Eddie around the waist, spins them around, laughs as Eddie cries out, a smile still on his face.

He trips over his feet, and they end up tumbling down into the water, clothes and all. The only thing Steve can see, and hear, is Eddie—his laugh, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. He clings to it all—he will cling to every moment. The sound is beautiful, and Steve feels so safe, so loved, and has all the love in the world to give.