Chapter Text
“You know, I would almost feel bad for you if I didn’t think you deserved it,” Robin crosses her arms, watching birds dart through the trees across the street. It’s peaceful, the way the sun filters through the cross beams and onto their unevenly tanned legs.
Steve scuffs the toe of his sneaker across the worn wooden floor of the patio. He gestures with his hand until Robin passes over the cigarette they’ve been sharing.
“Deserve it?”
“You can be a real dick to those kids sometimes, it’s only fair that you do something to help them out.”
Groaning, Steve’s head falls back onto the metal chair with a reverberating clang.
“Yeah, whatever. I only agreed so I could have a chance to talk to that Eddie guy some more.”
Robin’s eyebrows dance across her forehead in a suggestive waggle. Steve’s eyes nearly roll back into his skull as he tries a French inhale, coughing and sputtering when the smoke attempts to course through his nose. Robin starts laughing so hard her chest meets her knees in a forward fold, stomping her feet until she calms down.
“Whatever, dork. You’re sooo into him,” she chides, successfully French inhaling a quarter of the smoke Steve had shot for. His face sours as he pops his knuckles idly, lost in thought.
“I’m sooo into yo’ mama, narbo,” he rises to his feet, flicking Robin’s head. “Come on, I need to pick an outfit for when I get eaten alive by nerds.”
-
“I can’t believe you’re forcing Harrington to join us,” Eddie snaps, but there’s none of his usual bite, and his eyes shift uneasily across the floor.
“Okay, first of all, he’s just watching this time so he can learn the rules and join as a traveling bard while my mom and I visit my cousins in Wisconsin next week and you know that. Second of all, he loves it,” Dustin gestures to Steve Harrington, zoned out with his chin resting in his hand, scribbling circles into the notebook balanced on his knee.
Eddie scoffs, shuffling through his papers one final time before the session begins. Energy crackles through his fingertips, electrifying the room around him. He clears his throat, sliding his eyes shut briefly to center himself.
“Tonight, we find our heroes in a state of distress as they prepare to cross the Middlesbridge Channel on flimsy rafts crafted from plywood scrap…”
Steve floats back to reality, entranced by the cinematic way Eddie strings his words together, leaning in to engage every club member at the table individually as he describes the situation the characters are facing. In their hands, pencils scratch at loose sheets and try to decode the problem Eddie has laid out for them.
“...What do you do next?” He finishes his sentence with a slick glance around the room, threatening a cold call if they don’t start working together soon.
Losing track of the room, Steve’s mind swims through the commotion of voices as they attempt to work out the best strategy around the obstacle ahead. He draws a river on his page, putting a castle on the other side. With a soft exhale he adds a stick person, fleshing out the details in the way of small trees and a moat around the castle. Would a castle against a river still have a moat?
“Harrington, your move,” Eddie calls. Dustin’s jaw drops open before anyone else can react.
“That’s a foul, he hasn’t been paying any attention!”
“But he should, and that’s the point. You’re spared for now, Patroclus, but you’ve gotta be ready for the next one that hits you,” Eddie draws out the name of Steve’s bard with a withering stare.
Steve’s face pales at the chastisement, shrinking back under Eddie’s intense gaze. He concentrates more on the next couple rounds of play, always drifting his focus back to the ringleader, the star of the show, Eddie.
A particularly bad injury plagues Mike’s character, dulling his magical abilities as the group heads off to fight a villain. Dustin murmurs to himself, readjusting his cap what must be a dozen times as he reads his notes over and over.
“Just use the coins you got earlier from the traveling merchant, they’re talismans, you know they’ll work,” Steve whispers to the back of Dustin’s head. Eddie notices when he leans in, gesturing to specific spots on Dustin’s notes to go along with whatever he’s saying.
“Harrington, what’s so interesting?” Eddie calls on him once more, a smirk pulling at one side of his mouth as he idly spins a ring around his finger.
“Oh. I was just reminding him of the, like, magic coins he got from that rogue earlier. I think they could come in handy,” Eddie’s eyes remain solid on Steve’s face, an inscrutable expression coloring the look. “Maybe.”
“You might be onto something,” is all Eddie says, and that’s all it takes for the table to explode in raucous noise. They melt together until one squeaky Mike Wheeler cuts through the rest of the sound.
“What the fuck Eddie! The solutions are never this easy! If we came up with something that simple, you’d just fuck it up for us!”
Eddie shrugs his shoulders, unbroken by the complaints.
“Maybe you guys are thinking too hard,” is all he says, and Steve hides the smile that flickers over his face.
-
“Seriously, I cannot believe your idea worked. Eddie’s never that nice. It’s always a production with him, we have to keep notes on the most obscure shit and come up with a ‘creative’ solution or else he doesn’t let us go on. I’ve never seen him act like this before,” Dustin goes on, shaking his head, “He’s gone soft.”
Steve shrugs a shoulder, only half listening to what Dustin has to say. “Sorry about it. Maybe I’m just a D&D genius in disguise.” With one hand on the wheel, he pulls into the driveway of Dustin’s mom’s house. “I know it’s already late, but get to bed at a decent time, okay?”
Dustin rolls his eyes. “Okay, mom.” He exits the car, and Steve doesn’t move until he watches him disappear behind the door frame and warm light bleeds through the curtains on his bedroom window.
-
Steve is behind the wheel again, self consciously picking at the corner of his notebook. The page he’s opened to is empty, save for the large – kind of shitty – bubble letters at the top: Patroclus. He chews his lip, looks down to the page and back up at the trailers down the street he’s parked on. Back and forth, up and down. It’s not weird, right? To visit Eddie. At night. To talk about mutual interests, flesh out his character for the sessions in the coming week. He’s not totally sure what’s causing the lump to grow in his throat.
Dust kicks up around his tires as he eases his foot off the brake, rolling forward until he’s unmistakably, irredeemably in front of Eddie Munson’s trailer.
“What the fuck has gotten into me?” Steve mumbles and shakes his head. The car hums to sleep when he takes out the key. Once he opens the door, all he can hear is the soft cricket song of central Indiana.
After a quick glance up at the clear, star-spattered sky, he takes a deep breath and walks to the front door. Looking not to delay the inevitable, he knocks curtly. He shouldn’t be so shocked when the door opens to reveal Eddie’s uncle. Steve scrambles for his name in his mind, there’s no way Dustin hasn’t mentioned this before, fuck.
All his worries are dissolved when Mr. Munson finally speaks, an eyebrow twitch betraying the only possible hint of emotion in his face.
“Looking for Eddie?”
“Yes sir, is he home?”
Mr. Munson jerks his head back, widening the gap in the door to let Steve pass. He nods politely and tries to make his uncertain steps look intentional as he advances towards the door he really hopes leads to Eddie’s room. He hesitates before tapping a knuckle to the wood and waiting a moment before cracking it open.
“Hey, what’s- what the fuck?” Eddie’s eyebrows knit together instantly from his seat on the floor, hands occupied by the guitar in his lap, sheets of paper littered with messy notes forming a half circle around him. His flannel pajama pants rustle as he readjusts his body slightly. “I mean, hi, sorry, what the fuck? What are you doing in my house?”
“I thought maybe – I mean, are you the guy to come to for D&D advice?” He holds up the notebook as if it explains anything, as if it’s a shield blocking him from the strange vulnerability of seeing Eddie’s room, lived in and messy and clearly not expecting company to stumble across it.
“I’m probably your best bet in butt-fuck Hawkins, Indiana, yes. But you do realize it’s creeping up to 9:30, right?”
Steve quickly tries to come up with something that makes sense besides the facts of the matter he doesn’t want to address: yes, he had been home alone and uncomfortable, and yes, he was missing Eddie after his first D&D session a few days ago. Instead, his second instincts prevail, and a taunt rolls out of his mouth:
“You’re telling me you have a bedtime?”
Balancing his guitar carefully against his bed, Eddie rises to his feet, and Steve notices dully that it’s the first time he’s seen Eddie without combat boots. His arms cross over the brutal and unreadable band logo on his chest, and Steve tilts his head down just a touch to lock their eyes.
“Are you here for weed?” Eddie thrums his fingers over his bicep, “I can get you weed, if that’s what this is about.”
“I- no, I’m being serious man. I only really have the name of my character figured out and I want to, like, flesh him out. Give him some traits. Powers.” The longer he speaks the more his confidence dwindles. “No, you’re right. This was really weird of me. I’ll head out and I can ask Dustin about everything tomorrow.”
As he turns to escape the room, making eye contact with a particularly beautiful David Bowie poster on the back of the door, he hears Eddie shift in place.
“No, that’s alright. You can stay. Uh, just sit anywhere and I’ll get out my books.” He withdraws his hand from where he’d almost grabbed Steve’s wrist and awkwardly scratches the back of his head. Thankfully, Steve moves slowly and dramatically, missing the entire attempt at connection by the time he swivels his head back around.
“Cool.”
Shuffling back and forth across the room, Eddie straightens up his guitar and files away his musical ramblings. He slides shut dresser drawers full of items he wouldn’t want to see the light of day and puts on Hell Awaits for background noise. It’s almost habitable by the time he finishes, exhaling and facing Steve, who is absorbing his surroundings wordlessly but contentedly.
“I like your room. All the posters are cool, I don’t have many interests I could speak this highly of.” He says it with a shy sort of smile, immediately going back to scanning the walls.
It takes everything Eddie has not to reply sharply, to accept that Steve isn’t making a dig about his passions for loud music and nerd games and battle jackets.
“Thanks. You know you could be cool like me too, if you tried.” He mostly says it for himself, smiling at the idea that their positions are switched, that Steve could be more well liked if he started wearing all black all the time.
Steve reacts more than he thought he would, letting out a short laugh as he makes himself comfortable and reclines onto the bed. His legs, still dangling off the edge, kick around a bit as he considers the prospects.
“You know, you might get me hooked on D&D if you try hard enough. The game I sat in on was a blast to watch. You’re a great performer.”
It’s the second compliment to slip off his tongue in less than ten minutes, and now Eddie is getting suspicious. He’s really laying it on thick.
“Yeah, the school wanted me in Bye Bye Birdie this year, but we just didn’t see eye to eye on my portrayal of Conrad. I guess it wasn’t believable enough that I’d cross the country to kiss a girl. What do they know, right?” He laughs tersely as he relays the half-truth, wondering what Steve will glean from what he’s revealed.
“You should try out for the talent show. That band shit, that’s what’ll show ‘em.”
“Have you ever heard us play?”
“No, but I trust you’re alright.”
It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back as Eddie is still slowly gathering his D&D books and laying out character sheets on the floor for him and Steve to talk over.
“Okay, seriously, what the fuck is this about? Are you sure you aren’t just being nice to me to get a deal on my… services? I can get you an eighth for fifteen with my generous friends and family discount, if that’s what you want.” It comes out all at once, a flood gate of agitated fury after a lifetime of being distrusted.
Steve sits up a bit to look at Eddie on the floor, eyebrows raised high.
“Woah.”
They’re both silent for a moment, simmering in their own emotions before speaking again.
“If it’ll make you feel better, I will absolutely buy whatever quantity of green you are obviously trying to move. But I also just want to be friends, Eds.” He closes his eyes for a brief moment, catching the slip up quickly. “Eddie, sorry.”
Rolling a pencil between his fingers, Eddie tries to calm himself down. His eyes wander to one of the pages fanned out in front of him, which he leans over to title.
“Alright, Patroclus, I’ll try and take it easy on you this time,” Eddie sighs, patting the floor beside him. He cracks open one of the thick D&D books at his side, flipping through the pages quickly. “...We’re on the first edition right now, but me and Hellfire are freaking out, because there’s rumors of an edition two coming out in the next few years with all kinds of rule additions and changes.”
He starts pointing out passages throughout the books as he warms up to the conversation, guiding Steve through character creation easily.
“There’s a lot of this I wouldn’t tell the kids. I want them to struggle through it – make really shitty characters – so they get better organically.”
A smile cracks the corner of Steve’s mouth.
“Oh my God, now I have to hear about your first character, you know that, right?”
Eddie hesitates before he launches into the story.
“Funny enough, his name was Achilles,” the energy in the room shifts as they both recall the myth, unwilling to admit they both know how it ends. “Just some shitty half-orc cleric.” Silence stretches long after the sentence ends, the A-side of the record all played out. “Yeah, maybe I’ll bring him back as an NPC for you guys in this campaign.”
“I always, um, liked that myth,” Steve dances on a knife’s edge closer to what he’s trying to ask. One of Eddie’s eyebrows rises softly.
“You read up on Greek mythology as a kid, too?”
“When my dad wasn’t making fun of me for picking grass on the outfield during baseball practice, I was at the library. Don’t get me wrong, I spent plenty of time on the computers, but the lines were long. With all the waiting, I started to pick up a book here or there. I got really into The Iliad, I read it over and over even though I didn’t really get it.” He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously, “I’ve never been the smartest, but I do like to read.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type,” Eddie realizes the response comes off harsh, guarded, after the admission Steve makes.
In an effort to avoid embarrassing himself further, Eddie stands, wandering over to a stack of books resting by his bedside. He hums lowly, scanning the titles until he reaches the one he’s looking for.
“Here, this is one of my favorites,” he passes the well-loved copy into Steve’s hands, brushing alongside his fingers before letting go, “I’ve written in it, sorry if that kind of thing bothers you. You can get it back to me whenever, if you’d like to read it.”
Steve turns the novel over in his palms, highlighted and dog-eared to high heaven. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
“I think I’d like that,” Steve thumbs open the front page to see where Eddie’s signed the inside of the front cover - dated multiple times in a variety of pens, spanning back to 1982. “Thank you.”
Eddie shrugs, nervously fidgeting with his hair. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
Stillness settles over the room, the dread of ending whatever this moment has become creeping into their conscious thoughts.
“It’s getting late, I should probably head out,” Steve glances vacantly at his watch, but he doesn’t catch the time. Eddie nods his head, lost in thought. The idea of inviting him to stay over strikes his mind like lightning, and the heat is gone just as fast.
“I’ll walk you out to your car. It’s the least I can do,” he stands once more, shrugging a jacket over his shoulders and finding the time to flip the record on his turntable while Steve tries to tidy things without knowledge of where anything goes.
“Thanks, baby, but I can clean up,” a lopsided grin graces Eddie’s face, watching as Steve darts his eyes across the room back and forth, D&D manuals in hand, trying to decide which pile to stack them onto. If he notices the way the pet name slides easily off Eddie’s tongue, he doesn’t react, finally resolving to place the books on the corner of his bed.
“Cool,” the ball of energy that had dissolved from his stomach over the course of the night has materialized again, wiring his nerves like a cup of coffee as he sways in place.
Crossing the room in long, easy strides, Eddie intentionally brushes against Steve’s shirt sleeve to get his attention. He gestures grandly towards the dim living room, now visible through the crack in the door. Steve catches on, tipping a fake hat and shuffling out quickly.
The TV against the wall is still on, tuned to static, and Steve entertains a passing thought about running up the electricity bill before he realizes he’s being rude and shoves down the feeling. Eddie seems to be extra cautious with his steps to avoid sudden loud noise, and Steve wonders just how long he’s been over.
After the fight to get out the front entrance as quietly as possible, they’re stranded on the island of the moth-filled porch, a beacon of color in the sleeping trailer park. Eddie scrunches his nose and flips the light switch, settling into the dark like a second skin.
“I do love to be the center of attention, but even I’ll admit it’s a bit late…” There’s a dreamy quality to his voice as he locks eyes with the constellations swirling around above the town. Sticky summer air condenses to their skin quickly, grass whispering sweet nothings with every breeze. If Steve strains his eyes just right, he can barely make out the sculpted lines of Eddie’s profile gazing fondly into space.
The urge to grab his neck, to align their shoulders, to bump the edges of their pinkies together grows stronger in the recesses of Steve’s mind, the serenity of the night acting as armor.
Slowly, Eddie tilts his head to look in Steve’s direction, and he’s convinced himself that if he doesn’t move he won’t have to be victim to those doe eyes, wide and dark and reflecting every star in that broad night sky back at him. Luckily for him, it works, and Eddie squints before he seems to locate Steve entirely, reaching out a calloused hand to grab his elbow and make sure he’s really there.
“Thought I lost you for a minute there,” he says, and it’s hard for the panic to fully melt from his voice with a sentence like that.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Steve echoes Eddie’s sentiment from earlier.
Emboldened by the rustle of leaves, or the heat from Eddie’s fingertips, or the protection of the gentle evening coating them in warmth, Steve drinks in the view in front of him. A loose halo of gray starlight frames Eddie’s rough curls, a silhouette of an angel in the dark.
Eddie’s other hand finds itself working its way to the pack resting on the banister. With what seems like reluctance, he lets go of Steve to strike a match. It takes everything in him not to shrink back into a puddle when the deep parts of his brain stem register the bright light. He settles for a jerk of the head, flinching back from the crack of the fire, grateful for the invisibility of contrast. Eddie shakes the flame out before flicking the burnt stick into the grass. He disappears behind the cherry when Steve’s eyes fail to adjust, watching idly as the glow inches closer to Eddie’s lips.
Wordlessly, he reaches out to tuck Steve’s hair behind his ear, holding out the last puff of the cigarette in offer with the other. Steve starts shaking his head before he realizes where they are.
“No, thank you,” he croaks out. He clears his throat softly, his own fingers following the ghost of where Eddie’s had been moments ago.
Eddie smokes down to the filter, stubbing out the embers on the back of his hand. Steve is desperate, for a moment, for enough light to watch his eyelashes flutter at the sensation.
“Well, Harrington, I guess it’s time I bid you good morrow,” Eddie starts uncertainly. “Sorry for not sharing my midnight snack sooner.” He can tell from the tone that an easy smile is splitting his face. Steve shrugs with just one of his shoulders, beginning a slow meander down to his car.
“I’m cutting down these days. Trying to stay in shape.” He gestures from his face down to his body, and something in the back of his mind is telling him he shouldn’t be doing this.
“You don’t have to try,” Eddie replies, stretching an arm back to hit the lights again. They both blink against the harsh change, disarmed and bathed in the artificially silver tone.
“Bye, Eddie. This was fun.”
“Study your notes. See you later this week.”
“Or sooner, if I’m on another late night escapade,” Steve sing-songs, stalling for time while he sets his stack of books gently down on the floor of the passenger side.
“Only if I’m lucky,” Eddie calls back as loud as he’ll risk at this hour, in this city, with his reputation. It’s intoxicating, the way he can get lost in the rhythm of the conversation so quickly. It’s easy to keep up with Steve.
Running lights purr to life as Steve finally starts up the car, rolling down the window to wave at Eddie the whole time he backs out of the driveway. The island of the patio recedes into the rearview until Steve can finally let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
This late, the streets are empty. The rumble of his engine and the soft lull of Bruce Springsteen are the only sounds for miles, and Steve is the king of Hawkins once more.
When he blinks back into his body, he realizes he’s autopiloted himself to the top of Greenpoint Hill. With a touch of melancholy, he remembers driving out here with Tommy and Carol and Nancy all those nights before he had his license. He throws his car in park, sliding onto the hood to rest a moment. As flat as Indiana is, the view is decent, and he can see most of the straggling lights in the city. He vaguely wonders what Mrs. Thomas is doing up at this hour, the lamp in her window dimming as she paces across it like a shadow puppet.
His mind wanders, as he watches the town in all its glory, to hands gilded with silver, ladder-laced boots, chipped teeth to go along with stories he hasn’t heard, larger than life Eddie as he strolls into a room without a hint of a care in the world.
A dull headache forms around his temples, and he buries his head in his hands. Steve gets back in the drivers’ seat and finally makes his way home.