Chapter Text
Steve emerged from the bathroom, donning a basic navy sweatshirt and dark jeans. His hair was dripping wet from the shower. “What do you think?” he said, and accompanied the question with a gesture towards his torso. His teeth stabbed into his bottom lip, nervous.
“Well.” Nancy leaned forward from her spot on his bed to tug at his jumper. “I’m pretty sure you wore this when we officially got together.”
“Is that bad?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
Nancy tightened her mouth, her eyebrows furrowing. She asked, “Are you trying to woo someone at this party, Steve?”
He coughed. “No.”
“I think you’re lying,” she said. She stood and headed to his mirror, where Steve watched her redo her half up-half down hairstyle. “In fact, Steve Harrington, I believe you’re planning to do a lot more than wooing tonight.”
Steve’s mind blanked. He thought about Eddie, and how Eddie would probably show up with Robin in half an hour, that stupid smirk on his face and his hair a frizzy mess. Fucking Nancy . How did she know everything? It wasn’t fair. He decided to ignore her teasing and swap his sweater for a different one. Yellow, he picked out. Yellow was fun. And it didn’t have any memories of Nancy’s thin back and pale skin attached to it.
Driving up to Steve’s house that night was akin to torture for Eddie. The place looked the same as it had the last time they came—big and lonely, the upstairs windows glowing orange from the lights within. Mr and Mrs Harrington, who sometimes seemed like an urban myth to him and Robin, were unsurprisingly not present for their son’s makeshift party.
They climbed out of Wayne’s piece of shit van. Eddie breathed in deeply and allowed Robin to tug on his wrist, dragging him to Steve’s front door. He briefly mourned his choice to not smoke the last of Rick’s stash before leaving. Robin meanwhile, oblivious to his anxiety, reached forward to ring the bell.
It isn’t Steve that answers. Eddie doesn’t know whether to be happy or annoyed about that.
Wheeler stands in the doorway, a pretty smile on her face. She has the top half of her brown hair tied in a plait, far neater than he would’ve ever been able to manage with his own bird’s nest. She’s wearing a flowy purple dress and shiny, silver eyeshadow—a stark contrast to Eddie’s own clumsily black-smudged eyes and ripped jeans. He began to take in these details about her appearance, subconsciously comparing them to himself. Quickly it became obvious how much he was lacking, in comparison to her.
Example: he understood exactly why Steve had chosen her. He was trailer trash and she lived in the suburbs; he was loud and she was polite. He was strange while she’s normal . And, worst of all, she was a girl, whereas he simply wasn’t and didn’t want to be. This newfound awareness about her made him want to die.
Robin really hadn’t been wrong when she said Eddie had zero chance in this unspoken competition for Steve’s stupid heart.
“Hey,” was how Wheeler greeted them, all cute and shy. “Please, come in. Steve’s busy trying to figure out the spa.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow. He slid past Nancy on his way inside.
“You look nice,” he heard behind him. It was Wheeler talking to Robin. Kind of weird. Eddie hadn’t known they were friends— well, friends who complimented each other, anyway.
“Thanks. Um, you too,” Robin responded.
Eddie smothered a smirk into the palm of his hand and headed for the kitchen. He started his search for the alcohol he already knew Steve had stashed away in the cupboards.
“So,” he asked as he opened the drawer below the toaster. There were only spoons and forks stored in it so he shut it again. “What’s wrong with the spa?”
Nancy glanced at him. She had a calculating glint in her eye that made Eddie feel like she had figured out all his secrets. “It won’t heat up,” she explained. “Which means it’s basically just a mini pool right now. That’s what Steve said, anyway. I don’t think he’ll get it working, unfortunately.”
He hummed. Fascinating.
The first time they’d used the Harrington residence as a place to hangout— and, more importantly, to get high on Eddie’s pot— he had told Steve how weird it was. Their friendship, that is. This summer, too. And Steve had promised him it wasn’t that weird, that it was actually really nice. A sweet sentiment, sure, but it didn’t quite survive against the test of time, considering Steve had distanced himself only a few weeks later to fuck around with Princess Nancy. So much for friendship.
“I’m gonna go get him,” Nancy announced, disrupting his train of thought. She disappeared to the backyard.
Immediately Robin came over and grabbed his shoulders. Her eyes were wide, nervous. “Did you hear her, Eddie? She said I look nice . What the hell does that mean?”
Eddie swallowed. “Don’t ask me. How should I know what a girl means?” I’m gay, went unspoken, but heard.
She grimaced. “I’ve never had a girl friend before, but she obviously wants us to be friends because I’m friends with her boyfriend. Oh, my God. What if she’s just trying to cosy up to me ‘cause she thinks I’m trying to sleep with Steve? Eddie, quick , how do I make it clear I have no interest in fucking Steve?”
“Robin.” He shoved her hands off his shoulders. “Repeat what you just said to me. I haven’t got a clue how to do that .” In other words: he made it pretty obvious on a regular basis that he had a whole lot of interest in fucking Steve, AKA the opposite of what she wanted to ‘make clear’.
He doesn’t get to hear her response, because suddenly the man in question was there, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Hi,” Steve greeted.
Silence.
“Hi,” Robin replied.
And Eddie— Eddie, well. He waved.
He’s a goddamn idiot.
Steve smiled, a lock of hair fell into the centre of his forehead. “I missed you guys.”
Nancy was behind him, grinning at their reunion. Heat rushed to Eddie’s cheeks at the idea of Nancy knowing —knowing about his crush, his fantasies.
“We missed you too, dingus,” Robin murmured. She stepped towards him and crushed Steve into a hug. “Never ditch us again, or I’ll kill you.”
Laughing, Steve returned Robin’s embrace before turning to face Eddie. It’s awkward for a moment. Both reach out with their arms, like they need to touch but have forgotten how, and then Eddie hesitates, which makes Steve hesitate, so now they’re just staring at each other in aching silence. Kiss him, one side of Eddie demanded. Strangle him , the other side (probably the devil) insisted. Eddie settled with a compromise and pulled Steve into a half-hug/half-neck choke.
“Ditto what Robin said, your highness,” he whispered in Steve’s ear. Their sides are pressed against each other. “Don’t ever pull that shit again, or else you’re dead to me.”
“Never. I swear.”
Eddie and Robin nod, synchronized. And just like that The Wig have returned to normalcy.
“There’s pizza, chips, soda, candy…” Steve punctuated each word by pointing at the food he’s talking about. The plates were gathered along the coffee table in the Harrington living room, in front of the couch. “And, naturally, booze.”
It was a good haul, honestly. A bottle of vodka, two unopened packs of beer, bleeding with condensation. Wine—for Nancy only, apparently—and some tequila for the cherry on top. Eddie went immediately for the vodka, mixing it with probably not enough orange juice. Steve chugged a beer in five seconds and blushed when Eddie asked how he managed to open his throat so easily (interesting reaction, he observed). Robin stuck to simple beer as well.
Soon the four teenagers were spread around the pool. It’s a cool night, chilly but not cold enough for a blanket. The moonlight drapes itself over all of them and for a few minutes it feels magic. Or perhaps that was just what happened when Eddie actually felt content for once. Or perhaps any group of friends, when underneath the stars, feel like they’re inventing a new form of magic.
He and Robin are sharing one of the two sun loungers, squished close together. Steve has taken the other. Nancy—weirdly— sat alone on the cement, kicking her feet back and forth in the presumably cold water. Even from afar, Eddie could spot the goosebumps on her skin. He wondered why Steve hadn’t offered to warm his girlfriend up through a cuddle. Or hell, why Steve hadn’t showed any sort of real physical affection for Nancy since they arrived. That’s what guys and chicks ought to do when they date, right? Right now it looked more like Eddie and Robin were fucking, rather than the other pair.
“Let’s play kiss, marry, kill,” Robin announced. Her cheeks were pink from alcohol.
“Are we twelve ?” Eddie snarked.
Steve and Nancy liked the idea, though. Of course they fucking did.
So they played. It was, unsurprisingly, dreadful.
“Marry Tom Cruise, kiss Harrison Ford and kill Jack Nicholson,” Wheeler answered to Robin’s list. She swirled her glass of red wine around when she said Tom Cruise .
“Fair,” Eddie said. He probably would’ve swapped Tom Cruise and Nicholson, but to each their own. “Who’s turn, now?”
“Yours,” said Steve. He had a weird expression on his face; simultaneously cunning and curious. Eddie’s gut dropped, trepidation filling him. “Okay, uh. Ozzy Osbourne, Freddie Mercury and Olivia Newton-John.”
Eddie clenched his jaw. Nancy hadn’t gotten any girls to pick from. But Steve had given him two outta three men. Why?
Fucking asshole. Fucking— fucking . He didn’t care. Just a game, just a game, just a game.
“That’s easy,” he drawled, feigning confidence he didn’t have. “Kill Olivia, kiss Ozzy and marry Freddie Mercury.”
Steve’s eyebrows raised. “Really? I thought for sure you’d marry Osbourne.”
“No, dude,” Eddie said. “Ozzy isn’t the romance type. With men like that, you gotta stay the night and then get the fuck out of there.”
He watched the lines in Steve’s face tighten, almost like he was upset by Eddie’s explanation. He couldn’t comprehend that without it hurting his heart, so he moved onto Robin. Robin, who looked a bit frightened, probably because she was under the impression Eddie would give her a bunch of female names, like Steve had just done for him.
“I’m getting another drink,” Steve interrupted before Eddie could list any celebrities, because of course. He was a fucking douchebag. Why did Eddie like him? Eddie’s boyfriends in the past were never the type to ruin a dumb party game.
Harrington stormed off, for lack of a better phrase. From the corner of his eye, Eddie could see Nancy watch him leave, but she didn’t stand to run after him. Add that to the list of odd couple behaviour they were exhibiting.
Eddie hesitated another moment, thought fuck it , and decided to do what Nancy should be doing. He ran inside and found Steve in the living-room.
The guy wasn’t pouring himself another drink like he claimed. Instead he was shovelling cheese flavoured chips into his mouth way too fast to be chewing them correctly. Eddie smiled slightly at the sight and moved to melt into the spot on the couch next to him. Their shoulders brushed.
“Having fun?” he said, teasing.
Steve paused in his binge eating. He pursed his lips. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Oh, yeah. You look like you’re having the time of your life.” Not .
Their words faded out. Eddie couldn’t think of anything to say.
Eventually, Steve admitted, “It feels different, doesn’t it? Us, I mean. You, Robin and me. But me and you especially. It’s different than before.”
Eddie tilted his head. “I guess.”
Steve brushed his orange fingers along his jean-clad thighs and said, “I’m serious, you know. Back at the beginning of summer, we were fuckin inseparable. It literally felt like I could read you and Robin’s brains, and you could read mine. But now everything I say feels so awkward .”
“Geez, Stevie,” Eddie said, laughing a bitter laugh. “I wonder what could’ve caused that? Maybe the fact that you disappeared for an entire month . God, and it was just when I truly started to believe you weren’t the asshole that you used to be.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose , dude,” Steve grumbled. He shoved a restless hand through his head of hair. Eddie tracked the movement with his eyes. “I just… Nancy showed up when I wasn’t expecting it. And I— Look, she basically invented the ‘Steve’ you’re friends with, okay? Before her, I was a douche. I hurt people and I insulted them and I never thought about their feelings. Everyone knows that. But then Nancy came into my life and she forced me to change. And for her, I wanted to. I wanted to be good. Except things ended badly, alright? So sue me for trying to make amends when she finally came back to me.”
Eddie never realized how badly heartbreak could hurt.
Steve’s impromptu monologue was like some kind of love letter stolen straight from a novel. For her, I wanted to be good.. . To love someone like that, Eddie thought, was what life should be about.
When she finally came back to me... As if Steve had been waiting. As if all this time he had yearned for her, missed her, grieved her. Eddie felt so, so stupid for ever deluding himself into thinking Steve might have wanted him instead. Not when he was in the middle of a goddamn Shakespeare tragedy with Nancy fucking Wheeler.
“Okay, Steve,” he whispered eventually. “Okay. You’re fine. I’m over it.” He wasn’t, not at all. But he’d keep on pretending like he had his entire life if he needed to. “You don’t have to explain yourself. We’re good.”
He could hear Steve breathing in and out, loud and deep. Eddie repressed the tears lining his eyelashes and wondered why he had even bothered coming tonight at all.
“This is ridiculous,” Steve said. “I mean, this was supposed to be an apology party. Not a pity party. We should be well on our way to getting pissed right now.”
That was probably the worst thing Eddie could indulge in, especially with how sad this party was turning out to be. But the opportunity to just forget this whole night in a blur of cheap beer and August air was extremely enticing. Decision made, he stood and offered Steve a hand up as well. The pair of them grabbed a can each from the coffee table and drank it in unison. Eddie felt Steve’s eyes on him the whole time the bitter liquid was pouring itself down his throat.
Robin and Nancy returned from outside about an hour later. They were murmuring in low tones, Robin’s freckled cheeks resembling a tomato and Nancy continuously hiding her glossy mouth with her hand in some kind of nervous gesture. Eddie and Steve, meanwhile, had finished off the first pack of beer and were steadily going through the bottle of vodka. Combined with the alcohol in Eddie’s stomach was a collection of increasingly bad ideas. Some of the worst included: tell Steve he was gay, press Steve against a wall and bite his neck, push Steve into the pool just to see his nipples get hard. Inexplicably, they all included creating a scenario with Steve that resulted in sex.
“You guys look like idiots right now,” Robin informed them. Eddie clumsily scratched his stomach, thinking naughty thoughts. “I wish I had a camera on me.”
Nancy laughed, “How much did you guys drink?”
“Too much—“ Eddie started.
“—too fast,” Steve completed the sentence.
“Maybe you should go to bed?” Nancy suggested, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
Eddie groaned. “I refuse to drive home like this. My uncle would skin me alive.”
A bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but the sentiment stood true. Wayne was always exhausted when he missed even an hour of his regular sleep, and Eddie in this state would come stumbling inside the trailer, causing enough of a racket to wake the entire park up. He didn’t want his uncle to die of sleep deprivation at work tomorrow.
Steve rolled over, placing his hand atop Eddie’s chest. His touch felt warm. He said, “Just stay the night here. You too, Robin. I’ve got a spare bedroom you guys can share.”
“Fuck off,” Robin said. “He’ll throw up on me in the night. I’m not sleeping with Eddie.”
“Switch, then,” Nancy chimed. “It’s only logical. Put the two drunks together and we can sleep in the guest room in peace. That’s where I’ve been staying the past month, anyway.”
That caught Eddie’s attention. Nancy had been living in Steve’s house for a month? But… not staying in his room?
He blinked, forcing away the confusion. “I guess we can sleep head to tail in the bed if the ladies insist. What d’you reckon, Harrington?”
Steve shrugged. “Whatever. We’ve done it before.”
Which was how Eddie ended up in Steve’s room.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been there, of course, but it’s the first time Eddie gives himself permission to properly admire the space.
A few assortments of things adorn the walls—a print of some basketball players, a bigger one of the Back to the Future poster, and a painting of a red car above his desk. Boring, in other words. On the desk, Eddie spots a stack of dusty test results (he briefly wondered whether Steve was too lazy to throw them out, or liked having their memory around), a handful of pens and such, as well as a bowling pin. He traced the tips of his fingers along the various items, smiling.
The things that reflected Steve’s personality seemed stupid, but they were awfully sweet. Sport awards, his graduation certificate. Photographs of Nancy, photographs of Eddie and Robin. A black and white image, tucked underneath Steve’s white lamp, depicting a solemn-faced couple and their kid. Eddie stilled when he spotted that last picture. He realized what he was looking at a second later.
Mrs Harrington was pretty, he thought. She obviously had been the culprit behind Steve’s good looks. Mr Harrington, however, hadn’t seemed to pass anything to his son. The man was dressed in a suit, depressed as hell. His palm was clapped heavily over five-year-old Steve’s tiny shoulder. It wasn’t a happy family portrait. Eddie could understand why Harrington had tried hiding it beneath the reading lamp.
“Oh, God,” a voice said from behind him. He turned, only a little startled. Steve stood close with a clean set of pajamas in his grasp. “That’s embarrassing.”
“What? No. It’s cute,” Eddie assured. He slipped the photograph between his fingers, bringing little Steve closer to his face. “You actually seem like a sweet kid here.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “You’re just obligated to say that. I was an asshole in training back then. My old man was still trying to pretend we were a normal family— that he wasn’t cheating on my mom on all his ‘business trips’. I tried to emulate him a lot as a child. Probably why I’m so fucked up today.”
“Oh, definitely,” Eddie teased, feeling touched that Steve had opened up to him about his folks more than ever before. “Are those pajamas for me?”
“Huh? Right, yeah.”
Steve passed the thin checkered pants to him, along with the big pale blue shirt that said BEDTIME! on the chest. Eddie raised an eyebrow, chuckling. “Seriously?”
“It’s old, okay?”
“ Sure it is.”
He was about to peel his shirt off when Steve suddenly spun around, ducking his head into his hands to cover his eyes. Eddie cackled outright at that. “Harrington, you don’t have to worry about preserving my dignity. I’m not going to run screaming if you see my bare chest.”
In truth, he wanted Steve to see his bare chest. But Steve didn’t want that back.
Still, the other dude turned around to face him again, slitting one open cautiously. “You sure?”
Eddie nodded and, to prove his point, pulled off his Metallica shirt in one swoop. He immediately felt Steve’s gaze dart down to the multitude of tattoos decorating his skin, rapidly exploring the new part of Eddie that had been exposed. He gave Steve a few seconds to look at the ink before covering himself again in the pyjama shirt.
“What was the thing near your, uh, nipple?” Steve asked, stilted.
“It’s supposed to be Jörmungandr ,” Eddie pronounced. Without even realizing, he ghosted his finger along where the snake was situated under the shirt. Steve licked his lips. “I loved Norse mythology in junior year, so I got a guy not from town to do it for me. He’s done most of my tattoos in exchange for cheaper deals.”
“That’s rad.”
“Totally.”
The moment felt charged. Eddie knew— he knew — it was all in his head, yet still it persisted. Steve kept making eye contact, all intense like it was the Independence Day picnic again, like he was screaming the lyrics to I was made for lovin you in Eddie’s face. God, he had such a boner after the show. It was a miracle nobody noticed.
“D’you think I’d look good with some ink?” Steve asked.
Eddie imagined it. “Of course,” he said. “You could probably have a set of balls on your face and still find someone to sleep with you.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious!” Eddie insisted. “I mean, Wheeler would still love you, right? Balls on your face and all?”
Steve jerked backward at Eddie’s words. Why the fuck was he mentioning Nancy? He could’ve sworn they were flirting (or flirting adjacent , anyway) when suddenly his ex-girlfriend was being shoved into the conversation for no apparent reason. He gazed at Eddie blankly. Nancy would still love you, right? What an absurd idea.
“Nancy couldn’t love me without any balls on my face, Munson,” he remarks, not noticing the shocked glint that appeared in Eddie’s eyes. “What made you think of her, anyway?”
“I—“ Eddie cut himself off. Then, “Because you two are dating, aren’t you?”
This time Steve was shocked. He spluttered, “What the fuck, no? We haven’t been dating since senior year, dude. We only even started properly talking again recently, and that’s definitely not gonna enter relationship status anytime soon.” Not when I’m completely in love with you at least. “Are you— who told you otherwise?”
Eddie swung his arms around, vaguely, to make some kind of point that Steve couldn’t interpret for the life of him. “Nobody had to tell me. I could just see it. The— the feelings.”
Steve scowled. Something inside him ached, knowing that this entire time Eddie had assumed something like that. “Shut up. What exactly do these ‘feelings’ look like?”
Glancing sideways, at the wall, Eddie said, “They look like… Nancy answering the door as if she lived here. They look like Nancy convincing you to call Robin. Like Nancy transforming you from douche to dork at school. Steve, don’t you realize these things? You watch her like she’s a piece of art. You know, perfect. Beautiful. Meaningful . So if you’re really not dating her right now, I’d change that in your position… ‘cause- ‘cause all those things, they’re as unambiguous signals of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.”
Steve shivered as Eddie spoke. True love , he thought and glanced fleetingly at the chapped lips that had shaped the words so prettily. “What exactly do you want me to say to that, Munson?”
“The truth. Admit your feelings for her.”
“What?” he said, laughing a little at the ridiculousness of Eddie’s request. “Admit, that… that I can’t stop thinking about her?” Thinking about his brown hair, his eyes, his passion. His voice and chest, what it would be like to kiss, to worship. “Or that I care about her more than anyone else in the world? You want me to admit how ruined I would be if any harm comes to her? Is that what you want to hear, Eddie?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. “Exactly that.”
“Well.” Steve paused and contemplated. “To admit those feelings would be to admit how much she could hurt me if she chose to. And I can’t do that again. I’d snap and never recover.”
He remembers Nancy hissing bullshit at him, drunk off her ass, red punch spilt down her dress. He remembers Nancy under Jonathan’s arm, more comfortable with an almost stranger than she ever had been with Steve. And then he remembers Eddie saying, once upon a time, I would rather die than let Steve fucking Harrington audition and then, not even that long afterwards, you’re a pretty good guy next to the pool. He knows intimately how horrible heartbreak is. Nancy taught him that.
Steve doubts he’s capable of surviving it again from Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson.
“We should go to bed,” he says when Eddie doesn’t respond to his confession. Probably for the best. He had just laid his heart out on a plate and instructed Eddie exactly how to eat it; not his finest moment. “I bet Nance and Robin are fast asleep by now.”
Waking up the following morning gives him a serious case of deja vu.
Similarly to the day after Nancy returned to him, there’s an arm thrown over Steve’s chest and obnoxious snores in his ear. The only change is that it isn’t Nancy. Instead, it’s the person he had actually wanted to wake up next to. Eddie. His frizzy hair tickled his shoulder.
“Psst,” he says. “Ed?”
“Euh,” Eddie replies unintelligibly. He opened his eyes slightly into slits and stared confusedly at Steve. “What the hell.”
Steve hushes him. “Shush. Headache. Hungover. Need Robin to make us breakfast.”
“Good idea.”
Except neither Robin nor Nancy comes storming into the bedroom, instead leaving the pair of eighteen years old to their morning peace for— at minimum— an hour. Steve enters in and out of consciousness, his body always aching when his mind exits its slumber. Sunlight drips through the open window near the bed, cloaking Eddie’s unconscious form in a pretty oval of yellow. Steve swore he could die a happy man if he was to greet the start of every day with the sight of Eddie.
Eventually, the hangover fog clears from his brain enough to walk clumsily to the bathroom down the hall. He ignored Eddie’s half-conscious grumbles for him to hurry back— “ you’re warm ”— and emptied his bladder of last night’s beer.
Robin greets him outside the toilet.
“So, the sleeping beauty lives,” she says, grinning widely, like the cat who got the cream. Steve pushes her out of his way, but she follows him back to his bedroom. “Oh, don’t be like that, Steve! I was only joking.”
“Don’t yell ,” he ordered and pointed to the closed bedroom door. “Eddie’s still sleeping and I’m pretty sure he drank more than me.”
Robin's eyes widened. “Oh, yeah? And how did last night’s sleeping arrangements go? No, uh, accidental boners?”
Steve felt his face turn a bright red. He probably looked like a street sign that read I HAVE A CRUSH ON EDDIE . Stupid, stupid, stupid. “No, Rob -in. Nothing of the sort.” Only because he suffered from whiskey dick— or, well, beer dick in this situation. God sure worked in mysterious ways, but he had sure performed a miracle by inventing whiskey dick. Last night could’ve been so much more awkward than it was if Steve got to half-mast just as Eddie was trying to fall asleep against his chest. “And anyway, why are you even thinking about our boners in the first place?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. I just wanted to confirm my best friend’s innocence was still intact.”
“Hah! As if Eddie ever had any innocence, to begin with.”
Robin smirked. “Trust me, Harrington. I was with him the day after he lost his virginity. That shit changed him.”
Steve’s mouth rapidly became dry. “Oh.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Oh .”
Another voice— Nancy— called from downstairs, effectively putting a pause on their conversation about Eddie’s fucking virginity holy shit holy shit . “Robin! Get back here, I need help with the bacon!”
Robin bit her lip, stepping towards the stairs. “This isn’t over,” she told Steve. A threat.
“Right…” he trailed off. “Better hurry, Buckley. I’ve seen what Nancy’s like when you don’t follow her orders.”
A moment later Robin was gone.
Steve laughed to himself and went back to his bedroom.
In the time that had passed, Eddie had managed to sit up against the headboard and pull his hair back with the tie on his wrist. The white sheets pooled at his waist, hiding the outline of his legs.
Steve approached the bed and sat next to him, using the moment to admire the other boy’s side profile. He noticed that the dark makeup Eddie had been wearing the previous night had grown exponentially smudged while asleep. It reminded Steve, in an insanely inappropriate way, of a girl he hooked up with once upon a time. She used to do the same sort of eye makeup as Eddie, and after sucking his dick one time she looked like she had been crying. Except her tears were black. That’s how Eddie looked now.
“Dude,” he said. “You’re a raccoon.”
“Excuse me?”
Steve gestured at Eddie’s eyes. “The makeup. It’s all ruined.”
Eddie groaned. “Shit, I forgot to take it off.”
“It’s fine,” Steve assured him. “You suit the whole rockstar having a meltdown thing.”
“Thanks.”
They went downstairs a little while later.
Nancy, with Robin’s help, had prepared a large feast for breakfast. Plates of bacon, scrambled eggs and toast piled high were situated in the middle of his dining table, along with four plates for the four teenagers eating. Steve sat down and Eddie instantly stole the chair beside him. The two girls were then opposite them; Nancy in front of Steve, and Rob in front of Eddie. The group proceeded to eat like they’d been starving for months.
Once satisfied, Steve pushed his plate away from him and patted his full belly. “That was delicious, Nancy. Thank you.”
“Oh, it was all Robin, really,” Nancy responded. “I’ll make a proper housewife out of her yet.”
Eddie snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Steve rolled his eyes, then turned to Nancy and explained, “Ignore him. I’m pretty sure he’s been hopelessly pining after Robin for his entire life.”
“It’s true,” Robin added, laughing. “But you can’t blame the poor guy. I’m a catch.”
“Yes,” Nancy whispered. Her eyelashes fluttered, her pink lips curling upward, and Steve thought what the fuck she’s flirting with Robin? “You certainly are a catch.”
They moved to the couch soon afterwards. Robin and Nancy were nestled close together on one side, stealing all the cushions, while Eddie and Steve allowed only their shoulders to touch as some cartoon or other played in the background.
“This was fun, you know,” Nancy announces eventually. “We should do this again.”
Robin nodded immediately. Steve wondered if he would need to talk to either of them, about how obvious they were being. Last he checked Nancy was still dating Jonathan. Then again he hadn’t called or tried to communicate with her since she fled California, so maybe they were on some kind of break.
“You could come to band practice,” Steve suggests. It’d been a while since he went himself, so his voice was definitely out of practice, but whatever. Eddie could just bully him into improving like he had at the start of summer. “That could be fun.”
“Hey, maybe you could join the band,” Robin said. “D’you play any instruments?”
“Oh, uh. Piano, kind of. I had lessons as a kid.”
“That’s perfect , we need a piano player—“
Eddie interrupted. Steve jumped a little when he heard his voice; he had thought Eddie was focused on the cartoons, ignoring them. “We don’t need a piano player. We don’t need any new members. Sorry, Wheeler.”
It was quiet. Steve swallowed, his throat dry. Nancy was frowning, her forehead creased. Jesus Christ. Why was Eddie being a dick all of a sudden?
“Oh. Okay,” Nancy murmured, dejected.
Just then—perfect timing, to cut through the awkwardness— the telephone rang from the other room. Steve stood and went to answer it, leaving the living room in uncomfortable silence.
He pulled the phone from its hook, pressing it to his ear. “Harrington residence, Steve speaking.”
The person that answered was easily the last person on Earth Steve had been expecting.
“Hi Steve,” Jonathan Byers said in his ear. “Uh, I know this might be a weird question since we’re not exactly friends or anything, but have you seen Nance recently?”
Steve paused. He blinked. He blinked again. Have you seen Nance recently? Was the guy having a fucking joke? Of course, he’d seen Nancy recently, she was living in his goddamn house to hide from her annoying parents. How did Byers not—
He didn’t know.
Nancy never told him.
“Shit,” Steve said. “Give me a second, Byers.”
He rushed back to the living room. The three teenagers looked over when he entered, took one glance at the panic evident on his face, and started bombarding him with questions.
Robin: “What happened?”
Nancy: “Who was it?”
Eddie: “Are you alright?”
He waved them off and then gestured for Nancy to follow him back to the phone. She came easily, trusting, and asked, “What? What happened, Steve?”
“Call for you,” he explained and didn’t elaborate, instead simply pointing at the telephone. He had abandoned it hanging from its wire.
With furrowed brows, Nancy picked it up again and spoke quietly into the phone, “Um, Nancy speaking?”
Steve decided to give her privacy. He walked back to the living room slowly, resisting the urge to eavesdrop (because seriously, how the fuck had Byers not heard from his girlfriend for a month ?). A second later he found Eddie and Robin standing up, heading for the front door. He stopped them in time, placing a cautious hand on each of their shoulders.
“Hold on, guys. Where are you going?”
“My dad wanted me home by noon,” Robin said, shrugging. “And Eddie’s driving, so.”
He glanced at them. “Well… Okay. But, we’re cool, right?”
Eddie nodded. “We’re cool. As long as that ghosting shit is done, now.”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
They left. Steve stood in the doorway watching the entire time. He raised his hand as a final goodbye when Eddie drove out of his driveway, who honked his horn in his own farewell right back. Steve stared and stared for a while after that, out on the front porch, until he was fully confident Nancy and Jonathan would be done with their conversation. Finally, he went back inside and slept the afternoon away in bed.
In the car, Eddie turned off the music and said to Robin in the ensuing silence, “Did you have a good night?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well, I’m about to make your morning even better,” he informed her. She raised an eyebrow from the passenger seat, curious. Eddie said, “They’re not dating. Steve told me last night. So, she’s single and ready to mingle.”
Robin flushed scarlet. Eddie cackled, turned his music on again—full volume—and continued driving.