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Eddie Munson is not strictly one for pool parties, for a multitude of reasons.
One of the main ones, of course, is that he’s never actually known someone with a pool. At least not well enough to get an honest to god invitation. And while there’s always the Hawkins community pool, for the most part it seemed like a great place to get your head shoved in a locker room toilet, and that is not Eddie’s idea of a rollicking good time.
But, as he has learned in the few months since Dustin dragged his nearly-lifeless body out of the Upside Down, and then absolutely refused to leave his hospital bed, and then showed up every single day at his trailer to make sure Eddie was taking care of himself… he’d do pretty much anything for the kids. So when Max shows up at his trailer, in her bathing suit with a giant Fleetwood Mac t-shirt on top, a towel over her shoulder and a baseball cap pulled down over her eyes, and basically demands a ride to Steve’s place (and demanded that Eddie bring his own bathing suit–not that he even owns one–because it was a party and he was invited), he couldn’t exactly say no.
Afterall, she’d almost died, and if he did say no, she probably would have smacked him with the arm still in a cast, and that would fucking hurt.
Max makes him stop to pick up Lucas and Erica on the way, and they come tumbling into the van, both holding bags of chips, laughing about something Eddie doesn’t catch.
“Glad you’re coming!” Lucas says, and claps Eddie on the shoulder from the back seat.
“She didn’t exactly give me an option,” Eddie mumbles, flicking his eyes over to where Max has claimed the passenger seat and is flicking through his tapes, complaining loudly about his “lack of taste”.
Which, like, really. Seven goddamn kids and not a single manner between them.
By the time they pull into Harrington’s driveway, Eddie is getting nervous. He’s been tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, and when he shifts the van into park Lucas and Erica tumble out of the back much the same way they came in and take off running for the side gate.
Max hangs back.
“You really were invited, you know,” she says, almost softly. Which is pretty weird for her.
“Nobody told me,” Eddie pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her.
And Max, the absolute nerve on that girl, smirked. “If I told you it would have given you time to think of a reason to say no. This just made more sense. Come on, if you don’t come back there Steve is going to think you were rude since you never told him you couldn’t make it.”
And then she’s gone too, leaping out of the car and careening after Lucas and Erica, leaving Eddie in the driver’s seat with his mouth just fucking hanging open.
Diabolical little shits.
Finally he gathers what he has left of his courage and like, determination, and climbs out of the van, grabbing the towel he’d pulled out of the bathroom earlier, dark purple and ratty on the edges, before he takes one last steadying breath and heads around back.
The Harrington backyard is pretty fucking beautiful, he thinks. The pool is large and sparkling in the late June sun, and it’s one of those extra fancy pools that aren’t square, for reasons entirely unknown to him. Pool chairs are spread out all around it including a few under umbrellas, one of which Robin has claimed. She looks absolutely ridiculous, sunscreen so thick over her freckled skin it looks like she’s covered herself in white paint, a massive hat on her head, and a loose shirt overtop of it all.
When she spots him, she grins over and waves in that way too big way of hers, and Eddie feels a little bolstered by it all. Robin was definitely his favourite, of the group. They hadn’t even talked much but he felt in her that same frenetic energy he felt buzzing under his skin. Plus she was a musician, and they’d taken drama together last year. Definitely a kinship, he thinks, especially considering the other people at the pool were all fifteen.
He drops casually into the other chair under the umbrella, grateful to have a respite from the heat because he doesn’t even own sunscreen but he knows he’s going to burn like a fucking lobster.
“Hey, Buckley,” he greets with an easy smile.
“Eddie!” she says, happily, and then takes him in. “Dude, you’re wearing like, a lot of black for a pool party. And like, skinny jeans. Didn’t you get the memo?”
Eddie shrugs one shoulder, suddenly awkward in his Metallica t-shirt that he isn’t usually. “Robin, I don’t actually own a bathing suit. I’m good, I’ll just stay in the shade.”
Robin narrows her eyes at him, but before she can say anything else Eddie hears the sound of a sliding door opening and he turns.
Just in time to catch Steve The Hair Harrington stepping out of his house.
And, fuck, because Eddie hadn’t thought this through, clearly. What Steve would look like at a pool party.
Because he’s half goddamn naked, no shirt in sight, sweat glistening through his supremely hairy chest. His demobat wounds have healed over nicely, better than Eddie’s, though the skin and scars are still that fresh pink of new skin. The hair on his chest leads all the way down to his bathing suit bottoms, which literally should be criminal they’re so short. And too tight.
And wet.
And the aforementioned hair? It’s not its usual self. Instead it looks like Steve got out of the shower and simply combed it all back. He’s finished the look with a pair of Wayfarers that look just like the ones Tom Cruise is always sporting, which look even fucking hotter on Steve, and holy shit is that not a thought Eddie should be having about Steve Fucking Harrington.
Eddie has to swallow, hard, and force his eyes away.
Robin, beside him, has a look in her eyes, and he forces himself to meet it. To roll his eyes.
To play it cool and shift the blame, like usual.
“Cat got your tongue, Buckley? I always figured you and Steve…”
“No!” Robin nearly shouts, and her entire face flushes. “Trust me. Absolutely platonic. Capital P. Steve’s not…” she pauses, and Eddie thinks he sees a look on her face that feels familiar. “Not my type. Not at all my type.”
Eddie holds his hands up, mock surrender. “Okay, okay.”
And he thinks, for a second, about saying more. Something about Robin feels safe and warm, like this secret he’s so careful with would be just as safe with her. But Steve has reached their chairs now and drops down on the bottom of Eddie’s, leaning back on his hands and sticking his legs out into the sun.
“Munson,” he greets, a lazy grin pulling over his face. “Glad you made it, man.”
Eddie nods, as he tugs his legs up under him to give Steve more space. To make sure his foot doesn’t press into Steve’s thigh.
“Thanks for, uh, the invite. Though, to be honest, Mayfield didn’t give me much of a chance to say no.”
Steve smirks, and nods, and Eddie watches a bead of sweat slide down his neck and into his chest hair.
Focus, he chides himself.
“That sounds like Max,” Steve is saying, and looking out over the pool again. Mike and El are in the shallow end, splashing each other. Max is on a floaty to keep her arm out of the water, and Lucas is pushing it around, letting her flick water onto him when he doesn’t go fast enough. Will and Erica are huddled under another umbrella, heads bent together over a stack of handwritten notes. And Dustin is shouting “cannonball!” and throwing himself into the water, cackling as it splashes up, hits Steve and Robin who both shout their protests.
And Eddie’s not, like, a pool party kind of guy. But there’s something pretty nice, he thinks, about sitting in the sun with the kids who saved the world. Watching them enjoy the summer just like they deserve to.
The second time Eddie Munson is invited to Steve Harrington’s pool is a few weeks after the first. He’d popped into Family Video, like he did a lot now, under the guise of renting a new movie but actually because hanging out with Robin and Steve at work was, frustratingly, kind of fun. Robin had been happy to see him, chatting his ear off as usual as she runs through his returned movies and erases all the fines from the system.
And then Steve is coming out of the back room, smoothing a hand over that stupid hair, and he sees Eddie and fucking grins with those stupid teeth, like he’s actually happy Eddie is here.
Like he wanted to see him again.
And doesn’t that just make Eddie’s heart lurch.
“Munson!” Steve calls, as he reaches Robin at the counter and bumps a hip into hers. “I was actually thinking about you, man.”
Eddie’s throat goes fucking dry, because he’s kind of been thinking about Steve too. Just, you know, sometimes. At night, mostly. When he’s trying to sleep and all he can think about is that stupid bead of sweat, dragging down Steve’s throat, sliding into his chest hair, disappearing and then reappearing to make its way into his stupidly short swim trunks. But that’s not something you talk about in Family Fucking Video, of all goddamn places.
“Oh?” he manages, when he realizes he’s been silent and unfocused for way too long.
Steve raises an eyebrow at him, like, you good? But blessedly, he goes on. “Yeah! We’re actually having a pool party this weekend. No brats, this time. Just me and Rob, Nancy, Jonathan and Argyle. They’re headed back to California next week so we wanted to let them go with a bash, you know? I’ve got a ton of booze, Argyle’s got a ton of that California shiiiiit,” he drags the word out and waggles his eyebrows at this, like a fucking teenager trying to pretend he’s cool, and then he shrugs. “Anyways, we wanted you to be there.”
Eddie bites his lip, because he wants to say no. Wants to go back to his fucking trailer and drink himself under the bed, rather than spend another evening looking at Steve Harrington’s chest hair, but Robin looks so hopeful, and even Steve looks like… like if Eddie says no he might be sad.
So, what is he going to do?
“Yeah, man, sure. Okay. What time?”
“Seven!” Robin pipes up, and she gives him that little look again, but it’s happy. And he’s happy. And it’s going to be fine.
It’s decidedly not fine.
Because Eddie shows up at seven and lets himself into the back and Robin and Steve are already out there, Steve once again dangerously shirtless. Robin has held back on the sunscreen a little, since it’s later in the day, and she looks almost… nervous? Her and Steve are deep in conversation, heads together, and Eddie allows himself a long moment of indulgence to drag his eyes over the toned planes of Steve’s back.
Normally, he tries really hard not to develop brain-numbing crushes on people. Especially people who are his friends. Extra especially when they’re his straight male friends, because Jesus if that isn’t asking for so much trouble.
But Steve… Steve is just so himself. This cool guy exterior, ripping up demobats with his teeth and charging in to fight with a nail bat. And then, underneath, someone just a little awkward, a little too unsure in his own skin, a guy who loves a bunch of fifteen year olds so much he’d literally walk into hell for them.
And if that doesn’t just tweak Eddie’s heart, he isn’t sure what is.
Oh, and the whole, absolutely fucking gorgeous thing, that doesn’t hurt either.
So Eddie lets himself look, promises he won’t be fucking creepy, and then coughs to announce himself.
Steve and Robin spring apart and wave him over and he goes, happy to be there, happy to share the six pack he picked up in the town over.
He’s even happy when the rest of the crew arrive. Nancy drops down next to Robin immediately and Eddie knows the red flush creeping up Robin’s neck is not because of the heat. He files that one away for later, but then Argyle is throwing an arm around his shoulders and handing him a joint so of course he’s going to smoke it.
Of course he is.
That’s how he ends up sprawled on one of the pool chairs, balanced precariously, hanging off the edge, one hand on the pool deck. Steve is on the ground next to him, literally sprawled three quarters off his towel, limbs at weird angles, staring up at the stars.
Jonathan and Argyle have taken to the pool shed with the rest of the weed. And Robin and Nancy are huddled together under a towel, talking under their breath.
“So,” Eddie manages to say, his eyes locked on Steve and managing to mostly stay on his face. “You and Nancy, I kind of thought…” he trails off, leaving it open. Because he had thought, with the way they looked at each other. The way Nancy went after him, when Steve went into the gate.
That was true love shit.
Steve humms, nods, slowly drags his head to the side to meet Eddie’s eyes. “Y’know. I kind of thought… but the thing with me and Nance is… we tried it. It was good. But man, that was like three years ago and we’ve like. We’ve grown so much. And I love her, I’m always going to love her. But not…” Steve lifts a hand, flaps it around like that explains it.
It kind of does.
“Anyways. Her and Jonathan, I thought they were gonna make it too. But he’s not going to college, and she got into Emerson, and they just…” Steve drops his hand onto his chest, lets out a sigh. “They’re not right either, I don’t think.”
Eddie nods, because he kind of gets it. Gets it being a right person and a wrong time, a wrong place. A person who’s right for one version of you but not being that version anymore.
The silence drags for a long minute and then Steve fucking giggles and Eddie almost falls off the chair.
“Robin’s going to Emerson too,” Steve says, and his eyes are glinting kind of dangerously, and Eddie can’t help but raise one eyebrow. Because he doesn’t know, not officially. But…
“Interesting,” he says, and rolls his entire body, slow as molasses, to look at where Robin and Nancy are sitting, pressed shoulder to knee, heads only inches apart. “I think they’ll be very happy,” he says, and Steve laughs now, a deeper sound that vibrates right down Eddie’s spine.
“Me too,” Steve says, sighing out a breath, and Eddie rolls back. Magnetized.
Can’t look away.
The pool glints in the moonlight, and Steve’s eyes glint too, and Eddie forces himself to stay still. To watch, but not too closely, and to file this image–Steve, sprawled, high and beautiful–away for later.
The third time, Steve calls Eddie.
Because that’s a thing they do now, their Family Video hangouts turning into a semi-regular movie night at the trailer with Robin, or trips to the arcade with the gremlins, or the one time they literally just sat in a park, with Robin and Nancy, and talked about a hundred different topics, the conversation flowing so comfortable Eddie wrapped himself in it for the next week.
So when Steve calls, it’s not that weird.
Only, the call is, a little bit.
“Hey, Eddie!” Steve greets, always too excited on the phone. Like a golden retriever. Like he doesn’t have a lot of people to call. (Eddie doesn’t have a lot of people who call him, though, either). “So, look. Robin and Nancy are leaving next week for Boston, so I wanted to throw them a little thing. It’ll just be the four of us, so I definitely need you to show up, okay? Because I don’t want to be some like, third wheel-”
And then Steve cuts himself off, because even though Eddie is now more or less a hundred per cent sure that Robin is into Nancy in the same way he’s into Steve he hasn’t officially been told anything and he can just picture the way Steve is likely panicking, that fuck, he’s outed his best friend and his ex-girlfriend. Eddie can practically hear him starting to hyperventilate over the phone.
“Harrington,” he says, cutting Steve off before he can try to make some sort of excuse. “I don’t like, no one’s told me anything,” he starts, and thinks about the best way to do this. Bites his fucking nail.
Fuck it.
“But like. I don’t have any problem if Robin and Nancy are, y’know… like. More than friends. Because I’m…” he stops for just a second.
He doesn’t have to do this.
Thinks about the fucking bead of sweat.
“I’m gay, so like. Definitely no, uh, nothing to worry about. With me. You can… you can tell Robin, if you want. I kind of think she knows, but… you can tell her.”
Steve is quiet. Like, too quiet, and it’s Eddie’s turn to panic. Maybe he totally misread the whole situation. Maybe Steve really was just making a shitty joke.
Maybe he’s going to get beat half to death, the next time he goes into Family Video.
“Cool, man,” is all Steve says. And his voice is totally normal, like, not a front at all. “I’ll tell Robin. I think she’ll probably have some things to tell you too, obviously. But, seriously. Thanks for trusting me with that. I know it must be really fucking scary. I got you, Munson.”
And Eddie? Eddie nearly fucking drops to the ground. Because shit, if that isn’t what you want to hear from the straight boy you’ve got a crush so big it might start growing its own orbit? What else is?
“Cool,” Eddie says, trying to calm his fucking pounding heart. “Okay, so, tomorrow? Seven again?”
“Seven again!” Steve confirms, and then hangs up.
When Eddie gets to Steve’s house, Robin is, predictably, already there. She tugs him onto her lounge chair as soon as he gets close, and Steve is inside so they have a minute.
“Steve told me that you, um, that you came out to him?” she starts, this look of hope and love all over her face.
Eddie chuckles. “Yeah. I wasn’t like, planning on it. But he seems like a pretty good dude, and…”
Robin beams at him. “He totally is. He planned this whole party just to try and like, finally get me and Nance, you know. We’re not a hundred per cent sure if… if she’s like into girls-”
Eddie snickers. “I’ve seen the way she checks you out, Buckley. She’s definitely into you.”
Robin goes lobster fucking red, immediately. “OKAY,” she says, way too loud, shaking her hands in front of her face. “Ugh, I KNEW this was a bad idea! I knew you’d be just like he is!”
Eddie laughs, tosses his head back, lets the joy of it all slide over his skin.
“And you?” Robin asks, and jabs a finger directly into his side, drawing a yelp out of him.
“Me what?” Eddie gasps, mock affronted as he tries to bat her hands away.
“Don’t lie to me, Eddie Munson!” Robin says, giggling now as she fights to poke at Eddie and Eddie fights to keep her away. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
And Eddie goes silent, for a minute, holding her hands still. “Robin,” he says, a bit of warning in his voice. “It’s just a dumb… just a dumb crush. It’s never going to go anywhere.”
Robin raises an eyebrow at him, looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot she’s ever met. But she doesn’t say anything else, because Steve is coming into the back yard.
No fucking shirt.
Again.
Eddie has to fucking bite back a groan, because he kind of thought a half-naked Steve would be like, exposure therapy. Eventually he’d see it enough that it didn’t make him want to literally scream, but nope.
If anything, it’s only gotten worse.
Nancy turns up then, good timing, and Eddie clears off Robin’s chair to give Nancy a spot. He drops down onto the pavement next to Steve, who’s sitting with just his feet in the pool. Eddie’s still in jeans (he literally does not own a pair of shorts), so he tugs his legs under him, criss cross applesauce, to avoid getting them wet.
“So what do you think?” Steve asks, inclining his head towards Robin and Nancy, voice conspiratorial and low.
Eddie can’t help the smirk. “All signs point to yes,” he agrees.
They sit for a long while next to the pool, working their way through a couple beers, Steve asking him music questions, Eddie getting increasingly more agitated as he tries to explain why Wham! is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to music, Steve pushing and twisting him up until Eddie realizes what he’s doing and they collapse into each other with laughter and taunts of “you’re the actual fucking WORST”.
“Aren’t you hot?” Steve finally asks, and Eddie looks down. He’s in a black t-shirt again and honestly, despite the evening, it’s still mid-August and it’s still fucking hot. And he is, sweating through the t-shirt, feeling lowkey miserable.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, looking down. “But dude, my chest is like…” He trails off, because he’s looking at Steve’s chest again. Those exact same demobat scars, but on Steve they look fucking metal, dope as hell. Proof of his bravery.
On Eddie they feel like a reminder of his failure.
“Dude, you know I don’t care,” Steve says, and if his voice is a little lower, his eyes a little darker, then Eddie, well. Eddie pretends not to notice.
He shifts, uncomfortable for a minute, and then something in his brain screams fuck it and he tears off his shirt, throws it over his shoulder.
Steve lets out a whoop, and then shifts a little so he can see Eddie.
Drags his eyes down Eddie’s chest, and Eddie’s stomach clenches and it’s definitely not from the alcohol.
“Metal as fuck,” Steve mumbles, and lifts a hand to trace it down one of the scars, and Eddie shivers under the touch and for the first time all summer wants to throw himself into the pool, if only because the shock of the water will be better than the shock of Steve’s soft fingertips, tracing patterns on his skin.
There’s a noise behind them, something suspiciously wet, and they both turn at the same time to see Robin and Nancy, locked at the lips, hands tangled in each others hair, and Steve–definitely a little more drunk than Eddie–lets out another whoop of joy.
And Nancy Wheeler lifts her hand, flashes him the middle finger, and never takes her lips off Robin.
The last time Eddie gets invited to the Harrington pool, it’s mid September. Robin and Nancy had left for Boston a few weeks before, and Eddie and Steve kept up the movie nights. Kept up the phone calls. Kept up the Family Video hang outs.
But they hadn’t crossed another line. No more of Steve’s fingers on Eddie’s bare skin. No more dark eyes and sweat damp skin.
And Eddie’s fine with it.
He’s totally one hundred percent absolutely fine.
Even if he feels like he’s going to literally burst out of his skin at the want to touch Steve, the want to feel their bodies pressed up against each other.
So when Steve calls and says hey man, the pool’s getting drained tomorrow. Come for one last party? Eddie says yes faster than is strictly necessary.
Eddie gets there earlier in the day, because it’s getting cooler at night and while Steve’s pool is heated, he doesn’t want to have to like, look at Steve with a sweater on.
Which is a totally normal thought to have, about your best guy friend who you are definitely absolutely a little bit in love with.
When he gets around back, Steve has his feet in the pool again. No shirt. His skin is brown and sun-kissed, glistening in the early autumn heat, and when he sees Eddie his entire face breaks into a grin.
“Hey!” Steve calls, and then the grin turns a little mischievous and Eddie is immediately on edge. “So I was thinking about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in the pool.”
Eddie blanches, shrugs as nonchalantly as he can manage.
“Yeah, I don’t like. Own a bathing suit. So…”
Steve’s grin grows, a little wolfish. “I put a spare for you in the pool house. It’s not black but it’s like, a dark blue, so it won’t fuck with your aesthetic too much.”
Eddie shifts from one foot to another. He tries to think of an excuse. Tries to think of a way to tell Steve actually he just doesn’t really know how to swim because swimming lessons are expensive and neither of his parents were really around to teach him and Wayne doesn’t even know how.
The words stick in his throat.
He goes into the pool house.
He comes out in just the bathing suit, which is thankfully longer than Steve’s. It actually fits pretty well, though Eddie had to spent a full minute taking deep breaths and thinking of fucking baseball because his dick is touching fabric that Steve’s dick touched and yes, he knows how pathetic it is that that thought got him hard but.
Here they were.
Eddie looking at Steve, drawing his eyes down Steve’s chest, his ribs, his hips.
Steve looking at Eddie, his own eyes tracing the tattoos on his pecs, on his side. The line of hair, leading down into a purple waistband.
“I haven’t been in either,” Steve finally says, when Eddie gets close enough to hear. His voice is quieter, sadder. “Barb… I just keep thinking about how she died. I’ve been trying, though. Working my way up. I think I can do it now. I think I’m okay. But I don’t… I don’t want to go in alone.”
And what’s Eddie going to say to that? Brave, fucking impossibly brave Steve Harrington, trying to face his fears.
Eddie’s done running, from his.
So he sits next to Steve in the shallow end. Lets his toes dip in the cool water and, yeah. It feels pretty nice. He slides in when Steve does, glad to find the shallow end only goes up to his waist.
And then Steve takes his hand, wet skin on wet skin, and tugs him deeper, and they walk together, total silence, towards the deep end.
“Steve,” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to say it.
Steve tugs, and then they step off an edge, and they’re totally under water, and Eddie thrashes around, disoriented and panicked, and then there are warm hands under his arm pits and his feet hit the ground and Steve is tugging him up to standing.
“Shit, Eddie, shit, are you okay?” Steve is asking, and the hands are on his face now, brushing Eddie’s sopping wet hair out of his face, checking his eyes, checking him all over like he’s fucking precious.
“Don’t… don’t know how to swim,” Eddie croaks out, feeling like he’s been run through a dishwasher. His eyes are tracking the moles on Steve’s face that he never really noticed. The slash of green in his brown eyes.
The way he drags a tongue over his lips.
“Shit, I’m so sorry, I never should have-”
And Eddie kisses him. He definitely shouldn’t, he knows that, but Steve looks so panicked and even though his heart is beating literally a million times a minute he thinks it’s less from the panic and more from the adrenaline, from the way Steve’s hair is now slicked back down with the water, droplets clinging to his skin.
He’s about to pull away when Steve’s hands tighten on his face, when Steve crashes into his body, wet chest on wet chest.
When Steve groans into his mouth, and Eddie slides his arms around Steve’s body, and they sink a little lower in the water but it’s fine because he’s with Steve and Steve would never let anything happen.
Eddie pulls back, just a bit, pants out a breath as he presses their foreheads together. “Fuck,” he whispers, eyes blown wide. “Holy shit, Steve, you don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”
And Steve grins, low and lazy, like summer sunshine even though it’s a rapidly darkening fall.
“Me too,” he says.
And Eddie? He thinks he could get used to pool parties, if they all end like this.