Chapter Text
Steve Harrington was going through a bit of a crisis.
It was a few months after the final battle with Vecna. El had once again stepped in to save their asses at the last minute. Steve had never been more relieved than when he saw Vecna's horrifying face crumbling to dust.
She and the Byers have since then moved back to Hawkins with a somehow alive Hopper (Steve isn’t going to question that, he’d just open a whole other can of worms). Life had somehow returned to its original boring state.
Or that’s what he would say if there wasn’t the “Eddie Situation”.
The “Eddie Situation” being that Steve had caught feelings for the other man.
Now, this wasn’t the first time that he found a man attractive. Tommy H had very nice and strong arms, he had to admit that Jonathan possessed a nice smile (the few times that he got to see it) and as much as Steve hated to admit it, Hargrove was easy on the eyes as well.
Before meeting Robin, he thought these were things that everybody thought of each other. It wasn’t gay to think another man had beautiful eyes or a handsome face and if he was staring at another man's abs, well that was just normal heterosexual admiration.
Because Steve couldn’t be gay, he liked girls. He liked Nancy.
Sure, their relationship was disastrous and she never seemed to like him as much as he liked her. But the feelings he had for Nancy were real, that much he knew.
One of the benefits of having a lesbian best friend however was that he got to learn more about gay people than he ever thought he would.
So, learning that like girls and boys is something he could do was a game-changer for Steve.
Okay, so he was bisexual. Not a big deal.
Except this is rural Indiana and Hawkins didn’t exactly pride itself on being a progressive place.
So yeah, big deal.
Steve’s plan was to just not act on it if he didn’t have to. He knew half of Hawkins and so far, he had not caught feelings for another guy.
Until he was slammed into a wall and threatened with a broken bottle at least. He would never admit that out loud but that moment had turned him on more than he thought it should.
All of this was forgotten in the chaos that was Vecna trying to kill them and an angry mob chasing poor Eddie. The charges against Eddie had luckily been dropped and Jason and his goons had been punished for taking “justice” into their own hands.
Not everyone in Hawkins was willing to believe that Eddie was innocent but at least he didn’t have to be on the run any longer.
The man had since then fully joined their group.
He returned to his position as leader of the Hellfire club and together the kids played their little nerd game every Thursday. Will also joined the group, Eddie had immediately taken a liking to the kid and would often ask for creative input to their game.
Steve would often drive the kids home after and while he wasn’t interested in playing himself, he couldn’t help how much fun the kids seemed to have.
The man also became a regular in his and Robins's lives, together they would often hang out and watch movies together (Not that Steve wasn’t doing that already but watching them with Eddie was much more fun).
That was where the “Situation” really began.
The more time they spend together the more things he found to like about Eddie. Despite his rocker appearance and eccentric personality, he was actually a very sweet and caring person. He looked after the kids like he was their older brother and would always try to cheer them up.
His nerdiness was something that also endeared the other man to Steve. The way he could passionately rant about books or movies for what seemed like hours.
At first, Steve thought that it would annoy him in the long run, but he soon learned that he liked how excited and happy seemed to be. It was also impressive how he seemed to remember small details in things he hadn’t seen or read in years.
Steve also appreciated Eddie’s music taste. Yeah, he was rather dismissive about it at first, thinking it was mostly just loud noise. The other man would not rest until he found something that Steve would like.
That was no easy feat since Steve himself did not even really know what he liked. He just listened to whatever was on the radio at the moment.
Together they crammed through Eddies extensive music collection to find something that he might enjoy.
Steve found that he liked Queen and David Bowie the best. They weren’t metal but Eddie was happy that he at least found something that Steve enjoyed. He also promised to take him to a concert so he could join Eddie in the pit (whatever that meant).
And yes, Steve couldn’t deny that Eddie was really attractive with his big dark eyes and handsome smile. He had caught himself trying to run his hands through the other's hair multiple times, but could you blame him? Eddies hair looked really soft up close.
And while Steve has managed to keep his thoughts under control for now, with each passing day it seemed harder to deny that he was head over heels in love with Eddie Munson and not tell the man that.
But that’s where his problems start because there is no way that Eddie is attracted to men and even if he was that didn’t mean that he liked Steve.
Eddie never made any indication of whom he might be interested in. Never talked about boys or girls in any kind of romantic or sexual way, he was too busy rambling about his interest.
Eddies dating pool must have also gotten a lot smaller since the murder accusations so maybe that’s why he never talked about those kinds of things.
And it's not like Steve could just ask him “Do you like to kiss boys and would you like to kiss me?”
He didn’t think that Eddie would be the kind of person to have anything against same-sex relationships, but one could never be too careful.
So that was it.
He was just going to have to hang out with stupidly handsome Eddie without being able to tell him what he really feels before said feeling inevitably ate him alive.
God, being queer in the 80s sucked.
X
Now despite Steve’s efforts of not making his crush known he couldn’t hide it from the curious gaze of his friends.
Robin was the first to catch on. She was the one who gave him the bisexuality talk so when she saw Steve staring a little longer than normal at Eddie's backside, she knew what was going on.
At first, it was cute seeing Steve be all flustered and moon-eyed around Eddie but with time it became infuriating.
Now not brag or anything but Robin had a pretty good gaydar (Not like it would be much use here in small-town America). If her intuition told her someone might be gay, there was a high chance they were. So, when Eddie Munson started hanging out with them, intuition nearly screamed at her “Not straight”. The looks Eddie keeps giving Steve just support her theory.
Now here she was trapped between two idiots who seemed too caught up in their own heads to notice that they liked each other.
Despite their obvious mutual attraction, Robin knew that their getting together was not going to be so easy. Steve still had a lot of hang-ups about his sexuality and confronting him with her suspicions about Eddie would only lead to him overthinking and closing off.
She also couldn’t go to Eddie because, despite her growing frustrations, she would never out Steve like that. Robin knew he would do the same for her. There is also the fact that she didn’t even know if Eddie was ready to have his feelings exposed.
So, the two of them needed to work up the courage to figure this out for themselves. She couldn’t make the confession part if she didn’t want to hurt somebody.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t give them a helpful push in the right direction.
She also wasn’t the only one aware of this “situation”.
Dustin too had worked out that there was something between Steve and Eddie. The kid was smart and spend a lot of them with the older men, there was no way he wouldn’t know about this.
So, to save her poor nerves and her best friend's heart she decided to join forces with the younger boy.
Together they would work out a plan and they would not stop until they managed to get those two to admit their feeling for each other.
Plan A would be executed that Thursday during the group's weekly D&D session.
Both knew this wasn’t going to be easy but hell they saved the world, how much harder could this be?