Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Steve!”

Steve jumps, smacking his head off the underside of the counter. “Jesus!” he groans, rubbing his head as he stands, and then jumps again. “Christ!”

Eddie is, like, in his face. And he looks annoyed. “Are you seriously a virgin?”

“Shh,” Steve orders, glancing around. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Oh, yeah, because anyone in this town would think you’ve never had sex. I mean a green virgin. You know,” Eddie says, and mimes taking a pull off a joint.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Yeah, I haven’t tried it.”

Eddie puts his hands on his hips, indignant. “Why the hell not? Are you too health-conscious to smoke but content to suckle from the teat of spirits?”

“Don’t say suckle,” Steve pleads, “or, teat, Jesus, dude. Why not tit?”

Eddie sniffs. “Tit is crass.”

“Oh my God,” Steve whispers to himself, and then gives Eddie a once-over. “Are you high right now?”

“No, Steve,” Eddie says, in a voice positively dripping with sarcasm, “I’m sober. On purpose. I must be you.”

Steve leans in and sniffs. “You smell like the art teacher’s room.”

Eddie wraps his arms around himself, looking scandalized. “My smell is my own,” he says haughtily. Steve looks up when the bell above the door jingles and Robin walks in. She catches him looking at her and freezes, the door bumping against her back as it closes.

“Hey, Steve,” she says slowly. She begins edging her way along the sci-fi aisle, keeping a careful eye on him. She gets to the end of the aisle and bends around it, half-crouched down, hissing, “psst!” at Eddie and motioning for him to crouch down, too.

He goes down with the ease of someone on the same wavelength, and Robin cups a hand around her mouth.

“I think Steve knows!” she yells.

The mother and daughter endlessly browsing the romcoms both turn around. Robin gives them a wide-eyed look and then back at Eddie.

“I just saw a munchkin!”

Eddie is useless, laughing his ass off, so Steve runs out from behind the counter and grabs Robin, pulling her to her feet.

“Hey, I told you guys you couldn’t reenact…The Wizard of Oz in here again,” he says loudly, grabbing Eddie’s arm and propelling the two of them in front of him and out the door.

They stumble to a stop around the side of the building, near Eddie’s van, arguing over the munchkin sighting.

“It was a child,” Eddie insists.

“Yeah, a child munchkin,” Robin says.

“You’re both idiots,” Steve says.

“You’re almost done, so come with us,” Robin says, tugging on Steve’s sleeve.

“Go with you where?”

“We’re getting churros!” Robin sings, throwing an arm around Eddie’s shoulders.

Steve does his best to ignore the blip of jealousy that flares up at how easy it is for her to touch Eddie casually. The last time Steve had tried (a hand on Eddie’s shoulder as Steve got to his feet in their booth at the diner) he’d nearly died of too-fast-boner shock when his fingers had accidentally slipped into the collar of Eddie’s shirt, for the briefest moment sliding across warm, smooth skin. Eddie slapped his hand away and gave him a coquettish look, saying, “Buy me dinner, first,” and they had laughed it off and Steve pretended like it wasn’t the single-most erotic thing he’s experienced in the last ten months.

Jesus. If his sexual frustration was a baby, it’d be overdue.

“I don’t like churros,” Steve lies, just to get a rise out of her.

Robin doesn’t disappoint. “I’ve seen you deep-throat those bitches like a porn star at a hot dog hotel,” she says, then bursts out laughing, her silent, all-over laugh that makes her look like she’s having convulsions.

Steve stares at her as she lowers herself to the curb. “Jesus, how much did she have?”

“Only one weed, officer, I swear,” Eddie says, holding his hands up like he’s got a gun between his shoulder blades. “Oh, shit, I forgot—” He turns to walk to his van and Steve glances behind him into the video store to see if Carol has noticed he’s stepped out—

Carol is at the window making stabbing motions with her pen.

Steve coughs and turns away, in time to see Eddie pull his door open and a wall of smoke fall out. Steve hears the door shut, and Eddie comes walking through the billowing clouds of smoke, arms out for balance as he walks with a videotape on his head.

“And my uncle said this plateau would never do me any good,” Eddie says as he passes Steve, looking up as he walks, somehow knowing exactly when to sidestep one of Robin’s legs. Robin throws small pebbles at Eddie’s back, trying to topple the tape, and he laughs and flips her off as he disappears around the front of the store.

She giggles and turns back around, gasping when Steve is in her face.

“Marijuana, Robin, really?” he demands.

“Whaaaat?” she asks. “It’s really good. Like, really good. This kind of high, I like this kind of high.” She gasps and smacks Steve’s arm suddenly. “And guess what: Eddie’s music sounds so much better now; I can definitely see why he smokes so much weed.”

“Oh, so it’s true: heavy metal leads to a drug dependency,” Steve says. “Hey, you should give talks at the middle school.”

Robin snorts. “I have long since filled my ‘time around children’ quota since meeting you. So, unless there are some chatty children at the churro stand—” She zips her lip.

“Okay, well, Carol is probably going to try to rewind my nuts, so I’d better get back inside and, you know, finish my shift.”

“We’ll wait for you,” Robin says as Eddie walks up to them. “Okay, Munster? Steve said he’ll come with us.”

“No, I didn’t,” says Steve.

Robin flaps a hand at him, as if his opinion couldn’t possibly matter less. “You have nothing better to do, why not smoke some weed?”

“You’re really missing your calling working in the middle school,” Steve says.

“Look, Harrington is more than welcome but I am not sitting in this crumbly ass parking lot for almost an hour,” Eddie says. “Churros are a now thing.”

“But I wanna try to peer pressure him from outside,” Robin protests.

“You’re horrible at peer pressure,” Eddie says, hauling her to her feet and pushing her towards his van. “Way too guilt-ridden.”

They get in the van, Steve worrying his lip over whether or not he should say something about Eddie driving high when he’s suddenly stabbed in the back. Steve screams, jerking forward, hands clawing at his back as he spins around to face—

Carol, eyes narrowed and one long, fake nail extended, ready to jab again, standing behind him. “Go wash the floor,” she says through gritted teeth. Steve swallows and nods, and obediently scuttles inside to wash the floor he’d promised he would do four hours ago.

“Since when do you and Robin hang around with that psycho?” Carol asks from her spot behind the counter, watching Steve swirl the mop about. He looks up with a frown.

“What psycho?”

Carol rolls her eyes, opening a magazine. “That Munson freak. The one that murdered all those students, ring a bell?”

Steve pauses in his ineffectual mopping. “He didn’t kill anyone.”

Carol scoffs so loud her bangs lift up in the breeze. “Okay,” she says sarcastically, “so Chrissy Cunningham just happened to die in his drug trailer? Maybe he didn’t kill the others, but he definitely did Chrissy.” She snorts, flipping through her magazine. “Probably asked her out and couldn’t handle it when she said no, people like him are so pathetic. You’d think he’d be used to rejection by now.” She laughs, completely oblivious to the look Steve is giving her.

“He didn’t kill her,” Steve says. “I- look, I know his reputation, but, come on, the police cleared him as a suspect-”

Carol snickers. “Like that matters. We all know he did it, we don’t need proof.”

“That’s literally a requirement,” Steve says. “Like, the only one. So that you don’t, you know, persecute the wrong person.”

Carol waves him off. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters, he’s no one.”

The door clatters open, a harried-looking father ushering five young boys inside in a clamor of voices. Carol shuts her magazine and slips it under the counter, a pleasant smile on her face as she greets them.

Steve thinks she’s never looked so ugly.

Once he’s washed the floor he clocks out; he doesn’t dare sign out early, because Keith has been an asshole about that recently but he does hover around the clock for his last eight minutes, ignoring Carol’s pissy looks. He’s ignored her since their exchange, knowing if he tried to say anything, he wouldn’t be able to hold back.

It wasn’t long ago Steve thought the same way, after all. Oh, perhaps not to the point of gleefully wishing bloodshed on the guy, but Eddie had always been The Freak, the outlier, someone easy to point at and say, he’s different.

Different in Hawkins has never been appreciated.

When Steve first found out, back in the early months of Dustin’s freshman year, that none other than Eddie Munson had taken the nerds under his wing, he had been surprised. Two worlds meeting that he’d never suspected would, thinking each of them on a different enough orbit that they’d never cross. Not only did they cross, they suffered a head-on collision. It’s felt like he’s been picking bits of Eddie out of Dustin for ten months.

And, yes, after actually spending some time around Eddie, and listening to him instead of the rumours that have circulated for both of their high school careers, Steve realized that there was a reason Dustin and the others liked him so much.

He is weird, and he’s loud and unpredictable, and Steve can definitely get why a blue-haired granny might cross the street rather than walk beside Eddie, but to get to know him is to understand that all of that is a defense mechanism. Like a feral cat, baring its teeth at an outstretched hand, not knowing if a treat or a smack is on the other end.

Since he’s started spending time with Eddie, outside of a murderous landscape and with no imminent mob uprising, Steve has learned that Dustin was right on this one. Eddie is funny, and kind, and loyal to a fault. He likes more than heavy metal music, doesn’t have much in the way of regard for either Satan or God, and Steve once saw him lift a struggling fly out of his glass of beer, and let it sit on his finger and buzz itself dry before flying away, Eddie grinning after it.

Yes, if the town of Hawkins got to know Eddie instead of his image, they never would have taken steps against him, or believed so easily that he could be a cold-blooded killer.

Steve is feeling guilty for not saying more in Eddie’s defense, and wishing he’d done more than passive aggressively changing Carol’s next start time on the schedule to an hour later so she would be late and Keith would make his constipated face at her, so there, so, Steve doesn’t go to meet Robin and Eddie. He feels like a traitor, and traitors don’t deserve spending time with friends. They deserve to be sitting home alone at six-thirty at night with a bowl of spaghetti-os that are burning hot in the middle and cold on top.

Steve sighs at the pasta and mixes it half-heartedly. Gross; the food is gross, he’s gross, and everything sucks.

He’s jerked out of his mental chant by a sudden knocking on his front door, followed by it swinging open. He’s just straightened up from his slump at the kitchen island, brandishing his saucy spoon in defense when Robin bursts in, Eddie close behind.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Robin yells, holding a churro in front of her like a gun. She immediately bursts into giggles, dropping onto a chair.

“She will,” Eddie says, from where he’s hanging back in the kitchen doorway. “You oughtta see the carnage behind us.”

Robin chomps into the churro. “Freeeeedom,” she declares through a full mouth, then waves Eddie into the room. “C’mon, give Steve his.”

“You were supposed to give him that one,” Eddie says with a grin. He holds up a brown paper bag at Steve in question.

“Since you broke into my house, I may as well get something for it,” Steve sighs, waving Eddie in. It’s not until he has Steve’s clear permission that Eddie stops hanging back like he’s ready to turn on his heel and walk out. Another defense mechanism, Steve thinks; it’s not about coming across as indifferent, or casual so much as having a quick retreat before he can be told to leave.

“Mmm,” Robin says, watching Steve pull a still-warm churro from the bag. She sits making biting motions as Steve eats, sighing as happily as if she’d just eaten.

Steve looks at Eddie, who looks to be debating with himself on if he can rest his hands on the island or not. “How much more weed did she smoke?”

“Why?’ Robin asks, draping herself across Steve. She pokes him in the cheek with a finger. “Are you jealous?”

“Yeah, Cheech, I’m green with envy,” Steve snorts, pushing her off. Robin leans on her elbows on the island, grinning up at him.

“Well, I have a joint with your name on it,” she says, and reaches into her shirt pocket. She frowns. “It’s just…uh…” Robin straightens and begins patting at her pockets.

A slim joint is slid under Steve’s nose, and his own name stares up at him, written in wobbly pencil. Wait—

“This says Stove,” he says to Eddie, who had pulled the joint from his own pocket.

Robin snaps her fingers at Eddie. “That’s right, I gave it to you for safekeeping!” She beams at Steve and jerks a thumb at Eddie. “I gave it to Eddie.”

Steve takes the joint and holds it in Robin’s face. “It says Stove.”

Robin’s eyes cross trying to read the writing, then she laughs wildly. “Aww,” she says, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug, “you’re my favourite large appliance, Stove!”

Steve sighs and hugs her back, rolling his eyes at Eddie, who’s hanging back and watching with an odd look. By the time Steve and Robin break apart, Eddie is playing with a lighter, looking at Steve.

“So,” he says, tossing the lighter to Steve, “what do you say, Stove?”

Steve looks down at the lighter in one hand and the joint in the other. Robin is practically bouncing in place, hands clasped under her chin, eyes sparkling with delight.

Steve sticks the joint in his mouth, flicking open the lighter and sparking the flame to life. “I say it’s 4:20,” he says, and lights the joint.

Marijuana stinks.

Steve has smelled it at countless parties over the years, but it’s different when the smoke is curling from between his own fingers, floating around his head like a dense cloud. He barely finishes choking out his first inhale before he’s herding them out to the backyard.

“Jesus,” he coughs, waving his hands at the open back door, “it’s gonna stink up the place for days.”

He blinks when gentle hands on his shoulders steer him over to the back steps where Robin holds the joint.

“Nothing a spritz of Febreze and a couple open windows won’t take care of, man, now sit,” Eddie says, and pushes on Steve’s shoulders until he drops next to Robin, Eddie sitting one step lower to his left.

“Just relax,” Robin says, handing Steve the joint again. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

“It tastes like—” Steve takes another hit, smacking his lips together and making a face. “I don’t know. Not good.” His voice is strained with the effort of holding back another earth-shattering cough.

“Excuse you,” says Eddie, the same time Robin starts booing. “Did you like the taste of your first beer? Your first vodka shot?”

Steve shakes his head. “Hell, no.”

“Yet you continue to drink them to this day,” Eddie says, leaning back against the steps. “And all so you can be drunk, which leads to an inevitable hangover, where you spend the day on the couch wishing you were dead and swearing over and over and over again that you’re never going to drink, ever again.” He tips his head back and crosses himself, ending with his hands clasped as if in prayer.

“I can limit myself!” Steve protests. He takes another haul off the joint, sucking the smoke back. He wonders how long til he’s high.

“Well, we aren’t all so health conscious,” Eddie says, watching Steve with a wince. “Okay okay, stop stop stop—”

Steve tries to protest as Eddie plucks the joint from his fingers, but he’s coughing too hard to get any words out.

“You’re not trying to get it down to the filter in three hits or less,” he tells Steve. He cocks his head. “You were a lifeguard, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Robin says from where she’s reclined on the steps, “he was a summer sizzler.”

“So, you know CPR?”

Steve nods. “I mean, not like, right now, I don’t think, so if you need it—”

Eddie snorts. “You know if you’re giving someone mouth-to-mouth, and the part where you suck face and just kinda…” he exhales pointedly. “You know, you don’t force the air in blowing on them like an inner tube, right? So, same principle: just bring it to your lips, and breathe in.” He passes the joint back to Steve. “Try again.”

Steve frowns at it, only the ST and half of the O left visible on the burning paper.

“Yay for the concentration face,” Robin cheers from her spot, eyes closed.

Steve does as Eddie said, putting the joint between his lips and then pretending he’s just taking a breath of skunky air.

“The longer you hold it the more likely you’ll cough,” Eddie says, and Steve lets it out in a big whoosh, and he-

Coughs, once.

“Hey-hey!” he cheers, grinning at Eddie who tips an imaginary hat at him. Steve nudges Robin in the side with his foot. “Hey, countertop, watch this.”

Robin sits up and obligingly watches Steve as he takes another careful hit, and she applauds when he once again releases it without hacking a lung out.

“Champion weed smoker!” she declares, leaning forward to accept the joint when he offers it. She rubs his leg affectionately. “I knew you could do it, my little baby-lunged bestie.”

“Better baby lungs than baby legs,” Steve says. Robin laughs and sticks her legs straight out.

“These aren’t baby legs!”

Steve leans forward to slap one of her knees. “They don’t even do anything. Just wait til they fall off and you get your adult legs.” He swivels around and leans against Eddie. “Wait’ll she gets her adult legs, they’re gonna be huge.”

Eddie is laughing at him and Robin is loudly demanding why her legs would be huge and does Steve mean wide or tall because she has different plans depending, and it hits him all of a sudden:

“I’m stoned out of my mind!” he cries.

Eddie falls off of his step, howling with laughter, and Robin drags herself over to drape an arm on Steve’s shoulder.

“Welcome to the real world, Stove.”

Steve can’t stop grinning. He feels really good, like he’s living under a mesh dome, enough of the scary outside world filtering through to him in wisps of sunlight and summer breezes. He could live in a dome, he thinks. Especially if it was mesh. No mosquitos, at least.

Robin’s arm is heavy around his neck and he shrugs her off. “You smell too much like churros.” He stretches a leg out and nudges Eddie, flat on his back on the patio. “What are you doing?”

“You fucking kill me, Harrington,” Eddie says, eyes closed. He giggles. “I’m stoned out of my mind!” He mimics, then opens his eyes and grins up at Steve. “You sounded like an after-school special about the devil’s lettuce.”

“Man, I love lettuce,” Steve says. “No, I mean, I love pizza. Aww,” he sighs and gives Robin a shake. “Let’s get some.”

“Pizza?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs again. “All I have are disappointing noodles.”

“Cheer up, at least you still have two wieners,” Robin says, then bursts out laughing. “I’m sorry, that was – well, anyway—” She clears her throat. “Pizza pie?”

Eddie has sat up and is digging through his front pocket, then pulls out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill triumphantly. “I say yes.”

“Let’s get it from Vito’s, they have stuuuuuffed crust,” Robin says, crossing herself and throwing her head back.

Steve stands with great effort, whacking away Robin’s hands when she slaps at the backs of his knees.

“Help me up, my baby legs won’t work,” she says, holding her hands out expectantly.

Eddie gets there before Steve, tugging Robin up and catching her when she staggers forward. Steve tries not to frown at seeing how Robin is pressed against Eddie makes him feel. He’s not jealous, he’s high. It’s surprisingly easy to let go of the sour thought at the reminder, a big smile breaking out across his face with no input from him.

Robin pushes off Eddie and gives Steve’s cheek a fond pat. “I want a pepperoni and root beer on my pizza.” She frowns and shrugs. “Figure it out, I’m going to the bathroom.”

Eddie sidles up to him once Robin has disappeared inside. “Wanna point me to a phone?”

Steve points at the house and Eddie grins.

“Yeah, okay, smartass,” he says, and starts to make his way inside. “I’ll just have to wander from room to room…to room to room, Jesus, this place is huge.” Eddie is standing in the living room, looking up, hands on his hips. “Yeah, you wouldn’t wanna smoke in here,” he says, eyeing the twelve-foot ceiling. “You’d never get these walls white again.”

“Unless I jizzed like a firehose and painted them,” Steve says, then laughs when Eddie’s head snaps his way, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Steve Harrington, as I live and breathe,” Eddie says, laughing. “Are you this fun when you’re drunk, too?”

“Never been drunk,” Steve says. Eddie snorts.

“Take your shirt off and try again,” he says, and Steve looks down at the shirt he’d changed into after work, and, oh, yeah, it’s the faded yellow one he got in a case of Coors last summer. Steve cackles and grins at Eddie.

“That would’ve worked if you couldn’t read.”

Eddie laughs again and Jesus, if that isn’t a fantastic sound. He has a deep voice and every time he laughs because of something Steve said, it’s like this little fire in Steve’s belly gets a burst of oxygen and flares to life for one bright moment.

Luckily, as the flame licks at the underside of his ribcage, he’s too high to fall into the implications of what it all means, because even as much as he’s accepted his bisexuality, to have thoughts of anything more than platonic towards a friend is just asking for disaster. Instead of bemoaning the fact that he’s slowly falling for Eddie, he just leads the way into the kitchen and gestures at the wall-mounted phone with a gesture worthy of a certain dungeon master.

“Your addendum,” he says, shoving a phonebook at Eddie. “Pizza places are on page thirty-seven.”

Eddie pauses in flipping open the phonebook, looking at Steve. “What about Chinese? What page is that on?”

“Thirty-eight. There’s only four places in Hawkins,” Steve adds.

“What if I wanted Mexican?”

“Hawkins phonebook lists that under Chinese,” Steve says. “I think whoever wrote the phonebook is either very racist or very stupid.”

“Is this how Steve Harrington spends his free time, then?” Eddie asks, the phonebook open to a familiar page. “Memorizing the yellow pages?”

Steve laughs and crosses to the fridge, tugging it open. “That thing raised me, man.” He spies the jug of lemonade and oohs happily. “My parents have made a concentrated effort to spend as much time away from me as possible, and I wasn’t great at cooking, or repairs, or homework, so I ordered take-out and found plumbers and carpenters and even a tutor, though that only lasted like, two weeks.”

Steve had filled three glasses with lemonade while he spoke, and he offers one to Eddie, then notes the look on his face.

“What?” He looks at the glass of lemonade. “Do you not like lemonade?”

“No,” Eddie says after a minute, still looking at Steve with that expression on his face, “I like it. I just—” he shakes his head and chuckles. “There’s nothing you like more than shaking the stilts, eh?”

“The stilts?”

“The earth is on stilts,” Eddie says, as if that’s any explanation at all, then he taps a finger on the phonebook. “Vito’s the top contender, then?”

“Man, I don’t care,” Steve says. “I just want some pizza. As long as it’s not from Pizza Spot. Oh, or Maple Pizza, their cheese is always weird.”

“But you don’t care at all, oh, no,” Eddie mutters under his breath. He dials the number, turning his back on Steve as if he’s a distraction.

“Can you get green peppers on it too?” Steve asks. “I need more calcium in my diet.”

“Hey,” Eddie says into the phone, a laugh in his voice. “I’d like to order for delivery, please. 478 Pine, it’s— yeah, Loch Nora. Two larges, please, one pepperoni and extra cheese, and one green peppers and—” He turns and looks at Steve expectantly.

Steve abruptly has no idea what pizza is. “Uhhh—” he says and, since it feels good rumbling in his throat, continues to say uhhh until Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Green peppers and onions,” Eddie says, turning back with a grin. “Oh, and two root beers and one orange soda. For Steve.”

“What?” Steve asks.

Eddie shakes his head at him and points at the phone. “Yeah, 478 Pine. All right, thanks.” He hangs up and looks at Steve. “I’m gonna need another two bucks for the delivery tip.”

“I got it,” Steve says. “Why’d you tell them my name?”

“Cause if I told them my name, the pizzas would come burnt and the soda shaken, if at all,” Eddie says. He shrugs at Steve’s look. “Some people still hate me for everything that happened; even if they believe I didn’t actually kill anyone, they still think it was the devil worship game that brought all this shit on Hawkins.”

Steve thinks of what Carol said earlier today, and realizes he’d been naïve to think that hateful rhetoric extended only to current or recently graduated students of Hawkins High, or relatives thereof.

“Man, that’s—”

“I know,” Eddie says, “but don’t let it ruin the night, all right?” He grins then, showing off his teeth. “I got something we can do while we wait.”

Steve frowns at the bong sitting on the table. “You’re not supposed to have glass on the pool deck,” he tells Eddie, raising a finger to point steadily. “That’s lifeguarding 101, baby.”

Robin snorts. “I thought that was painfully short swimsuits and death by sunscreen.”

Eddie grins from where he’s rearranging himself comfortably on the grass between the house and pool. “How short we talking?”

“Like, if he had the balls of a ninety-year-old, half of them would be slipping out the back end and waving at you like ET hanging out of the car window,” Robin says seriously.

Steve chokes on his water while Eddie howls with laughter. Robin giggles, watching them unapologetically.

“Jesus Christ, Robin, it wasn’t that short,” Steve manages to gasp out once his lungs have successfully expelled the water. Robin is nodding at Eddie, yes, yes it was, and Steve is half-tempted to dig his fingers in above her knee and make her scream, but she also kicks when he does that, and he doesn’t trust his reflexes enough to dodge, so he settles for getting up to sit next to Eddie on the lawn.

“Do we really need more weed? I mean, isn’t a water bong, like, heavy-duty?”

Eddie snorts. “You can just call it a bong, dude, and, hey,” he holds the bong up, a lighter in his other hand, “you can decide for yourself but as far as I’m concerned, one decent rip right about now and you’re golden. Make you feel like butter melting over a hot stack of pancakes.”

Robin slaps drool away from the corner of her mouth. “You made me horny for pancakes. Oh my God, I’m so hungry, where is the pizza?”

“They said twenty minutes,” Steve says. Robin groans.

“I’ll be dead by then, thanks.” She waves a hand at Steve. “Go on, smoke that bong; you hacking your brains out will distract me from impending death.”

Steve looks at Eddie. “I don’t wanna hack my brains out. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to put them back.”

Eddie tips the bong slightly towards him, something inside rattling faintly. “The little fingerholds on the neck are, like, indents in the glass, so you can fill it with ice for a smoother hit.” Steve looks down the neck of the bong and can see the ice cubes inside, shiny in the faded orange glass.

“I mean,” Eddie goes on, “you’ll definitely cough, cause, you know—”

“Baby lungs,” Robin says from where she’s doubled over, head in her lap. Eddie grins at her.

“Baby lungs,” he agrees, then holds the bong out to Steve. “How you feeling, Stove? Wanna make a good thing greater?”

Steve considers the bong, glances at Robin who gives him a sideways thumbs up, then nods. “How much higher can I get?”

He really should know better by now than to say things like that.

“So, lighter here, you suck the flame down, then when the neck is filled with smoke you pull this out and breathe in,” Eddie says, ringed fingers tapping their way around during the tutorial. “You don’t have to smoke all of it at once, I would actually recommend against that, and uh, otherwise—” he sits back with a shrug. “Enjoy.”

Steve is hit with a ridiculous thought, as he sits cross-legged on his lawn hunched over a bong, that he should get Robin to take a picture of him. Maybe he could send it to his parents in their next postcard exchange. Wish you were here!

Steve laughs to himself, and with Robin chanting his name in the background he flicks the wheel on Eddie’s black lighter and kisses the bong.

The smoke comes up faster than he expects, and he inhales in a panic, too hard, and worries about one of the ice cubes coming up and choking him and he sets the bong down and coughs out enough smoke that if it was carbon monoxide he’d be seriously concerned, and then someone is taking hold of his wrists and pulling his arms above his head.

“Helps with the whole dying thing,” he hears Eddie say, but he’s too focused on the fact that he can suddenly gasp in air without choking on it, and Eddie lets go of his wrists, leaving Steve to hold his arms up, because wow is it helping.

Robin is suddenly in front of him with a red bowl of water. “Have a drink,” she says, offering the bowl to him. Some of it sloshes out and splashes on his knee, cold and sudden.

“Why did you bring him a bowl of water like he’s a goddamn dog?” Eddie asks. He’s sitting beside Steve again, a bit closer, as if to offer support, something to lean on.

Robin looks at the bowl and back at Eddie. “He said no glass on the pool deck,” she says, glancing at Steve, “and there were zero plastic cups anywhere in that kitchen, so I just grabbed the first thing I found.” She looks back at Steve. “Water is water no matter the containment method.”

It creeps up, the sudden burst of laughter, surprising Steve as much as the other two. Looking at Robin, kneeling in front of him with a bowl of water, looking earnest and maybe a little confused and a lot sleepy; it’s too much, and every individual aspect makes him laugh harder, and he’s just so goddamn happy he gets to have this, this time, with these people, and the more he laughs the weirder they look at him, and it’s a vicious cycle until he’s actually afraid he might wet himself if he doesn’t stop already.

“Do the arm thing again,” Robin is saying to Eddie as Steve finally manages to stop and catch his breath.

“I’m good,” Steve wheezes, waving off Eddie’s questioning look. “I just— fuck, I dunno, just the bowl of water set me off.”

He takes it from Robin, looks down at the water swirling about the half-full bowl, then looks up at both of them and says, “Woof.” He then buries his face in the bowl and tries to drink as much as he can without tipping the bowl, sucking loudly and sloppily, getting more water on his face than in his mouth.

Eddie and Robin are in stitches by the time he looks up, face dripping, a few water-logged hairs plastered to his forehead and dripping in his eye.

“What?” he asks, looking between them. “Is there something on my face?”

“Dead,” Eddie tells him, the bong nestled between his legs. “I’m dead, because you fucking killed me, again, you fucking stoner.”

Steve giggles. “I don’t even know if I like weed,” he says, and Robin boos loudly. “This is…it’s too much of a good thing, you know? Like, I dunno, feeling this happy should be, like, illegal or something.”

“Well, it kinda is,” Eddie points out. He’s packed a bowl for Robin and hands it to her, watching her fumble with the lighter for a moment, before grinning at Steve. “Marijuana is a gateway drug, you know.”

Steve snorts. “What, like I’m going to suddenly want to try heroin or something?”

“Not everyone has your self-control,” Eddie says, and it hits Steve that maybe there’s a hidden meaning there, but even as he thinks that the thought floats away, unwilling to be pinned down and examined.

Robin has successfully ripped her first bong and she’s now sitting looking between Steve and Eddie.

“You two are my best friends,” she says with a smile. “I’m really glad we’re friends. All through high school, all I ever really wanted was—”

Steve’s house is cavernous and the back door is ajar; as a result they all hear the doorbell ring.

“Pizza!” Robin whoops, leaping to her feet then immediately sitting down again. “You go get it,” she says, flopping back in her chair, emotional confession forgotten in the face of impending gooey cheese and marinara sauce.

Eddie is already standing and reaching into his pocket for his cash and Steve struggles to his feet, because he’s not about to let Eddie pay for their dinner.

“Help me up!” He says to Eddie, holding his hands out. “Come on, baby legs!”

“I can’t tell if you’re cheering yourself on or think that name somehow applies to me,” Eddie says, pulling Steve to his feet.

Steve sees his chance and seizes it, but he seizes it clumsily and belatedly; by the time he pitches forward to ‘accidentally’ fall against Eddie, Eddie has moved away and Steve faceplants instead. Luckily, he hasn’t cut the back grass in about a month so his landing is relatively cushioned.

Robin lies and tell Eddie she’ll help Steve up so that he can go answer the door, because the doorbell has ding-donged twice more and she clearly cares more about her pizza than Steve’s physical well-being because she leaves him lying in the grass. Why had Eddie believed her in the first place?

Steve manages to sit up and then stand, jabbing a finger at Robin.

“I forget,” he tells her sternly, then shuffles into the house. He can hear Eddie talking to the pizza delivery person, hears them both laugh and the fire in his belly wanes and sulks at the idea that someone else made Eddie laugh.

Curiosity rather than jealously drives Steve to the front door, a frown at the ready for whoever it is that apparently thinks they’re better than Steve is at everything, and he rounds the corner and stops.

“Look who the newest driver for Vito is,” Eddie says to Steve with a big grin.

Vickie is standing on Steve’s front porch, wearing a green shirt and faded red ball cap. She gives Steve a little smile and wave. “It’s a paycheck,” she says.

Eddie frowns from behind the pizza boxes in his arms. “Oh, hey, no judgement, sister; I just thought it was a funny coincidence.”

“Funny how?” Vickie asks, shifting on the step.

“Funny cause you’re not the only band kid at the Harrington residence tonight,” Eddie says, casting Steve a sly glance. “Steve, Vickie was just telling me how grateful she was for our patronage, because apparently Vito’s is just dead tonight, so after us she’s off shift.”

“Ohh,” Steve says, nodding at Eddie’s meaningful look. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know what the meaning is, so the ensuing silence is a bit awkward.

Eddie shakes his head at Steve then turns a brilliant smile on Vickie. “We’re actually just hanging out with our friend out back if you wanna join us. You know Robin Buckley, don’t you?” Eddie says it like he genuinely has to ask, like he hasn’t spent weeks listening to Robin extol on the ginger girl’s many virtues, up to and including her penchant for watermelon lip gloss; a sure sign, Robin claims, that she’s The One.

Steve might have a staring problem when he’s baked. Outside with Eddie and Robin, he had kept finding things to fixate on: Eddie’s fingers, Robin’s crooked front teeth, his own knee hair. Now, standing in his front hall, head swimming with the marijuana high, he stares at Vickie and clocks in real time the flush on her cheeks at the mention of Robin.

“She’s stuck in her chair,” Steve says to Vickie, then bends slightly and pats the tops of his thighs. “It’s the baby legs.”

Vickie gives him a weird look and Eddie sighs at Steve.

“Look, Vickie, what Steve is trying to say is, if you’re down, you’re more than welcome to hang out with us, maybe enjoy the fruits of your labour—” Eddie shakes the pizza boxes in his arms—“and, if you’re so inclined, perhaps smoke a little sweet Mary Jane.”

Vickie’s cheeks are still faintly red, but she perks up a bit. “I’ve got my grinder in the car,” she says. “Sometimes the shifts are really long and boring.”

Eddie swoons. “Woman, get in the backyard now,” he orders. “Go, before I see stars. Steve, you get plates,” and then he’s leading Vickie through the house, chattering a mile a minute.

Steve has a moment in the kitchen, when he’s trying to decide between plates or just paper towels so he has one less thing to wash, where he wonders if springing Vickie on Robin like this was necessarily a good idea. Robin gets so flustered just thinking about Vickie, and she can barely carry on a coherent conversation at the best of times and now she’s sitting stoned and alone, totally unaware of what’s about to happen, and what if she says something she doesn’t mean to and then gets mad at Steve for letting this happen—

His heart is beating funny in his chest, palms sweaty against the countertop, and he realizes he needs to get the fuck outside and warn Robin he fucked up. He spins around and his brain doesn’t stop spinning, whizzing around in his head. He leans heavily against the counter, mouth dry with panic. He sinks to the floor, knees shaking, and leans against a cupboard, wishing he had a glass of water right now, because he feels like if he could just clear this fucking gross cottony feeling in his mouth everything would be fine. Instead he’s sitting here struggling to swallow and facing down the very real fact that he might die on his own kitchen floor and Robin will never know he didn’t mean to ruin things for her.

“Hey, garçon! More platey, less…whatever you’re doing!”

Steve jerks up. He sees Eddie walk in the kitchen and pause when he sees Steve. He meets Eddie’s confused look across the island, a look that is quickly replaced by realization.

“You all right?” Eddie asks, quieter now, stepping around the island to crouch in front of Steve.

“Physically, I might be dying,” Steve manages. His fingers are trembling and he can’t stop thinking about Robin yelling at him and meaning it. Eddie stands and steps around Steve; it feels like with a blink he’s back crouched in front of Steve with a glass of water.

“I can help,” Eddie says when Steve fumbles to take the glass. Together, with Steve’s hand over Eddie’s, they tip the glass. The water is cold and soothes Steve’s dry mouth and throat in an instant. Some of it dribbles out of the side of his mouth and Eddie slows the flow. “More?”

Steve shakes his head, heart pounding anew because now that he’s not dying of thirst he’s really hoping everything else will resolve itself but it isn’t, he’s still shaky, like he’s on the edge of a cliff and the wind is picking up.

“Cool if I sit beside you?”

“Pull up a cupboard,” Steve says, voice shaking as much as his hands. He buries his face in his knees, squeezing his eyes shut. Fuck, what’s wrong with him? Is he dying?

Eddie settles in next to him, brushing shoulders with Steve. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Steve shakes his head, rubbing his nose in the denim of his jeans. “I don’t know, man, it’s a lot, it’s too much, and I feel like I can’t breathe and like I’m gonna feel this way forever.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, and Steve lifts his head.

“Okay?” he repeats. “I tell you I’m dying and you say okay?”

“There’s more,” Eddie says with a little grin. He holds a hand out, and Steve stares at it. He has long fingers and only wears one ring on this hand. He wiggles his fingers. “C’mon.”

“Do I owe you money or something?” Steve asks. Eddie rolls his eyes and reaches over to tug one of Steve’s sweaty hands free from where they’re tucked under his knees.

“This okay?” Eddie asks, giving Steve’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Steve nods, because Eddie’s hand is warm and big, folding over Steve’s easily, and looking at their fingers intertwined is nicer than thinking about the weird way his heart is beating and his lungs are jumping.

“I’m gonna tell you something, all right? You, Steve, are completely and totally safe. You’re not dying, you’re not sick though you might feel like crap, but I promise, you’re okay.”

Steve looks at Eddie, sitting so calmly beside him, still in a way he’s not used to seeing. “So, why do I feel like this?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re high, which is new, so that’s kinda weird,” Eddie says, “and also, I think maybe you’re tripping yourself out, like thinking too much about something, maybe some paranoia is setting in.” He taps a finger against his temple. “Easy to get caught up in here.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “Okay, so, like, if it’s in my head why is my heart beating funny and why can’t I breathe right?”

Eddie lifts his free hand and holds it over Steve’s chest. “Can I?”

Steve nods without really knowing what he’s asking, then Eddie presses his palm flat over Steve’s heart. It’s another point of contact that floods him with warmth, chasing out the chill that settled over him like a wet blanket.

“Definitely Terry Fox-ing it, but there’s nothing weird about it,” Eddie says after a minute. He doesn’t move, gaze distant as he rests his hand inches above Steve’s heart.

“I don’t know what that means,” Steve says. His mouth is getting pasty again, and he runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth, feeling each dry little bump like layered sand at the shore. The hand on his chest starts to lift and Steve panics and snatches for it. His fingers wrap around Eddie’s wrist but don’t meet. He has the sudden recollection of his fingers around Nancy’s wrists, how his thumb and pinky could meet halfway. Steve is too stoned to pretend he doesn’t know why he makes the comparison.

“Sorry,” he says to Eddie’s raised brow. “Just…this is helping, I think.” It’s true; he does feel less like death is imminent, but he’s still on that cliff. Just a second of vertigo would be enough to tip him over.

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie says. “I was just gonna get you your water.”

Steve smacks his lips and grimaces. “Okay,” he says, and lets go of Eddie, who reaches over and plucks the water glass from the floor beside him. “I can do it,” Steve says, hoping he actually can. When he takes the glass, the trembling in his fingers no longer registers on the Richter scale, and he triumphantly chugs the rest of the water, then studies the empty glass while he tries to think of a way to ask for Eddie to touch him again, maybe not over his heart again but—

Eddie settles an arm around Steve’s shoulders. “Terry Fox was this guy who wanted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer.”

“Why does cancer need money?”

It takes a few seconds before Eddie sighs. “You dweeb,” he says fondly. “He wanted to raise money for cancer research. He was eighteen years old when he had his leg amputated because of cancer, and then he ran, like, thirty-three hundred miles.”

Eddie is rubbing Steve’s arm, and he’s holding Steve’s hand, and he’s honestly kind of blowing Steve’s mind right now. “But you said he had a leg cut off, how did he run?”

“He wore a process-ess,” Eddie says, and Steve gets to watch the way his nose wrinkles. “Pros-tet-us? Shit, I can never remember the word.”

“A peg leg,” Steve says, thinking of Long John Silver and things that start with P.

Eddie laughs, and oh, that fire in Steve’s belly rumbles to life. “Fuck, no, but you get the idea.”

“So, he got his fake leg and then ran across Canada like woo, look at me with my free healthcare,” Steve says. “Like, bragging about it, like if he gets, like, a beaver trying to chew his leg off, he can just go get another one.”

Eddie pats Steve’s shoulder. “Yes, Steve; Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope was totally self-serving.” He’s looking at Steve intently. “How do you feel?”

“I feel…” Steve takes a deep breath, and it comes and goes easily. He presses three fingers to his neck, feeling for his pulse. “I don’t have a hummingbird under my skin anymore, anyway.”

“Feel like standing?” Eddie asks. He’s pressed against Steve, and through his thin t-shirt Steve can feel each breath in and out, and it’s steady, comforting and warm, everything about Eddie is so warm; his eyes, his laugh, his hands.

“Steve?”

“Standing, yep,” Steve says, giving his head a shake to unstick the wheels. Pebble in the cogs, that’s happened before, most notably when Nancy wore the necklace he had given her for Christmas. He thinks it’s the abrupt realization of possibilities, no matter how far-fetched. Steve’s still too stoned to pretend he doesn’t know why he makes the comparison.

He really likes holding Eddie’s hand, and he gets both of them when Eddie pulls him up, and makes sure he’s steady against the counter before turning to the fridge and taking out Steve’s orange soda.

“Your doctor prescribes at least four fluid ounces of sugary shit,” Eddie says, popping the tab and pushing the cold can into Steve’s hands. He grins and says, “It helps with the spots.”

Steve is indeed blinking away clusters of black dots and he takes a drink. The soda is so fizzy and sharp on his tongue, compared to the water, but it tastes fantastic so he drinks half of it in one go. When he comes up for air, he lets out a belch that rattles the china, and his stomach is settled and his heart seems chill and Eddie is grinning at him like he never stopped.

“Holy shit,” Steve says, rolling his head around, stretching his neck, “I can’t believe how much better I feel.” He looks at the soda can. “What’s in this, doc?”

“Orange rinds and a gallon of sugar,” Eddie says. “You’re gonna love part two of your prescription cause it’s pizza.”

“I dunno, that seems like it could become habit-forming,” Steve says.

Eddie nods fiercely. “Oh, definitely, but the good news is I run a rehab clinic, so I can get your life back on track.” He leans in with a wink. “You detox with chicken wings.”

Steve laughs, and yep, Eddie smiles at him like all he wanted was to hear that, and if Steve was still firmly in the closet he would say he wanted to slap that look off Eddie’s face, but the enlightened Steve knows to bite his tongue and only think about kissing it away instead. He knows it would come back.

“You wanna go outside with the others?”

Steve nods, then all at once jolts upright. “Oh shit, Robin!”

“What about her?” Eddie asks, following as Steve hurries out of the kitchen and to the back door. “She’s talking to Vickie.”

Steve pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “She’s high as shit and she’s around Vickie; I doubt it’s talking so much as Niagara Falls of words.”

Eddie tsks and settles behind Steve, placing a hand on each of Steve’s shoulders. “Observe the harmonious properties of marijuana in action, young Steven. Does it look like Robin is doing her best impression of a babbling brook, or does it look like a tempered exchange of thoughts and opinions between two friends?”

Steve doesn’t think he could parse that even when he lived in Before Weed times, and he definitely can’t now that he lives in After Weed times, but he loves the sound of Eddie’s voice. He wishes Eddie would press against him again like in the kitchen, this time with his chest to Steve’s back, and narrate the backyard scene so Steve could feel his voice hum through his skin.

Eddie is reaching around Steve to help him push the door open, and they walk out to Robin laughing and Vickie looking pleased with herself. The bong sits between them, faint curls of smoke wisping up every now and then.

“Settle something,” Vickie says as Steve and Eddie approach. “Who am I?” She blinks and suddenly her eyes are huge, bugging out of her head. “I don’t get no respect.”

Eddie laughs and looks at Steve. “You know it?” he demands, eager, clearly, to show off that he knows. Steve huffs, closing his eyes. He doesn’t really know how to make them pop like Vickie had, but he knows he’s got the voice down pat.

Steve opens his eyes as wide as they’ll go, feeling like he could tuck his eyelashes behind his eyes and blink them out. He rolls them in his head. “I was so ugly my mother used to feed me with a slingshot.” His arsenal is well-stocked thanks to the five Rodney Dangerfield albums in his living room.

Steve gets to hear the infamous snort-laugh of Vickie’s, and, okay, in his thc-induced haze he can see how it makes Robin all fluttery and flustered. Such a distinctive sound, like a heavy bell on the air, calling everyone home for supper. Robin looks embarrassed for Steve, or maybe by Steve, but she’s also laughing and shining at Vickie, and he’s unaccountably pleased at giving them something to laugh at together. He would make the biggest ass of himself if it meant giving Robin a thrum of delight.

Eddie has collapsed on the lawn, full-on giggling like a schoolgirl, actual hee hee hees floating on the night air, making Robin and Vickie laugh even more, and Steve wishes that this stupid town would get to know Eddie for who he is, this larger-than-life buffoon who wouldn’t know how to hold a grudge if it was written step-by-step in his fantasy books.

If the people of Hawkins could see feared murderer Eddie Munson giggling in the grass minutes after bringing Steve down from a state of panic and paranoia, maybe they could see that he’s as human as the rest of them, as fallible, yes, but also as deserving of another chance.

They eat their pizzas, Steve and Vickie toasting two slices together while Robin and Eddie pretend to gag at the thought of onions on pizza. Eddie gave Vickie his root beer when he brought the drinks out, just handing it to her after she’d said Yes, she does like root beer, so now she and Robin are sitting with matching cans of soda and they both have sauce smeared on their lips and they’re both talking nonstop. Steve finishes his orange soda and Eddie disappears inside for a minute, coming back out with two glasses, and offering both to Steve.

“I didn’t know if you’d want water or lemonade so I figured, why not both?” Eddie explains. He leaves both drinks tilting dangerously on the uneven ground, and adds, “I’ll drink whatever you don’t.”

Steve stares at the two glasses, mouth half-full with chewed up saucy dough and cheese. His head is spinning again but not out of control, not in a way that makes his palms sweat; this time, it’s like his brain keeps standing up and turning around to address whoever the fuck keeps kicking the back of its seat.

Eddie just does things like, like he doesn’t even think about: he sees a need, and he fills it. Steve’s drink is empty? Get him a new one. Robin is groaning her way through a morning after hangover? Eddie pops up with aspirin and light-hearted teasing. Dustin is spinning into orbit because he hasn’t talked to Suzie in three days and this might be it, guys, she’s really breaking up with me? Eddie gathers the kids together for an overly-involved campaign that takes over their lives for two weeks and has Dustin panting in Steve’s car over the imagined carnage and heart-stopping victories instead of the perils of young love.

“Steve-o?” Eddie waves a hand in his face. “Did you want something different?”

Steve looks up at him, at his earnest expression, and knows Eddie would get him anything he wanted. He’s known that for a while. It comes in the way Eddie drops everything when Steve calls, the way he has never once said No to Steve. He’ll groan and grumble and rib Steve endlessly, yes, but he never says no.

“Nah,” Steve says, swallowing down his pounding heart. Damn thing has crept up his throat. He picks up the water and holds it up. Eddie picks up the other glass and they toast, grinning at each other all the while.

The moment is ruined by a plastic bowl thunking against the side of Steve’s head.

“Woof!” Robin yells, then cackles at the look Steve gives her, a cackle that is slowly choked off to a scream when Steve stands and strides towards her, scooping her up off her chair and throwing her into the pool in one easy motion.

Robin surfaces with a gasp, hair plastered over her face. She’s still holding half a slice of pizza, and she points it at Steve with all the violence of an armed mugger, then tears into it, chewing furiously.

“Ohmygod it’s so soggy!” Robin yells, then launches the remainder at Steve. It splats onto the pool deck, bloated and damp. “Victim!”

Steve looks over at Vickie, who’s watching Robin throw herself onto her back to float, the sappiest smile on her face. “Robin stays over enough that she has, like, a closet here.”

Vickie blinks up at him with all the lucidity of a lovestruck stoner. “Pardon?”

Steve grins and nods at the pool. “There are dry clothes in case you wanted to join her.”

“Oh,” Vickie says, getting to her feet with a grin at Steve. “Am I allowed to get in myself, or is being flung in the only acceptable method at Steve Harrington’s house?”

“The first three entries are your choice,” Steve promises. Vickie laughs and steps out of her shoes.

“In that case,” she says, then runs and leaps wildly into the pool, Robin cheering her on. Vickie surfaces with a shriek.

“Cold!” She splashes Robin. “Why didn’t you say it’s freezing?”

“Cause then you wouldn’t have gotten in,” Robin says. The two of them are standing close, bobbing slightly with the water dipping and swelling around them in the aftermath of Vickie’s plunge.

Steve turns when he feels a hand on his elbow, and looks at Eddie’s face, close behind and joy written across it.

“C’mon,” he says low in Steve’s ear, then backs away and calls to the girls. “We’re going inside for towels. Try not to drown in the meantime.”

He’s roundly ignored but unbothered by it as he grabs the two pizza boxes then balances empty soda cans on top. He kicks the back of Steve’s calf, jerking his attention from the unthinkable unfolding in front of him, namely Robin Buckley flirting without throwing up on herself.

“Ow,” Steve hisses by reflex. He bends and grabs his water and lemonade glasses and follows Eddie into the house, pausing only a moment before pulling the curtains over the back door, thinking if the house has less eyes trained on the backyard, Robin might get to do something else without throwing up all over herself.

Eddie is in the kitchen, combining the leftover slices into one box and flattening and folding the other. The soda cans have been rinsed out and are draining in the kitchen sink. It’s always so easy for this house to stand empty once again, easy for it to look unlived in, just a model of a real home. A model of a real family.

Steve goes up to his room to sort through the drawer that holds the mishmash of Robin’s clothing that has accumulated over the last year. He goes back down to the kitchen with jeans and sweatpants and two long-sleeved shirts, and finds Eddie leaning against the counter, playing with his lighter. He looks up when Steve comes in.

“Who do you think will want the Alf shirt?” Steve asks, holding it up from the pile slung over his arm.

“Vickie, if Robin’s lucky,” Eddie says with a grin.

“If she’s lucky?”

“Well, he does—” Eddie starts to say, then stops, biting his lip.

Steve raises a brow. “Does what?”

Eddie grins, a little sheepishly. “Eat kitty,” he whispers.

Steve’s brain rrrr-RRRRR-rrrrrrs like his car does on the coldest winter mornings, a hesitation before the start. It does nothing to try to hold in the wild almost-shriek of a laugh that escapes Steve. “No,” he protests, “no, it’s not funny, don’t—”

“You shouldn’t have asked!” Eddie says, wiping his hands together and shaking his wrists like he’s flinging clumps of wet sand free. “You brought this on yourself.”

“Jokes about Robin’s sex life are like jokes about my parents’ sex life,” Steve grumbles.

Eddie pats him sympathetically on the shoulder. “The less said about that, the better.”

Steve looks around the kitchen. The box with leftover pizza is the only sign anyone’s set foot in here all night. He looks at Eddie. “You wanna hang out in my room? All my music is up there, we could listen to something.”

Eddie slides his lighter in his pocket, a funny quirk to his lips. “You mind if we stay down here?” he asks. He doesn’t give a reason for why, just asks and looks at Steve for his answer.

“Sure,” Steve says, and turns, leading the way to the living room while panicking internally. That was a weird thing to do, invite Eddie up to his bedroom, and worse, Eddie knows it was weird, and now he’s probably thinking that Steve is weird. Okay, so he’ll just have to act normal from now on, that’s easy enough.

“Care to watch a videotape?” Steve asks, dropping to sit on the couch.

He misses the couch.

“Oh, shit, my butt,” he groans after he’s landed on the hardwood floor. His parents have never believed in comfort over fashion, so none of the public areas of the house are carpeted, more’s the pity for his smarting ass right now. He makes the mistake of looking at Eddie and promptly bursts out laughing. “I think I’m still high,” he admits once he’s done.

Eddie snorts and sits cross-legged on the floor next to him. “Best thing you can be for your first time is a lightweight.” He makes a face, digging a finger into the rips in the knee of his jeans. “Or not, in your case.” He glances up at Steve then away, addressing his next words to the coffee table they’re currently eye level with. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t think it would affect you so strongly. I, uh, I hope it doesn’t completely turn you off weed.” He gives Steve a tiny smile. “It’s not always like that.”

“I hope not,” Steve says, “cause every other part has been kick-ass. It was just, I dunno, I was, like, freaking out about Robin seeing Vickie when she wasn’t prepared for it, and then I was afraid she was going to be mad at me and it just seemed, like, so fucking awful.”

He’s been friends with Robin for fifteen months. If a friendship makes it seven years, it’s far more likely to make it a lifetime. They still have five years and nine months til seven years. That’s a lot of time for Robin to grow tired of him and walk away. Steve knows it’s easy for people to do around him.

“Okay, so if she got mad at you, then what?” Eddie asks.

“Then we probably wouldn’t talk anymore,” Steve says.

Eddie scoffs. “Oh, so you would just lay down and die, then? Wouldn’t even try to apologize, get her to see you again?”

“Yes, I would,” Steve says indignantly. Eddie throws his hands up.

“Okay, and then?” He stares impatiently at Steve. “Have you never done improv? You’re not supposed to think about it, just answer the question.”

“And then— and then we’d go to that playground behind her house, the one where all those kids got tetanus from the slide, and I would tell her a million times how sorry I was and she would—” His shoulders slump, the last bit of tension flowing away. “She would forgive me.”

“Of course, she would, you’re Robin and Little John, Bonnie and Clyde, Rocky and Bullwinkle,” Eddie says, and if Steve doesn’t know any better he would say he detects a hint of jealousy in those words. “You two are, like, bonded soulmates.

“Besides,” he adds, “Vickie totally passed the vibe check. I knew she’s got your stamp of approval and she was a little over eager about sharing with me the fact that she was finished work—almost like she knew who your bestie is and was hoping that maybe that bestie was kicking around.” He grins at Steve like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I knew Buckley was in good hands, baked or not.”

“If I hadn’t been so—” Steve waggles his fingers in front of his forehead—“I would have known it was cool. You’re good at making people comfortable.”

Eddie laughs once, a loud Ha! that echoes through the room. “You think I make people comfortable? Between my look and yours, who do you think the general public feels better about being approached by in a secluded alley?”

Steve waves a dismissive hand. “No, I get it, your whole look is part of it, but I mean to the people you know, to your friends, you just genuinely care about us being happy and enjoying ourselves. And with Dustin and Max and them!” Steve continues, countless scenarios flipping through his mind’s eye like a sentimental Rolodex. “People look at you, and I guarantee not one of them would think you’ve essentially adopted a gaggle of high schoolers. You look like this big tough guy; no one would guess that you’re basically a teddy bear in leather.”

Eddie’s a little wide-eyed, like Steve had whipped off his shirt and asked for his opinion on the difference between a mole and a third nipple. For the record, Steve has made peace with his thripple.

“You know what I wish?” Steve asks, when it becomes evident Eddie isn’t going to say anything. “I wish that people in Hawkins would get to know you. I want them to see how compassionate you are, and know how funny and creative you are.” He looks Eddie in the eye. “I think it’s really stupid of them, and it’s a hundred per cent their loss. You’re awesome, man.”

“Jesus,” Eddie says after a minute, blinking rapidly and glancing away. “You really know how to push all the buttons, don’t you, Harrington?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Steve says.

“You didn’t.”

Steve gives him a Look. “You called me Harrington. You only call me that when you don’t like hearing something I’ve said. You go all turtle-y.”

Eddie’s jaw drops and he spends a moment looking furiously indecisive over what to refute or argue about first. “I do not go turtle-y, that’s not a thing, nope.” He lowers his shoulders from where they’re tucked up around his ears and glares at Steve. “That was unrelated.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, to me and everyone I know, you’re the tits, bro.” Steve claps a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, then bravely leaves it there.

Eddie snorts. “The tits? Bro?”

Steve shrugs. “Basic turtle aversion tactic.” Eddie’s shoulder is warm under his hand. Steve can feel the bony edge of it, wants to trace it with his thumb. He takes a firm hold of that thought and brings it to heel. “Also, sorry if I made you uncomfortable when I invited you up to my room.”

Eddie raises a brow. “You thought that made me uncomfortable?”

“Yeah, maybe? I mean, it was kind of—”

Eddie interrupts him. “Did I go all turtle-y?”

Steve frowns, thinking back. “N-no?”

Eddie shrugs. “Then I guess I wasn’t uncomfortable.”

His gaze flicks to Steve and away, and oh, this, this Steve knows. He’s seen that challenge in Nancy’s eye, daring him to follow her lead. This time, he doesn’t even pretend like he needs an excuse as to why he makes that comparison.

“Well, the offer stands,” Steve says. “Like I said, I’ve got music up there, or we could make a little of our own.” He tries to wink but his eye muscles are sluggish, slow to respond; he ends up with an out-of-sync blink at Eddie, first his left eye then his right. He hopes it’s alluring.

The sound of Eddie’s laughter dashes his faint hopes. “So, this is the famed Steve Harrington charm,” he says, and turns so Steve’s hand slips from his shoulder. His eyes are bright and teasing. “Let me brace myself.”

Everything in Eddie’s body language is screaming come hither, from the way he bites his bottom lip to how he keeps looking at Steve’s mouth, cheeks flush with colour. Steve can taste it in the air between them, the anticipation, the excitement at what’s to come.

Both of them, if they play their cards right.

Steve shifts so he’s closer, half a foot from Eddie. He takes one of Eddie’s hands in both of his, holds it clasped between them, and looks up at Eddie through his lashes. “Did you know,” he begins, leaning in closer, dropping his voice to a near-whisper, “that some turtles breathe through their butts?”

Eddie hasn’t blinked or taken a breath since Steve shifted closer. He’s staring at Steve, looking utterly captivated, until he processes the words, and then he’s laughing, like it was startled out of him, and that goddamn fire in Steve’s belly is a roaring inferno now, and he revels in the warmth filling him from the inside out.

“It’s a good thing you aren’t an ass-breathing turtle, then,” Eddie says. He’s not laughing anymore but Steve can still hear it in his voice, can still see it in the look Eddie gives him, that old, familiar look that would warm the cockles of Steve’s heart if he knew what the fuck a cockle was. “You definitely would have banged up your butt lungs when you fell off the couch before.”

He grins back. “Tell me about it, that hole is aching—"

He’s cut off with a kiss, which is at once a surprise and a delight. He mentally slaps himself into the moment, focusing on the feel and taste of Eddie, and much less on his immediate surroundings, so when the back door suddenly bangs open, he jumps and tastes blood.

Eddie pulls back with a wince, fingers coming up to touch his bottom lip, welling up with blood where Steve had bitten him.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Steve says, then turns to see Robin in the doorway, quivering with righteous indignation.

“Was that your first kiss?” she demands, a towel around her shoulders.

Steve glances at Eddie, who’s sucking on his lip. “In existence, or…?”

Robin rolls her eyes so hard she nearly topples back. “With each other, dingus!”

“First kiss and first cannibalism attempt,” Eddie confirms.

Robin lets out a loud whoop. “We beat ‘em!” she yells over her shoulder, and there’s an answering cheer from Vickie. She smiles smugly at Steve. “Our first kiss was twelve minutes ago. You know what that means.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah, yeah, it’s all yours.” He smirks at her. “Once you get your license, that is.”

“Next month, baby!” Robin says, Vickie appearing in the doorway behind her, teeth chattering. Robin snatches up the bundle of dry clothes. “Come on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

“Oh, but I’m still dripping a bit,” Vickie says, glancing down.

Robin pshaws. “Like it matters. The maid will clean it.”

Vickie looks at Steve. “You have a maid?”

“I’m the maid,” Steve sighs. “I’m also the one who owns the car Robin will be taking on a date so she could be nicer—” He tries to trip up Robin as she passes him.

She sticks her tongue out at him. “I won the Who Gets Their First Gay Kiss bet, I get the car; I don’t have to be nice.” She gives Eddie a high-five. “About time,” she says, then she leads Vickie out of the room and onto dryer pastures.

“What’s she mean by that?” Steve asks.

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “I think she’s referencing my long-harboured lusting for your romantic and sexual attraction.”

“Aw,” Steve says, placing a hand over his heart, which is currently doing back flips, “you had a crush on me?”

Eddie nods. “Had being the operative word. I’ve since come to learn you’re insufferable and undeserving of my carnal desires.”

Steve sighs heavily, resting his head on Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s too bad,” he says, regarding his television from this new angle. “I was really hoping to suck you off.”

“Then again,” Eddie says in a strangled voice, “what’s the harm in falling back on old favourites?”

Steve gives Eddie’s cheek a quick kiss and squeezes his hand. “You’re Stove’s favourite, too.”

The resulting laughter finalizes the internal immolation of Steve Harrington, and he couldn’t be happier.