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A few months after everything settles, Steve finds himself hanging out at the damn kissing rock with Eddie, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan, which he finds hilarious considering how many girls he’s brought there before, but at the same time he gets why they chose this spot. At least, he gets why Eddie suggested it—when shit was really hitting the fan, he was able to safely hide out here, and it was the place where he really became one of them. Following them into Mordor or whatever the fuck he’d said.
They’re sitting in a half circle, a couple of six-packs of beer in the middle of their huddle, and everyone’s loose and laughing, and it’s so carefree and peaceful that it almost feels like they’re living in someone else’s life. Like they’re the kind of kids whose whole lives are made up of going to school, going to work, participating in some type of clubs, catching movies and drinking milkshakes and goofing off at the mall, or sneaking beers from their parents; like the worst thing that could happen to them is getting caught drinking or smoking. Like they’re not intimately familiar with death and destruction. Nice feels like too ordinary a word to describe it, but it’s the best Steve can come up with as he clutches the stitch in his side while laughing at something ridiculous story Robin is telling them about the first time she tried to make herself like a boy.
Everyone has built a pleasant buzz, and as they ease out of their laughter at Robin’s storytelling, Eddie pulls out a small tin from his jacket pocket and waves it around. “Anyone interested in getting a little more relaxed?” he asks, a wide grin splitting his face. Jonathan immediately raises his hand, causing Nancy to bark out a laugh and she awkwardly nods, while Robin follows Jonathan’s example and starts waving her hand back and forth.. “Steve? You down, man?” Eddie asks.
“Nah, someone’s gotta be able to drive us all home later. I’ll just have one more beer and call it after that,” Steve says, as nonchalantly as he can. “You guys have fun though.”
“Oh, come on, Steve,” Nancy needles. “You’ve gotten crossfaded and driven so many times. Just do it!”
Steve laughs and puts his hand on his chest dramatically. “Nancy Wheeler, are you trying to peer pressure me?! This is payback for making you shotgun that beer in front of Tommy H. and Carol, isn’t it?”
Nancy laughs and shakes her head, her curly hair bouncing wildly back and forth. “No, no, I just know that’s a bullshit excuse and you deserve to have fun with us too!”
Steve waves a hand and leans back against the large boulder. “I’m good Nance, really. And it might seem like a bullshit excuse but now that Hopper’s back from the dead and saved us all from certain doom again I really don’t feel like getting pulled over and seeing him look at me like I’m the dumbest piece of shit on earth for doing something as stupid as driving under the influence.” He laughs and tips his head back. “Dude, he’s a dad again—imagine the fucking lecture he’d give me. He’d do that weird growly thing with his voice and be all seriously, Harrington? You fight monsters and are lucky to make it out with your ass in one piece and this is how you decide to test god?”
Everyone is laughing hysterically again, and Nancy reaches over to pat Steve’s knee consolingly. “Okay, okay. That’s actually a good reason for one of us to stay clearheaded. God, Hopper’s gotten even more protective since the whole Russia thing.” Eddie lights up a joint and takes a long hit before passing it to Jonathan, who passes it to Nancy.
While Nancy takes her hit, Robin says, “Yeah, did Henderson tell you about the speech Hopper made to all of them after we closed the last gate? Something about not taking it for granted that they’re still alive and whatever, and that Hopper basically cried and hugged each of them individually. And now he’s chaperoning all of their hangouts and like, won’t let them sit more than two rows away from him at the movie theater even.” She accepts the joint from Nancy and takes a hit, passing it back to Eddie.
Eddie looks at Steve and offers him a chance to take a hit again. “You sure, man. We can always hang out here a while longer if you wanna sober up more before we leave.”
Steve smiles and shakes his head. “I’m good, dude. I’m not really into all that anyway. It was more Tommy’s thing and I just went along with it.”
Nancy frowns at that but doesn’t say anything, and Eddie accepts it and takes another hit. The conversation shifts after that as they each do their own impressions of Hopper giving them a disappointed Dad speech, and by the time night starts to fall and they’re heading to Steve’s car to head home, the gears in Nancy’s head are turning.
A week later, they’re all in Steve’s basement, his parents out of town, and an array of alcoholic drinks laid out on the table. Nancy and Robin are painting each other’s toenails and gossiping about various people from school, Jonathan is digging through Steve’s records for anything that’s not super poppy, and Eddie and Steve are sitting on separate ends of the sofa, facing each other with their feet propped side-by-side on the middle cushion.
Jonathan finally finds a Fleetwood Mac album and flips it to side two; The Chain starts playing lowly on the record player, and Steve leans back tipping his head over the armrest and staring at the ceiling contentedly. “God, Stevie Nicks is hot,” he and Robin say in unison.
“You would find a chick with your name hot, Harrington,” Eddie says, kicking Steve in the side gently.
“Hey, I’d find a dude with my name hot, too,” Steve says absently. “I just haven’t met any yet. Steve McQueen was pretty hot in Magnificent Seven though.” He notices everyone goes silent and sits up. “What?”
“Nothing, man,” Eddie says, a small smile on his face. “Just didn’t know you swung that way.”
“Yeah, Steve, what the hell?” Robin says, throwing a pillow at him and nearly knocking the bottle of tequila off the table. “You let me have my whole crisis about coming out to someone for like, the first time ever, and didn’t think to share with the class that you’re queer too?”
Steve laughs and shakes his head. “I didn’t know!”
“When did you know, then?” Robin asks. “Because the Steve I’ve gotten to know is all about the ladies, and I, for one, am very deeply invested in the development of a Steve Harrington who can call another man hot with a straight face—with fervor even.”
Steve shrugs and grabs the bottle of tequila, taking a long sip from it and cringing. “Man, I don’t know. It wasn’t like some fuckin clouds parted in the sky and a ray of sunlight shone down on a guy and my brain was like oh, I wanna fuck him or something. It was more like…you’d tell me different stories about girls you’d had crushes on and the small shit you noticed and liked about them, and I started to realize I had lists of things like that too, except mine weren’t all about girls.” He puts the tequila down and grabs a bottle of beer instead, cracking it open and taking a small sip. “I dunno, I guess I just always thought I had those weird little lists in my head because it was like I wanna be like that, too. Like I was cataloguing cool behaviors or whatever, not that I had crushes. All my crushes before that were very rooted in sexual attraction and I hadn’t ever put any thought into what that would feel like directed towards dudes before.”
Everyone is quiet, letting Steve’s explanation wash over them, and Eddie nudges Steve with his foot again. “Hey, that’s pretty cool though, Steve. Like, to be able to make that kind of introspective analysis of yourself and not panic about it. You were so fuckin casual just now! Just like yeah, Steve McQueen is hot. Not a trace of hesitation, man.” Steve laughs and shoves Eddie’s foot away. “No, I mean it. You know how long I spent freaking out when I had my bisexual awakening?”
Robin throws another pillow and this time manages to knock a (thankfully closed) bottle of whiskey onto the carpet instead of hitting Eddie. “SERIOUSLY? If one more person in this room comes out right now I’m going to lose my entire mind. You guys let me have all these panics about telling people I’m into the ladies, and you’re over here just fucking…being bisexual and not saying shit?”
Everyone is laughing now, and Eddie tosses the pillow back at Robin. “Hey, I only offer that shit up when it seems relevant, and you didn’t seem like you were seeking validation or anything when you slid it into conversation with me. It was just like, yeah, everyone knows this about me and I thought that was so cool and didn’t want to come off as being all ooh look at me, I’m queer too!”
Robin crosses her arms and huffs. “Fine. Whatever.” She turns to look at Nancy and Jonathan, and narrows her eyes. “The very second either of you has a gay awakening, I expect to be the first to know. It’s my right as the first queer person in the group.”
They laugh and assure her they’ll tell her immediately if they experience it, and Eddie pulls out his now-familiar tin. “Okay, okay, homos and heteros, I think it’s time we indulge a little and relax.”
The joint makes its way around the circle, and when it gets passed to Steve, he just passes it back to Eddie instead of taking a hit. “Seriously, man? You can’t say you need to drive this time, we’re at your house,” Eddie says.
Steve shakes his head. “Nah, I had a little too much tequila and I feel like inhaling that shit’s gonna be the thing that pushes me into I’m gonna puke territory.” Nancy narrows her eyes at him, but he ignores her; “You guys are pretty funny when you get crossed though, so please, continue passing that shit amongst yourselves.”
Nancy doesn’t say anything, but now she’s certain something’s up with Steve. When he suggested to her that he host the hangout this time, part of his reasoning was exactly this scenario, but now that it’s arrived, he’s hesitating. She isn’t quite sure why, but she decides she’s going to find out.
After a few more times of Steve passing on getting high with the group, Nancy asks him to meet her for coffee, just the two of them. He agrees, and meets her at the diner on his lunch break. “Hey, Nance,” he says in greeting, sliding into the opposite bench of the booth she’s at. “This is nice, we should do this more often. Hang out, just the two of us, I mean. I feel like as much as we see of each other lately, we don’t really talk one on one anymore.”
Nancy smiles and agrees; the waitress comes over and pours them coffee and water, and takes their lunch orders. As soon as she walks away, Nancy reaches out and takes one of Steve’s hands in both of hers. “So…are you okay, Steve?” she asks softly.
Steve frowns and squeezes her hand. “I’m good, Nancy. Why? What’s going on?”
“I was kind of hoping you’d tell me,” she says, pulling one of her hands away to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. “The others might not know you as well as I do, so they don’t catch it, but every time we’ve hung out these last few months, you’ve gotten this sort of pinched look in your eyes when Eddie pulls out his weed. Like, the Steve I know always loved getting high or crossed, and now it’s like, you’re still comfortable being around it, but you’re terrified to do it.” She squeezes his hand gently. “I’m not trying to peer-pressure you into doing it if you’re really not into it anymore, I just…want to make sure you’re okay. I don’t like the idea of us doing something around you that causes you any kind of discomfort.”
Steve sighs and pats Nancy’s hand with his free one. “I appreciate your concern, Nance. I really do. But it’s nothing serious, really. I just…I don’t know. It’s like, I want to smoke with you guys. Because I really did love doing it, you’re right. But every time I think about the feeling of my head going fuzzy like that, and the way my body feels all light and fuzzy…. I almost have like, a full-body reaction, and all I can think about is when the Russians put that shit in me and Robin.” He picks up his coffee and takes a sip, contemplating his next words. “Like, I know it’s different. And that being with all of you is a much safer place to get high, and that it’s just fuckin weed. Not some unknown Commie concoction. But my body can’t seem to remember that, and I just. Can’t do it.”
Nancy squeezes Steve’s hand firmly, and nods at him. “I get it. That’s…a completely valid feeling, Steve. Thank you for telling me. I’ll make sure nobody tries to push you into anything you don’t want to do.”
“Thanks, Nance,” Steve says softly. The waitress arrives with their order, and as they eat their conversation shifts to less serious topics. When they finish, Steve pays, and they exit the diner arm in arm. Nancy walks him across the street back to Family Video, says hi to Robin, and heads out.
True to her word, Nancy makes sure the joint never gets passed to Steve; nobody really comments on it, as they’ve all just taken Steve at his word that he’s never been really into it. None of them have spent nearly as much time with him as Nancy has, so they have no reason to doubt him; for a while, it works out perfectly. Which, naturally, means there has to be a time where it doesn’t.
Eddie and Steve are hanging out by the lake, just the two of them; Nancy, Robin, and Jonathan are supposed to meet up with them later, but they’ve got a couple hours yet before that happens. It’s a rare day in Hawkins—sunny, clear-skies, a light breeze, and no humidity to speak of. Perfect weather for being out on the water, hence their decision to go back to the lake for the first time since all the Upside Down shit happened. Eddie seems a little on edge though, so the infamous tin makes its appearance, and Eddie lights up a joint.
“You want some?” he asks. “It’s cool if you don’t. Thought maybe you’d be more comfortable doing it just one-on-one, though. I know I was when I was first getting really into it.”
Steve tries to shake his head, and ends up doing something between a nod and a shake. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”
Eddie looks at him for a long moment, takes a drag, holds it in his mouth, and quickly maneuvers himself so he’s sitting on Steve’s outstretched legs. Before Steve can ask what he’s doing, Eddie carefully cups Steve’s jaw and pulls their mouths close together, nearly touching. Steve’s brain finally registers what’s going on, and he opens his mouth on instinct, inhaling in unison with Eddie’s long exhale.
Eddie stays perched on Steve, watches him hold the inhale and slowly release it. “Better?” he asks, voice rough and low with want.
Steve smiles and nods. “This is way better than when the Russians drugged me.”
Eddie freezes—like, fully freezes. Facial expression and everything. Absolutely no movement, as his brain processes the truly insane words he just heard. “Better than when the who did what?!”
Steve laughs and reaches for the hand that’s holding the joint, guiding it back toward Eddie’s mouth. “Do that a few more times, and I’ll tell you the whole story. Also, like. If you wanna make out or something, I’m down. I’ve never shotgunned with a guy before but this is uh. This is really fucking hot. You’re really fucking hot. Fuck it, let’s just do this.”
Eddie laughs and does what Steve asks, taking a long hit and passing the smoke to Steve slowly. When Steve exhales, Eddie fully closes the gap between them; they kiss slowly, languidly for several moments before he pulls away. “Okay. Now start telling me about these fucking Russians and why the hell they would drug you.”
Over the two and a half hours that pass before the rest of the group arrives, Steve fills Eddie in on the whole adventure underneath Starcourt; he tells him how he and Robin hated each other until they started working on the Russian transmission Dustin picked up, how they allowed themselves to get caught so Dustin and Erica could escape, and how they were instrumental to the mall getting blown up. Eddie keeps carefully passing smoke to Steve in the same slow, sensual manner, and Steve finds that this method of getting high doesn’t result in his body revolting against the idea of actually being high.
By the time everyone else arrives, they’re both feeling pleasantly floaty, and their lips are puffy and red from making out in between pieces of the story. Robin immediately notices that detail, and yells that it’s bullshit Steve kissed a boy before she’s kissed a girl, to which Nancy responds by kissing Robin full on the mouth. Everyone laughs at the look of shock on Robin’s face, and Jonathan just pats her on the shoulder when she stands there, dazed. “Now you’ve both had your first gay kiss. Congratulations!” Nancy says, laughing as she sits down next to Steve. “Oh, and you can consider that me telling you that I’ve been considering whether or not I find women attractive. I think I can now say the answer is a solid yes, but obviously I’m not about to go dating one right now, since I’ve got Jonathan and all.”
Jonathan plops down next to Nancy and takes her hand in his. “I have yet to have my own gay awakening, Robin, but don’t worry—you’ll still be the first to know if it happens.”
Robin huffs an awkward laugh, and sits down next to Eddie, reaching into his pocket and pulling out another joint. Nancy leans against Jonathan and turns toward Steve—“So, you figured out the whole getting high thing then?” she asks. “And don’t try to tell me you’re not high—I haven’t seen your pupils blown that wide since the first time you saw Fast Times.”
Steve laughs and nods. “Yeah, turns out trauma has nothing on the power of kissing a cute boy,” he says, looking over at Eddie with a fond smile. He’s not foolish enough to think he’s suddenly past the pain and fear and the ghosts that cling to him, but today, all Steve knows is sunshine, loud laughter, and the press of Eddie’s soft lips on his. Today, the Russians and the monsters and the death and the destruction no longer sit heavy on his chest. It’s a rare day in Hawkins, indeed.