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There’s nothing to do.
That’s not… exactly something that Steve is afraid of, so to say, because having nothing to do means that there isn’t monsters running around, having nothing to do means there isn’t some fleshy monster reaching into the sky with impending doom, and having nothing to do means their lives and stupid Hawkins, Indiana isn’t in terrible danger.
It just means that there’s nothing to do, and he’s fucking bored.
Family Video is slow. Vecna is dead. People are slumping under the colder days of the late summer and enjoying the scraps of sunlight that fade away behind thicker clouds.
It’s almost a blessing when the phone rings.
Steve’s elbows are pressed into the counter—probably leaving dents for how long he’s stayed there—and Robin’s feet are swung up beside him in the best picture of uncomfortable leisure. When the pale handle starts vibrating with a select annoying tone, it’s a mad dash of limbs and feet and Robin’s boots and Steve’s dignity.
He gets to the phone first.
It should be testament to their ultimate boredom that they’re actively trying to participate in their jobs. Keith would be proud, maybe.
“Family Video, this is Steve—” he rattles off, but the choked laughter on the other end makes him stall over his words.
“Picked that one up real fast, didn’t you, Harrington?”
That’s the other thing about having nothing to do—when one person in Hawkins has nothing to do, that means everyone is sitting on their asses waiting for the best opportunity to arise, a simple coax of desire for anything that doesn’t involve heat, dying, and insanity.
Fortunately and unfortunately, Eddie Munson could qualify for all three categories in the time that Steve has known him.
“Eddie,” he says, and just the sound of the other’s name has Robin’s head turning with interest. “Why’re you calling? You could’ve just visited, y’know.”
“Du-ude,” comes a drawl on the other line, and Steve listens to fabric rustling and something creaking that can only mean Eddie has stretched the phone cord as far as it dares to go towards his couch. He’s done that a few times that Steve can remember, sitting on the opposite end as Eddie chatters away at Robin or Nancy or Dustin on the other line; he never felt offended by it, just amused at the side of the conversation he could see and the things that would fall from his nasty mouth. “This is so much easier. And you can’t tell me that you’re upset to hear my pretty voice now, can you?”
Steve scoffs, sitting back down on his stool and fighting the urge to twirl his fingers in the cord like an idiot. “No, I’m actually complaining a lot. Don’t you know we’re swamped?”
Eddie’s resounding chuckle is what encourages Steve’s smile. “Oh, yeah, and I also know you’re full of shit.”
“Yeah?”
Steve can’t stop the smile from creeping into his voice, and he knows that Eddie knows.
“Mhm.”
“Ahem!”
Steve is actually startled when Robin clears her throat, and he looks over with raised brows as a universal what?
She stares back at him, eyebrows lifting under her bangs, and motions wildly at the phone and then at Steve and back again. Steve makes a face, furrowing his brows this time, and his friend rolls her eyes with clear frustration at the silent conversation.
“Anyways.” Steve’s attention is drawn to Eddie’s voice on the other end. “The point of my call was to one, check if you were actually doing something worth your money at work, and two if it came out that you weren’t…” Eddie fades off for a second, and Steve almost leans into the phone against his ear like it would hurry him up. “Would you wanna come over and smoke?”
“That’s it?” Steve blurts, and is immediately met by an affronted sound.
“‘That’s it’? Jeez, way to sell me short, Stevie. If you didn’t want the free weed all you had to say was—”
Steve rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he sees stars. “Shut up, yes, yes, yes, I would love to come over and smoke but unfortunately—” he rolls his head towards Robin, who already has her arms crossed with a suspicious look on her face, one that tells Steve he’s gonna have to bargain a lot harder than expected, “—I’m caught up with trying to bribe our lovely best friend into becoming the Queen of boredom at Family Video. If you want me there, you gotta give me something to give her.”
And Robin nods as though Eddie could see her, and Steve’s small laugh at the motion brings forth a heavier sigh from Eddie.
“Tell her she can practise on the guitar again. For longer this time… and unsupervised.”
Steve whistles low, maintaining eye contact with Robin. “Damn dude, really? Alone time with your baby, unsupervised and unmaintained?” Robin’s eyes go wide, just for a second, and Steve already knows she’s hooked. “I don’t know…”
Robin shakes her head with a sigh, sitting up from her lean to snatch the phone from Steve’s hands. He protests but his hands are batted away and Robin takes over the phone, settling down again with her boots on the counter by his elbows. He resigns himself to his fate with a suffering sigh, and watches the situation unfold.
“Hi Eddie, sorry to rip you away from your beloved—” Steve is suddenly thankful that Family Video is desolate because he blushes up to his eyebrows, “—but I just so happened to overhear that you’re gonna let me at that precious little thing you call your treasure? Without a babysitter?”
There’s a moment of silence, filled only by the slight murmur of Eddie on the other end and Robin’s drawn out hum of contemplation.
“And all you want is Steve? Shit, you should’ve said from the beginning and I would have kicked him out. He doesn’t even wanna watch Dead Poets Society with me… says it would make him cry at work.”
“Robin!” Steve gapes, but Robin is already sticking her tongue out at Steve as she resolves her bargain with Eddie.
“Deal. I will send him on his way. Pleasure doing business with you, Eddie—”
At that, Steve reaches over and snatches the phone back, glaring at her with warm cheeks and mild embarrassment as he listens to Eddie’s laughter get louder. The phone presses back against his ear, and Steve clears his throat.
“So, your place?”
–
Eddie’s trailer is nice. It’s small and it’s homey, lived in and comfortable, and it’s everything that Steve’s house isn’t.
He doesn’t have the same avoidance when he pulls in the little driveway, parking next to a beat up van instead of bleak emptiness. Steve doesn’t have the same dread that he does unlocking his front door as he does when he lets himself into Eddie’s home. And, best of all, Steve is welcomed immediately with a smiling face and the presence that is Eddie Munson.
Yeah, that’s definitely the best part.
“Glad you could make it, dude,” Eddie calls from the kitchen as Steve enters, and he’s just kicking off his shoes when the man walks around the corner to the living room. “I would hate to pull you away from the captivating inquiries of Family Video.”
Steve scoffs, pushing his shoes away with a socked foot and flopping down on the soft couch. As Eddie walks around him, taking the other end with a bong in hand, Steve takes the slight moment to study him.
Just like everyone else in Hawkins, Eddie isn’t immune to the summer heat. The leather has been replaced by black cotton and a light vest, jeans that have more rips up the thighs and knees and a hair tie that seems to have found a permanent place on Eddie’s wrist. The sun has blessed the boy with a bit of a glow, not quite a tan but also enough to bring out the gleam in dark eyes and the white of his teeth when he smiles at Steve.
Which is actually a lot. And Steve smiles at him a lot too.
Eddie is something that he didn’t expect. He was placed there randomly, a wanted fugitive and a victim of the Upside Down, and he was a shock to everything that Steve had known from his messed up normal.
He was good.
Eddie was definitely the best part.
He’s dark leather and chains, rings that click together when they pass a lighter and joint back and forth, and Eddie is secrets and safety that Steve didn’t know existed. Eddie is made of sunlight and metal, and Steve seeks out the warmth of the surfaces around him just by simply being in the same space as him.
“You should feel bad, it was super fucking busy in there.” At that, Eddie scoffs out a laugh, and Steve melts into the comfort of his space. “I’m sure you could have found something else to do than just bother little ol’ me.”
Eddie hums, and Steve is transfixed by the way his fingers wrap around a grinder and twist it. His rings glint in the sunlight peeking through the closed curtains—something that helps keep most of the impending heat out—and his gaze wanders from his palms to his wrists to the tattoos that line the expanse of his forearms. Eddie takes his time as he loads the bowl, and when he looks back at Steve with those dark eyes of his, Steve wonders if he would need to smoke anything at all to get high.
“You know I would rather be bored with you than be bored alone, Harrington. And I know you feel the same. So—” Eddie gently waggles the bong in the air, and Steve wonders if the punk can tell how infatuated his own smile is, “greenies?”
There’s nothing to do.
Time is fluid when they start smoking; Eddie gives him the first hit because he always does, and Steve lets his eyes linger on the part of the glass that contact’s Eddie’s mouth when he smokes because he always does. Steve tucks his legs up under him on the couch and watches the way smoke filters through the sunlight in the air, and Eddie hums to himself as he peacefully rolls a few joints for later. The sound of his voice perfects the atmosphere, and Steve lets his head tip to the back of the couch so he can take his time really looking at Eddie.
Just like he always does.
And Eddie will soon set that rolling tray in his lap on the table beside him, will soon put away the grinder and the thin papers that he handles so delicately, and he will soon mirror Steve’s position with a grin and ask him what exactly are you looking at, Harrington?
Just like they always do.
Steve can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face as the rolling tray hits the top of the corner table.
“See something you like, Harrington?”
Eddie’s legs aren’t tucked up onto the couch, but his knee is pulled across so that he can face Steve. There’s a delectable V that his thighs make, spread enough that his jeans are pulled taut and the rips along the thighs dig into the flesh of his muscle. Eddie’s got his head resting on his hand, elbow braced against the back of his couch, and Steve hums, noncommittal, as he takes in the sight of his friend mere feet from him.
Because Eddie was something new and something strange, and he never evolved out of that state.
Eddie became the best part of Steve’s life, and he also caused one of the worst moments because discovering the potential of Steve liking guys was fucking terrifying.
There were a lot of calls and sleepovers with Robin during that time. It was a lot of talking and reasoning, trying to find a solution and coming up with nothing, and a few times when Steve would run the water in his shower cold just to hide the tear marks on his face. It was a hard time and he wouldn’t want to go back there, but like things in Hawkins do it passed and he was left with the prettier repercussions of it.
However, the repercussions also involved potentially being a little bit in love with his best friend.
Christ, he has a pattern, doesn’t he?
“Not particularly,” Steve answers, a little late and a little mumbled through his distraction. Eddie doesn’t seem to buy it, not if the quirk of his lips and that secretive gleam has anything to say, but it hardly matters as Steve takes his sweet fucking time memorizing every bit of his face. “You’re just the only interesting thing in here right now.”
And that doesn’t exactly fit with his denial of not staring, but Steve doesn’t care because the grin that stretches wide over Eddie’s face makes it all worth it.
“Was that a compliment I hear? Doth my ears deceive me?” If they were any more sober, Steve just knows that Eddie would be on his feet and bowing low, a gentle mockery of the King Steve name that they both shudder to hear. As it is, neither of them feel the need to stand and act out the dramatics that Eddie Munson lives and breathes. “You have a penchant for stroking my ego when you’re stoned, Stevie boy.”
Steve laughs softly, unable to muster up a witty response in time. His hand comes up, turning his body and mirroring Eddie’s position with his legs crossed, and he doesn’t miss the way that Eddie’s eyes flicker down and back up his body with a soft intent. “Heaven forbid you’re ego grows any bigger. I might as well pass along the crown now. Or would you rather a tiara?”
Eddie’s grin never wavers. “A tiara please. We both know I’m the prettiest one around.”
“That’s for sure.”
And it’s far too honest, far too easy when it falls from Steve’s lips, but that’s the way that they’ve always been. It’s just how they always are.
Hidden flirts and compliments. Sudden breaths when something is said that would fit into the typical pattern of girl-boy but it isn’t typical because it’s Eddie and Steve. Steve likes the way Eddie’s ears go red when he leans in too close, and he knows that Eddie likes the way Steve trips over his words when the other refuses to drop eye contact.
They spend all of their free time together and stay glued to the hip like the world put them there itself; Eddie invites Steve over to smoke when he’s bored and when he’s lonely, and the left side of Steve’s bed has a dip in the mattress that he knows Eddie’s body fits into perfectly. His van is kind of ruined but it doesn’t matter because Eddie looks beautiful in the front seat of Steve’s BMW, and everyone knows that when Steve wears anything on the darker end of the colour spectrum that it didn’t come from his personal closet.
Ingrained would be a good word. Nancy would be proud, maybe, of both his extending vocabulary and the way that he’s been able to find someone that he trusts and desires so much as Eddie.
“Stevie…” Eddie murmurs, and the couch whines under them as Eddie shuffles closer over the cushions. His hand falls from where it was supporting his head and reaches across the back of the furniture, brushing warm fingertips across the underside of Steve’s forearm. His touch isn’t cold but Steve shivers, and he chalks it up to both the influence of the weed and the sheer presence of the boy he’s fallen head over heels for.
“What?” Steve mumbles, low and nearly defensive as Eddie takes him apart with only his gaze. He doesn’t know where this is going, and it’s almost veering off course from what he’s so used to.
Around his time, when Eddie finally touches him or when Steve finally touches Eddie, he’s sober enough to drive home. Usually, Steve would be getting his shoes on and struggling to tie his laces with trembling fingers, and Eddie would watch him with his hip against the countertop like he knew exactly what was going through his dumb little head.
Around this time, Steve is usually too afraid of his own mouth and honesty to stick around Eddie for any longer.
Eddie shrugs lightly, tapping Steve’s arm with his middle and ring finger. The pattern is nondescript, mundane and simple as he just touches Steve’s arm. He gets closer too—Steve’s heart picks up as Eddie’s knee knocks against his own on the cushions, and oh God all he can see is his mouth and his nose and his eyes that flick from Steve’s own and down—
“Nothin’... was just looking at you.” Eddie’s smile has lessened now but it’s softer, private and gentle as Steve fiddles with his pants seam with his free hand. He almost wants to reach over, play with the ripped threads on Eddie’s jeans instead, and the thought is overpowering enough that his eyes fall to Eddie’s lap. “You’re quieter today.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Steve asks, and Christ, the mere idea of those threads is too powerful so he gives in. He’s careful when he moves his hand from his lap to Eddie’s knee, wrapping one of the black strings around his pointer finger and tugging gently. It curls when he pulls back, and it reminds him of the unruly mess on Eddie’s head, and that coaxes a teeny smile to his own face.
He doesn’t have the courage to look back up at Eddie. Steve’s palm presses against his knee as he fiddles and busies his hands, and the warmth under his hand is a comfort that he rarely feels.
“DIdn’t say it was. It was just an observation.”
“What, are you studying me now?”
There’s a pause after Steve responds, one that doesn’t usually happen because Eddie is smart and witty and he’s made of sunlight and metal, and it drags on long enough that Steve finds himself looking up to meet an ebon gaze.
Eddie looks at him like he could see the world if he only stared long enough. His gaze is heavy, bringing heat to Steve’s cheeks and pausing the movement of his hand over Eddie’s jeans.
“Something like that,” Eddie murmurs, quiet in the space between them. There isn’t a lot of it—space, Steve means, not as he finds himself leaning into Eddie’s valence to press his knee into the boy's thigh. Eddie’s hand has moved from Steve’s forearm to his elbow, cupping the bone and brushing his thumb over the soft inside of it, and it’s a completely innocent touch but it sparks in the pit of Steve’s stomach with vengeance. “You’re pretty. Nice to look at, y’know?”
It isn’t a question, at least not one that Steve could answer.
“Thanks,” he manages, and the awkward delivery does not help his nerves whatsoever, “but I thought we established that you’re the prettier one here.”
Eddie’s gaze doesn’t leave his own. “We could also establish that I’m a liar.”
“So…” Steve steels himself with a slow breath, and with all the bravery that he can muster he presses his knee firmer into Eddie’s thigh. His thumb slips under the rip in his jeans, and Steve takes far too much delight in the way Eddie’s breath hitches when he rubs against his skin. “The ending is that we’re both pretty, both liars, and both high as fuck?”
“Pretty much,” Eddie grins, whispering like it’s a secret, and Steve can’t stop the laughter that bubbles in his chest. “What now?”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just—” Steve strokes his thumb over the curve of Eddie’s thigh again, and does it once more when Eddie’s own hand slides farther up his arm. It’s nearly at his shoulder now, not holding, but close to wrapping around Steve’s shoulders in a more intimate hold than they’ve ever been in. “Nothing. I forgot what I was gonna say.”
Eddie hums, a sound to fill the silence. He doesn’t continue after, and it leaves them in the same space on the same couch, having smoked the same weed and loving the way they sink into each others company.
At least, Steve loves it.
“I—” Steve says suddenly, and Eddie blinks at the sudden speech. Steve doesn’t even know where he himself was going with it, but there’s a strange urgency welling in his chest and something that he has to get out now or he won’t ever. “Eddie, I—”
And Eddie’s head tilts, soft confusion open over his face, and Steve’s urgency trickles halfway into desperation.
“Please tell me that I’m not the only one,” he almost pleads, and as Eddie’s eyes widen ever so slightly he continues on, “I know that it’s not, like, common and it’s not what you know me as but I don’t know what else to say and—and God, I’m rambling, but—”
Steve swallows and he knows that his hand is probably trembling a little on Eddie’s thigh but he doesn’t care.
“I just want to know that I’m not the only one. That feels this way.” And the truth is out. Right there in Eddie’s lap, small and vulnerable to whatever he wants to do with it. “And if I’m completely wrong and you want me to leave I can walk home and we can forget this, and—and I don’t have to—”
“Steve,” Eddie says, but Steve shakes his head and barrels on.
“I don’t have to come around anymore and it’ll be fine with Robin and Nancy and Dustin and—”
“Steve.”
“—and you won’t like, lose me as a friend, I just might need space for—”
“Steve!” Eddie laughs, a harsh sound that interrupts Steve mid-sentence. “Steve, dude, calm down. It’s okay.”
Is it?
“You—” Eddie licks his lips and shakes his head softly, staring at him with a kind of wonder that Steve hasn’t seen for a while. “You are full of fucking surprises, aren’t you?”
And it isn’t rejection. It isn’t cold hands pushing him away, dark eyes full of confusion and awkwardness and distaste. It’s enough for Steve to settle back into the couch—he hadn’t even realized he was sitting up—and for Eddie’s arm to slide around the back of his shoulders like he never knew he wanted.
“Is that a bad thing?” Steve murmurs, voice still shaking with the leftover nerves but they’re soothed when Eddie gently shakes his head.
“Never said that, pretty boy. Never said that at all.” His wonder hasn’t faded, and hanging in the balance and lull of the conversation is now the overwhelming urge to kiss him. It replaces the idea of tucking Steve’s fingers under the rips in Eddie’s pants, replaces the need to curl into his side, and replaces the need to run his fingers through Eddie’s hair because now he thinks he might be allowed.
Well, maybe he might be allowed all of those things. Steve just really, really wants Eddie to kiss him the most right now.
Steve thinks that Eddie might want the same thing, if the flick of his gaze down and back up has anything to say.
“Can I…” Eddie breathes, and Steve is already nodding before the words meet his ears. “Can I kiss you? Please tell me I can kiss you.”
You’re not the only one.
“God yes, Eddie, please—”
And when Eddie kisses him it’s sunlight and metal and warmth and everything that Steve didn’t know he needed.
Eddie’s hand slides from his shoulder up his collarbone, into Steve’s hair and Steve smiles into the kiss as he gently tugs at the shorter ones at the back of his neck. He tastes like weed and something sweeter, and Steve wonders if he snuck a few sour candies when he wasn’t looking.
He kisses Steve like he’s something special, and Steve can’t stop the soft moan that escapes his throat when Eddie tilts his head and suddenly everything is better.
Steve’s fingers clench around Eddie’s thigh and his free hand slides up Eddie’s chest, touching and exploring because he can, and he feels the way Eddie smiles into the kiss when Steve’s fingers catch on the neckline of his shirt. His hands in Steve’s hair move him where Eddie wants, and that’s towards him as Eddie falls against the back of the couch. Their lips part on a slick noise and Steve is already following, desperate for more and pleading without words for a sensation he’s only come to know.
“Eddie—” Steve mumbles, but it’s shushed by Eddie’s lips as the boy pulls him into his lap and helps Steve swing a leg over his lap. “Fuck…”
“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, but it’s lost against Steve’s mouth as he’s tugged down once more–and Steve going willingly, aching for the contact and the feel of Eddie’s hands in his hair, down his back, trailing towards the curve of his hip because he’s not the only one that’s been blessed with the allowance of touch.
They kiss until Steve forgets his own name. Eddie’s hands have mapped out their favourite places over Steve’s clothing and Steve’s lips are as numb as his fingertips when he runs them through Eddie’s curls. The smoke sifting through the fading sunlight encases them, leaving only whispered words and private smiles in Eddie’s home, and Steve has never felt safer than sitting right in Eddie fucking Munson’s lap.
So yeah. When Hawkins is bored, that means everyone is bored, and they’re all waiting for something—or someone—to coax them out of that sticky trance.
But, Steve can’t say that he minds wasting all his time with Eddie, and he would gladly have a million more days of nothing if it means five more minutes of Eddie whispering adoration against his lips.
Yeah. There’s nothing to do, but Steve doesn’t think that it’s such a bad thing.