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It’s the end of a long night, pale orange light touching the horizon and the still dark blue sky. Steve is feeling a little bit braver than he normally does, which is why he puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder to stop him before they reach the car. Eddie turns back with that funny smile of his, one eyebrow raised in curious intrigue. This feels right, he thinks, this is right.
“Is this the part of the night where you murder me and begin your unending string of serial killings?”
Murder shouldn’t be funny, and it isn’t, but Steve scoffs nonetheless. “Yeah, you think I couldn’t?”
“I think you don’t know the first thing about cleaning up a crime scene,” Eddie replies cooly, casting a glance to the trees around them.
“Oh, really? I can kill otherwordly bats, but I can’t get away with murder?”
There’s a pause where Eddie tilts his head like he’s contemplating, arms crossed, eyes walking up and down the length of him. It’s a bit like being under a microscope, but Steve finds that he doesn’t even mind too much. He doesn’t have many secrets, at least, he won’t after tonight.
“I think that you should tell me what you want to tell me.”
When did the air get so stuffy? It’s dawn, air’s not meant to be stuffy at dawn. That’s like some sort of universal rule, it has to be.
“I, uh, I think I like you, Eddie Munson. Like, really like you.”
And the expression barely changes. For a long time, Eddie stands still with a smile and tilted head, arms crossed. There’s something harsh in his eyes, though, they’re wider, like they’re trying to burn a hole into Steve’s head. The only noises are the slowly waking birds, the crickets, and Steve shifting his weight from one leg to the other like the nervous energy is building up, threatening to end him.
It breaks without warning, like a gunshot. The gravel crunches as Eddie spins on his heel. “Well, that’s cute and all, but I’m not really interested in sex right now.”
“What? Wait, who’s talking about sex?”
Steve isn’t sure if this is rejection or one of the classic Munson jokes that happened to not land for the first time perhaps ever. Maybe it’s a joke only Eddie understands. Humiliation makes a drum of his heart, fire of his skin, as Steve thinks that maybe he’s the joke. Already, he can tell this is going to sting more than any other heartbreak ever has.
“You are!” He throws his arms wide. “Or do you really mean to tell me that you want something other than a quick dip into the forbidden cookie jar? Really, Steve?”
He says nothing, just looks down at the dirt and feels stupid. This is not how he thought it was gonna go.
“Let me tell you a story, Steve Harrington.”
Boots thud against the metal of Steve’s trunk, his last name echoes through the empty forest and he’s always liked the way Eddie says his full name, but not tonight. Tonight, he wishes Eddie would just stop speaking, maybe never say his name again, maybe just pretend like this never happened at all. There’s no backtracking once Eddie’s started a story, Dustin has told him that so many times, and he’s seen it, too. He thinks this might not be a story he wants to hear.
“Once upon a time, the King was hosting a grand party at his palace. All the good men and all the good women came to the palace because the King was a gracious host. However, not all of the merry folks of the kingdom were granted entry to the palace party.”
Steve looks up. Eddie is still staring at him with something indescribable. It isn’t hatred or anger, like he might’ve suspected, but Lord knows it isn’t anything kind either.
“No fairies allowed! So said the King’s good people. Except for one. He was allowed brief entry, because he possessed the most important part of any party worthy of the name. The King was a gracious host, in festive supplements most of all. You know, fairy dust.”
Eddie squats down by the edge of the trunk, eyes nearly in line with Steve’s.
“The King’s good men opened the door and smiled, not at the fairy, of course, but at the fairy dust. Then, the good man said, ‘Look guys, the queer finally came. Let’s do some fucking coke.’”
“Eddie, please—”
“No, no! I think it’s important that you know the King was very pleased with the news. He laughed actually, and what a boisterous, regal laugh. He came up to the fairy, can you imagine? A fairy? Graced with the presence of the King? The King said, ‘Thanks for the coke, man. Here’s your money,’ and then slammed the door in the fairy’s face.”
And then Steve can’t even hear the birds anymore.
“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t…I don’t even—”
“You don’t even remember, is that what you were gonna say?”
“No!” he lies.
Eddie laughs, like this is all just some joke, some sort of game to him. “Whatever you say, my liege.”
“Don’t call me that, please.”
“Oh, sorry, is ‘your majesty’ more preferable?”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? We’ve been friends for like two months now, I would’ve… I don’t know. I could’ve fixed this, or tried to.”
At this, Eddie’s face falls and he’s the one to look away. For a short moment, the mask falls, too, but Steve isn’t quick enough to figure out what’s hiding underneath, he never was. Did Eddie feel this way every movie night? Every late night drive? How long had this been festering while he’s been none the wiser, just falling for a guy that can’t even stomach the idea of falling back. If this had just been a case of feelings not reciprocated, wow, that would’ve sucked bad enough, but this…
“Shit sticks, Harrington. You can’t fix everything.”
Eddie walks away and Steve just sits down, his back against the side of his car. An orange glow touches the very tops of the trees, but he just can’t move, can barely even cry. Heartbreak is ten times worse with the knowledge that you ruined all chances before you even knew you’d want to try.
Robin chips away at his attempt at a stoic and unbothered facade for the entire evening shift. He gets close to breaking, but keeps stacking returned movies like he can’t hear her. Sometimes, that’s actually true. Whenever the store was empty and Robin had briefly paused her attempts, Steve would replay every moment spent with Eddie over and over again, wondering where it went wrong. Of course, it must have gone wrong from the beginning, but he still keeps looking for a sign, a look, some off-hand comment. Eddie would make a lot of references that Steve didn’t catch onto and he keeps looking for the one that would explain all of this.
“Steve?”
“Huh?” He snaps out of trance again.
“Shift’s up.”
He looks at his watch to find it a minute past closing. It’s usually a good sign when the day passes by without him noticing, but now it just makes him feel lost, like he really is losing his mind.
“Do you wanna get dinner on the way back?” Robin asks.
“I don’t know, I’m kinda tired. Me and Eddie were up really late last night and I…”
There’s a heavy pause as Steve finishes putting the last movies on the shelf before taking off his vest. Robin is standing behind the counter with her arms crossed, and he knows she’s bursting to say something. He wishes he could escape it, but he doesn’t reckon he’ll get that lucky anytime soon.
“Did something happen with you and Eddie?”
He shrugs. “It’s just…a bad day. You know? It’s just a bad day.”
There’s another pause as Robin holds up the door for him and flips the sign to ‘closed’.
“I had a bad day, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Had nightmares again. Having dinner with my best friend in the whole wide world would probably help a bit.”
Somehow, he doubts her honesty because it seems awfully convenient for her to suddenly need support when she’s been whining about him needing support all day. It should annoy him, her insistence and clinginess, but how could it? She cares, and that’s how she shows it. Steve can’t blame her for caring. Not even when his eyes sting and his throat gets all thick at the thought of having to tell her what happened.
Robin locks up and promptly decides they’re getting fries and burgers from the diner downtown, she also piles on two large strawberry milkshakes at the last minute. She says she’s extra upset, but when she offers to pay, Steve thinks she’s just trying to bribe him with goods, and maybe it’s working.
“If you’re offering me emotional support, then I think it’s only fair that I stand for dinner,” she says once they’ve arrived at Steve’s.
“Right, because this is not a bribe.”
“Exactly! I respect the boundaries—”
“Oh, do you now?”
“—of my very good friends. Hey! I mean, I don’t know, Steve, you sound like you have something you wanna get off your chest. Is that why you keep implying I’m trying to push you into talking?”
Steve shakes his head with a fond scoff and places two plates on the kitchen island. “You are an interesting person, Robin Buckley. I’ll give you that.”
“So is that a ‘no’, or..?”
He really does wish that it were that simple, sometimes it feels like this would’ve been easier if he’d been back in highschool, back when the mechanism in his brain telling him to push his hurt away was still functioning. Then again, highschool is the reason he’s in this mess in the first place. Shame crawls onto his shoulder and he sits down, rests his forehead on his hand, and he really did mean it when he said he was tired. It’s hard to keep his head up and not just lie down on the damn floor and let the world go by.
“Hey, look. If you really want me to go, or to leave it alone, I will. I just hate seeing you like this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“But you don’t wanna talk about it?”
Robin picks off the pickles from her burger and throws them to Steve who has already opened his burger up to place the extra pickles along the top.
“It’s not that, I’m just…embarrassed, I guess.”
“Come on, it can’t have been more embarrassing than me peeing myself,” she says through a mouth now half-full of burger.
Steve raises an eyebrow. “While being tortured by russian spies?”
“Fair point.” Robin gestures to his burger and fries. “Eat, you’re annoying me.”
Steve rolls his eyes, but does eat. They remain quiet for the rest of dinner in a somewhat pleasant silence. It’s easy to be around Robin, he finds, even when he’s recounting the way Eddie had looked at him, like…like he wanted to get as far away from him as was humanly possible. Steve has never seen that look in his eyes, at least not directed at him. Maybe he just wasn’t looking, fully content to put his past behind him when there must have been more. Eddie isn’t the only person that Steve hurt, he’s sure of it, and yet here he is, acting like his past was just that. In the past.
They put the plates in the dishwasher and throw the remaining papers and packages away. He notices that the counter is really dirty, so he takes a few minutes to just wipe it off with some dish soap. Then he also notices that there’s some food that’s gone bad in the fridge, which he obviously has to take care of because it couldn’t possibly wait. After that, there’s the laundry to throw in the dryer. And by then, Robin has put the radio on and The Cure is playing and he watches her dance and she looks ridiculous as she pulls him in. They dance until the song ends and then continue for the next two and by then they’re laughing, practically lying down on the floor with their backs against the couch.
“I suck at dancing,” Robin says through tears.
“How did you almost fall three times in the span of like ten seconds?”
“All I know is there would’ve been more if you hadn’t been there to keep me steady.”
The laughter settles down, and Robin shuffles to turn the radio off. Steve pushes himself up a bit more and picks at a tiny ketchup stain at the bottom of his shirt.
“So. You and Eddie?”
He nods.
“What happened?”
He stares up at the ceiling instead, attempting not to throw up or start crying. “Oh, you know, the usual. I tell someone I like them and they reject me. Except this time I think I totally get it.”
“Wait, you told Munson you like him?”
“Yeah, and get this—” Steve leans forward. “—he starts telling this story about someone saying some stupid shit at one of my parties while he was there selling drugs and I just…I just laughed. I laughed and then slammed the door in his face.”
Robin sighs and wraps her arms around her legs, chin resting atop her knees. He wonders if hearing about what an asshole he was hurts her, too. Hopefully she would stop him if she got uncomfortable.
“I don’t think I was trying to be mean, but I don’t know.”
“Think?”
He scoffs. There’s needles in his throat. “I don’t even remember it happening. Probably too blackout drunk or maybe I just didn’t give a shit.”
Once again he leans back, slumping down and in on himself as he looks anywhere except at Robin. There is one moment he can think of, a few weeks after everything had settled down with the Vecna shit. Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, him, and Eddie had all taken a trip out of town to just hang out and maybe go swimming for the ones who could stomach the still freezing waters. They’d have gone to Lover’s Lake, but that was off limits for several reasons.
It was late, almost sunset, Steve had been the only one to take a dip, but at some point everyone was getting ready to go back, so he got up out of the water. Eddie had looked at him for just a moment, and the look on his face was unguarded and troubled. Steve had made some remark about if his chest hair was off putting, but Eddie just smiled and said something or other regarding him being pretty.
He presses the thick of his palms into his eyes, sniffling, swallowing the lump in his throat. “It’s not that he’s wrong to be upset, I know I used to be awful, but why right then? Why did he have to…”
“Hit you right when it would hurt the most?”
“I guess.”
Robin comes to sit next to him and grabs onto his knee with a gentle squeeze. “Maybe he’ll come by tomorrow? Maybe he was just processing things.”
“By basically telling me he still looks at me and sees the guy who slammed a door in his face? I appreciate the optimism, Robin, I really do, but no, he realized we were in too deep and decided to leave before it got worse.”
“You don’t just save the world with someone and then drop them like that.”
Well, it’s not like there’s any sort of rulebook, he thinks. Steve drags his hands over his face and stands up, perhaps wishing he could just pull it off entirely, maybe then he’d completely disappear.
“Maybe you do. How would I know? I’m gonna go pass out now because I did actually stay up late and if I’m awake for another minute I’m going to hit something really hard and I just can’t be bothered to clean it up after.”
“Steve?”
He turns around for a second, hand on the stair railing.
“We’ll fix this. I’ll help you fix this.”
It’s a funny business, the way life is like a story sometimes, all tragic and sad and a bit too neat to be believable.
“You can’t fix everything.”
He wakes up an hour later for just a moment when Robin slides into bed next to him with her back turned. It’s nice to not be alone, and he does his best to fall asleep before he can start crying again.
Life goes on, as it were. It’s only been a week. Steve still works at Family Video, he still drives Robin around, the kids still semi-regularly ask him for rides or for his house so they can play their little nerd games. It’s been a week and it’s not like he’s over it or doesn’t think about it anymore, he in fact thinks about it a concerning amount, the story, trying to remember that evening as if that would make it better, trying to just understand Eddie in general, all of that. It’s been a week and Steve is alive, and that’s all he can swear to.
He can’t help but think that it feels different because it’s a boy, because it’s Eddie. From the moment that it had fully sunk in that maybe he’s not as straight as he’d thought, there was always this clear distinction between the feeling of liking a girl versus a guy. Neither is better, he thinks, but it’s just different in a way that’s hard to explain. Maybe it’s the difference in experience or maybe it’s just the complexities of human nature or some other esoteric bullshit like that.
Being with Eddie felt like finding a new world to explore that he’s never seen before, and he’d know, he’s already done that once. There was a magnetism, a pull like standing at the edge of a long drop and looking down, and god, he’d fallen so far.
Magnetism draws him in once more when the door rings, and he looks up to find none other than Eddie Munson, in the flesh. He looks just like himself, it’s only been a week after all, and yet Steve can’t stop staring.
“Is Robin here?” he asks, expression neutral, like he’s talking to a stranger.
Steve doesn’t know what to do with himself, barely knows how to speak. “No, she left like an hour ago.”
Eddie looks down at his watch, then back up at Steve and narrows his eyes.
“I’d rather you just punch me than stand there staring.”
“I think we’ve been had.”
He finally gives up on the idle distraction of stacking shelves and turns to face Eddie. “Huh?”
“Robin called me yesterday, said she needed help with something. She mentioned the fact that you definitely wouldn’t be here.”
Embarrassment wells over him for the billionth time, which is something he’s had to get used to a lot lately. He can’t stay angry at her for long and two seconds is two seconds too long, but even so, he rolls his eyes and leans against the counter with his arms crossed in some futile attempt to look unbothered and cool.
“I’m sorry about that,” he says, uncertainty keeping him tapping on his arm like he’s waiting for disaster to strike.
“No need to apologize. I mean, she’s just trying to help a friend, right?” There’s that tense focus in his eyes, like he’s looking for something in Steve.
There’s a pause and he swallows hard, staring back. He feels bare and stupid and he wishes he could just disappear or melt into the ground, maybe both. Why did Eddie stick around past finding out that Robin isn’t here? Steve imagines he would’ve just left instantly with some snide comment, but instead he’s standing there like either of them have something to say. Steve certainly doesn’t.
Please explain yourself, tell me how to fix this.
Tell me how to not be the ghost of what you knew me as.
Alright, maybe he does.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Another tense pause. Eddie still isn’t moving, his arms are also crossed. There’s a standoff and he is so thankful there aren’t any customers because how the fuck does he explain whatever the fuck is going on?
Steve is the one to look away first. “Maybe you don’t want to hear this and maybe I’m just making it worse, but I just want you to know that I really am sorry about that ni—”
“Stop.”
Cruel. It’s cruel, the way Eddie sounds like he’s teetering on the edge of contempt and a plea.
He leaves the store before Steve gets the chance to try again or…do something. Maybe that’s the point, maybe he isn’t meant to do anything. Maybe he’s just meant to let things fall apart and return back to the way they were, but why would either of them want that? If Eddie didn’t reciprocate the feelings, that’s fine, but why be so cruel about it? Why not just sort it out instead of letting it ruin them? The last thing he wants is to make it seem like he doesn’t think Eddie has a right to be hurt, but he just wishes he were allowed to ask for forgiveness.
It hurts to be rejected, it hurts to be reminded of how he is his own worst enemy and the past is his weapon, it hurts to know that he hurt someone he really cares about. Most of all, it fucking sucks that he lost a friend.
After ending his shift and going home, he refrains from calling Robin like he usually does, which is the extent of his annoyance at her. When she calls about two hours later and Steve answers, he proceeds to smoothly dodge any attempts at getting him to talk about whatever she thinks should have happened today. If he makes an off-hand comment about not sticking your nose into places it shouldn’t be, neither of them point it out. They write it off as a bad day. Steve’s had several of those lately.
Another week passes without incident, and despite last week’s hiccup, Steve is feeling slightly more like himself. He feels well enough, in fact, to accept Robin’s offer to go meet up at the quarry. He picks her up from home and they drive off, the radio blasting some billboard star or other that Robin sings along to with sincere gusto. Once they’ve arrived, Steve parks his car and hops out.
The crickets have already started their chirping, a breeze blows through the air, and there is no one else around for as far as the eye can see and the ear can hear. It’s that time of the evening right after the sun has fully set, but before it gets dark and there’s that sort of gray-blue tint on everything around them. Clouds are coming in from the west, he thinks it might start raining later.
“Nothing like a bit of fresh Hawkins air,” Robin says, clambering her way onto the top of Steve’s car, legs dangling down the side.
“Is that what it is?” He hops up beside her. “I always just thought it was the fact that every place of significance here is riddled with horror in some way or another.”
“That, too.”
They laugh and Robin settles into a conversation about Vickie and the never ending pining. Steve interjects a few times to gently remind her as annoyingly as he can that she’s an idiot for not taking a chance. He makes a joke about how even he, the straight-guy-up-until-like-a-few-months-ago and womanizer, had asked Eddie Munson out. It gets quiet after that again until Robin continues rambling. He does pay attention, but he also appreciates getting out of his head, getting to just live vicariously through her for a moment.
After a while, maybe two hours or so, they’re interrupted by headlights quickly passing over them and the distant noise of tires on a dirt road.
Robin throws a quick glance, nervous, but not surprised.
“Okay, look, Steve, don’t get mad at me.”
“What did you do?” he asks, looking towards the sound and just barely making out a van from behind the headlights that shine so brightly he has to squint his eyes and put up an arm in front of his face. The van turns, the back facing the quarry.
“I know it didn’t work out last time, but I promise it will if you just…talk. Like, actually talk.”
There’s a sinking feeling in Steve’s stomach, that surge, the magnetism, the standing at the edge of a precipice and knowing there’s no way to survive the fall. Darkness returns as the car stops and turns the engine off.
“Don’t tell me…”
With a heavy groan, the door to the driver’s side opens, and it’s hard to really make out the shape, but he doesn’t have to see it to know it. The shape doesn’t come closer at first, and Robin just looks at him like she’s worried about getting smacked, wearing that ridiculous guilty smile. Steve wouldn’t, of course, but she better have a damn good explanation for why she dragged them both all the way out here.
“Look, I didn’t trick him into coming here. Okay? I told him that I think you two should talk things through.”
“That’s all good, then. It’s fine if it’s me.” There’s no bite in his bark.
“Sorry,” she says with a little shrug and begins sliding down the side of the car.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, hiding his face in his hands with a groan. “You are insufferable. If I didn’t love you so much I would be so pissed right now, I really mean that.”
“You’ll thank me later!” she replies, already a ways away.
“And what, you’re just gonna walk all the way home? It’s gonna start raining before you even get halfway home!”
“Don’t worry about me, Stevie!”
“Robin, seriously!”
“Goodbye, Steve!”
And as her steps become quieter and quieter until they fade completely, Eddie’s steps come closer. He’s walking slowly, Steve hears. He wonders what Eddie’s thinking right now, what possessed him to agree to coming here, if Robin was telling the truth about convincing him rather than tricking him. Clearly, he doesn’t want to hear an apology. Although, maybe he has changed his mind, and Steve wouldn’t have an issue apologizing, he’s not a proud man, he’s lost his dignity far too many times in far too public circumstances.
When it really comes down to it, he just wants his friend back.
There’s sneakers skidding against the trunk of his car again, but instead of falling into a story, Eddie sits down next to Steve in silence. Their hands brush before they both move a few more inches apart.
He’s not a proud man, but maybe he’s a little bit stubborn and still a little bit annoyed at Robin. He makes the decision to not speak first, sue him. It takes a minute or two and he’s already close to caving.
“I’m not a very nice person.”
Of all the possible things he expected Eddie to say, that was not one of them.
“At least, I’m not always a very nice person. When we spoke…let’s just say I clearly wasn’t on my best behavior.”
Steve swallows hard, hands grasping onto his jeans. “You brought up a fair point.”
“No, see, Harrington, I don’t think I did, actually. I think I might’ve brought up the dumbest point in the history of the world.”
“Look, I feel like this is leading up to an apology,” Steve says, “and I don’t like the idea of you apologizing for something that I did. So.”
“I’m not.”
“Alright.”
There’s a pause. Steve can’t breathe. He can feel the smell of weed and old leather and something that reminds him of the forest. For two weeks he’d almost thought that the heartbreak had overshadowed the emotions, but Steve still feels his heart racing at being so close.
“You, uh.” There’s a smile in his voice, Steve can’t tell if it’s cynical or not. “You said you liked me.”
His jaw tenses. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Most people say the same thing when they get a bit too high and then we get into bed and then we never speak to each other again. You know, I could be the best rehab facility. Provided that you’re a gay guy who has severe issues with repression.”
“Eddie…”
“No, you’re right. They could probably just get it from someone else. The drugs, I mean, I don’t think they’d be complaining about my—”
“Eddie!”
Eddie sighs and slides down to the ground. At this point, Steve’s eyes have adjusted to the dark again and he sees the other walking up to the edge of the cliff, stopping a few feet away. His hands are in the pockets of his leather jacket, and he looks a little bit smaller than normal. The mask is gone again, and Steve intends to not let the chance pass him by. He hops down as well and stands next to him as the breeze blows past.
“Did you think I was gonna be like the rest of them?” Steve asks, something bitter settling just by his sternum.
“No.”
“No?”
Eddie shoots him a quick look, there’s an unsteady smile and his eyes are fixed onto his for two seconds and no more. “That was the crux of it. I knew you meant every word.”
Just as he thought he was getting somewhere, Eddie throws him a curveball, which is just so like him and how could Steve possibly expect him to just be upfront about it? It’s the thing he loves and hates most about Eddie all wrapped into one messy package.
“But you just didn’t feel the same?” he tries.
“Ah, uh.” Eddie scuffs his sneakers against the dirt, a pebble flies off the edge. “Harrington, I’m going to remind you again that I’m not a very nice person.”
“Not always a very nice person,” Steve corrects.
The distinction feels important. To him most of all. Eddie has always been nice around Steve, always been nice to Dustin and Mike and Lucas. And Will, god, Eddie is great with Will, the way they always have something to talk about that Steve doesn’t have the faintest understanding of, the way Will always seems to relax and smile. Eddie is brash and loud and takes up too much space half the time, but nice? He is more than nice. He is admirable .
Eddie scoffs, half fond, half bitter. “No one that I’ve, uh, been with , has ever loved me, I think. That’s fine and all, I usually didn’t love them either, but what I’m trying to get at is that I’ve never really been in what typically constitutes a relationship.”
Steve hesitates to ask, wondering how fragile this honesty between them is right now. “But you’ve been in love before?”
There’s another smile as he looks off in the distance. “Yeah, I’ve been in love.”
“Right,” he replies, a little bit dumb-founded for no good reason, but every kernel of information feels important.
“What, are you hoping I’ll say it’s you?”
Steve turns to him with narrow eyes and a mouth getting ready to say something. It could’ve been just as cruel as the last time they spoke like this, but it’s not. There’s something about Eddie’s eyes shining with mischief and mirth, that stupid grin of his that makes Steve almost say ‘yeah, I am’.
“Like I said, not nice,” he adds and points to himself before showing his hands back into his pockets. “You’re all so inclined to call me a hero after my little concert in our local shadow realm, and I was a badass, maybe a little bit of a hero, but I still run when I’m scared.”
He thinks he knows where Eddie is headed, doesn’t dare breathe in case he’s wrong, doesn’t dare speak a word.
“Shit, man. I used to think about that one night all the time. You looked at me like I was nothing to you, nothing. You could’ve spat in my face and it would’ve hurt less, but when I told you…after you…”
He wipes his face with his hands and turns, taking a few steps back to the car. Steve turns with him, arms crossed perhaps in an attempt to stop himself from reaching for Eddie.
“It didn’t hurt. I couldn’t have given less of a shit about whatever the fuck you did while drunk at a fucking high school house party from years ago. I was just scared, Steve.”
And in that moment, like when he’d said goodnight to Robin two weeks ago, life becomes a little bit like a story, all lined up and ridiculous. A few drops fall, then a few more. It doesn’t take long for the rain to come pouring down on them both, and Eddie looks at Steve like he thinks they’re gonna move, flee to either of their cars or something else, but Steve isn’t moving.
“Of what?”
It seems like Eddie accepts his fate with a resigned sigh and the drop of his shoulders. His eyes are pleading, begging. “You know what I’m gonna say, man.”
“Yeah, now say it.” His heart is beating a thousand beats per second, there’s a chill and anxiety buzzing at his fingertips, but he’s not moving. “You keep calling yourself a coward, saying you’re not nice or whatever. I’m telling you that you’re gonna prove me wrong right here, right now.”
“You have too much faith in me, Harrington.”
Steve shifts his weight to his other leg, standing his ground. His feet are aching, commanding him to fall forward into the cliff. Just a moment more, he tells himself. It’ll only be a moment, he knows it.
Eddie is breathing so hard his chest heaves, there’s rain pouring down his face and Steve can feel the rain soaking through his shirt and jeans, his shoes aren’t far away from the same fate. He hasn’t believed in anything as much as he believes in Eddie for a long time, but it feels good, like his bones are strong enough to carry it when they haven’t been for a long time. Faith is a difficult thing to have when the world seems close to ending every few months, but people, that’s worth having faith in.
“I’m terrified of you,” Eddie says, voice nearly trembling. “I am terrified that I’ll mess this up and lose you. I’m so fucking scared of the fact that, even if it faded sometimes, even if there have been others, I think I’ve been in love with you since middle school.”
Not a second is wasted as Steve falls, taking one, two, three long strides forward and he grabs Eddie’s face in both hands and kisses him like he’s been waiting to do for ages. Eddie makes a sound at the back of his throat and grabs onto Steve’s jean jacket and tugs him closer. They kiss in the pouring rain and they don’t stop for a while, Steve wouldn’t be strong enough to. He could drown in it, in him.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie mumbles between kisses.
“Shut up,” Steve replies and kisses him some more.
At some point, real life kicks back in and the rain is just rain. Eddie grabs his hand and pulls him into the back of his van that seems to be more of a make-shift shack than anything else. There’s an old ratty mattress and a duffel bag and a few cans of beer at the back. He’s pulled into it and they start laughing, both on their backs with their hands still clasped together and they are alive, a live wire bursting with warmth and danger and Steve is falling, falling, falling. He is falling with Eddie Munson holding his hand, and Eddie’s falling, too.
They’re flying.
They kiss until they’ve had enough and then a little bit more, and then they just sit there, rain water soaking into the mattress beneath them. It’s quiet except for the choir of drops pelting onto the roof of the van, and they’re just staring out at the quarry.
“I really am sorry,” Eddie says.
“I know,” Steve replies, “and I forgive you.”
And Eddie, soaked with rain and smelling a little big like a wet dog in the least gross way possible, leans against Steve’s chest. Steve throws an arm around him and closes his eyes, kissing the top of his head.
It is the best feeling in the world.