Chapter Text
The end of July entices smothering heat to hold Hawkins hostage, and Steve is fed up. In a lot of ways, it’s just like every other summer before—his hair is wilting miserably like the leftover 4th of July decorations strung up downtown, and everyone he sees walking by the storefront of Family Video fans themselves with paper or their own hands, desperate for reprieve. Steve bets the public pool is a hellscape right now, too. He nearly shudders at the thought of being a lifeguard amid one of the most unforgiving Indiana summers on record.
Steve wishes that the summers of his childhood would return, but the world has been askew since 1983 and he’s beginning to accept that it may never right itself again.
Defeating Vecna/Henry/One in March was supposed to finally bring the nightmare of the Upside Down to an end. But as it turns out, El reaching into Max’s comatose mind to save her only a few weeks after Max and Eddie were taken to the hospital in critical condition could only temporarily close the gates. Defeating Vecna feels wrong to say, Steve admits, when El is currently staving off an impending apocalypse with little more than the hope that Vecna won’t make another clever move before she’s finished strengthening her powers.
Steve is struggling to remain optimistic. It seems like all the shit he’s been through since ’83 is finally catching up to him, and god, does he hate to admit that he’s not bouncing back like he used to. It was easier to pretend to be normal when the threats were seemingly vanquished. Even when new incidents cropped up months down the line, there used to be a sense of closure when El and their little crew saved the day.
There is no sense of closure now. Fear has permanently wound itself around Steve’s throat, and no matter how much he smiles, or musses Dustin’s curls, or sits on his window sill to smoke in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep…That fear? It never leaves.
Vecna is not dead.
They’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Vecna to finish licking his wounds and start killing people again to open the gates. Steve itches with anticipation for it all to just be over, but until that day comes, he’s not going to get a full night’s sleep.
Especially today, of all days. It’s July 25th. Shit.
“You’re going to fry if you don’t put on some sunscreen, you know,” Robin tells him with an amused huff, picking up the damp beach towel Steve had been using to cover his eyes. He squints up at her freckled face from where he lies shirtless on his pool chair. Robin’s whole body has a ghostly white cast to it, a sure sign that she’s slathered sunscreen on herself for the millionth time in the last hour.
“Well, you’re wearing enough for the both of us,” Steve points out, running his fingers through his hair. He knows it’s sticking up wildly from sweat at this point, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Not to mention that I just put some on at—” He checks his watch and frowns. “Oh.”
Robin rolls her eyes and sticks out a hand to help him sit up. “Yeah, oh. It’s been two hours, Steve. You’re about to go from ‘healthy pink’ to ‘mistakes-were-made red’.”
Steve grabs her hand and pulls himself up, not liking the way that his head spins when his feet connect with the concrete. He’s probably dehydrated, and he doesn’t really remember if he ate breakfast. Steve scrubs his hands over his face with a sigh. “Can you get my back?”
Robin just laughs and drags another chair over so she can help him.
Steve’s eyes finally adjust to the sunlight. He takes in the scene before him with fondness, even though there’s a dull, pulsing ache behind his sternum that started the moment he blinked awake this morning.
Dustin and Mike are throwing a frisbee in the grass, and Dustin is being a little asshole and aiming explicitly for Mike’s head, which Mike loudly complains about. Nancy and Jonathan spread out sides of food at the foldout table Steve found in his shed and wiped down earlier. There’s bags of chips, soda, potato salad, deviled eggs, a platter of vegetables, and a giant pitcher of freshly-squeezed lemonade that Robin had proudly presented with the promise that ‘it actually tastes good, don’t worry, dingus’.
Eddie is in charge of handling the grill, and he has ribs, hot dogs, and hamburgers already sizzling away. He’s exchanged his grilling services for control of the radio, nodding along to the metal music screeching from Steve’s boombox. Steve knows that if he doesn’t intervene soon, the rest of the group will start grumbling about their ears bleeding.
Lucas, Erica, and El are already in the pool, laughing as El makes a beach ball levitate and smack down into the water with enough force to send Erica’s floatie rocketing to the deep end. Will sits at the steps of the shallow end beside Max, his shoulder pressed against her wheelchair as he cups a hand around his eyes to look up at her. They’ve been talking about comics all evening. It seems like they both have a shared love for X-Men.
Steve wouldn’t be surprised if Will convinces Max to join the next D&D campaign Eddie has planned for the kids. She won’t cave for Dustin or Lucas, and Mike hasn’t bothered asking because he already knows what her answer would be, but Will is different. There’s been an unexpected camaraderie between Will and Max since the Hopper-Byers family moved back to Hawkins, and Steve can only assume that it developed after the kids talked about their shared trauma with Vecna, no doubt including Eleven in the mix, too. So if Will, who is normally quieter and less demanding than the other boys, asks Max to join them? Steve thinks Max will grudgingly accept.
Steve understands that, because he’s in a similar boat with Max.
They’re gathered at the Harrington house for a cookout because last week, Max demanded that they have a get-together before Nancy, Jonathan, and Robin get too busy packing for college to do anything else. Everyone scrambled to find a free day in their loaded schedules, and it turned out that the 25th was the only viable option unless they wanted to wait until August. Dustin offered up Steve’s house without a second thought, rambling about the giant pool to El who had never swam in it before, and suddenly the plan was made without Steve uttering a word.
He didn’t tell them that he only had the 25th off of work for the Anniversary, and that the day was exclusively reserved for him lying in bed and sleeping since his parents weren’t currently in Hawkins to guilt him into doing anything else.
Steve didn’t have the heart to deny Max’s wish, especially when she rarely asks them for anything. So he’ll put up with the gnawing, uncomfortable feeling building in his chest if it means Max gets to have fun with the people she cares about in celebration of the progress she’s made learning to walk again.
"Hypothetically," Robin says, and Steve snaps out of it. Normally, he would be all for Robin’s hypotheticals; they usually end with both of them doubled over laughing until tears spring to their eyes. But Robin’s hesitancy makes Steve go rigid. Robin stops rubbing sunscreen onto his back, but she keeps her hands on his shoulders. Soft and reassuring.
"If something was wrong...you know you could tell me, right?"
Steve knows. He’s so grateful for Robin, in a way he doubts he’ll ever be able to put into words. The least he should have done was sat the group down before the cookout and explained the Anniversary, told them that he keeps everything quiet for the sake of his parents' mourning.
But the truth is—Steve doesn't know how to exist in the ‘after’ without pretending that there was never a ‘before’.
“Hypothetically, I would say I appreciate it.”
Steve smiles over his shoulder at Robin, and for the first time today, the gesture feels genuine. She smiles back. It’s wobbly around the edges and her eyebrows are still furrowed with concern, but it’s something. Robin squeezes his shoulders one final time and then drops her hands and the subject. “Have you tasted my lemonade yet?”
Steve’s face must say it all because Robin immediately groans. “Listen, it’s good this time. You think I’m going to serve your precious kids shitty lemonade?”
Steve climbs to his feet and tries not to sway. He really does need to hydrate, fuck.
“I don’t think you would do it on purpose,” Steve clarifies. “But I remember last time, Rob. Salt instead of sugar? I took a big gulp of the stuff after mowing your lawn when your dad pulled that muscle in his back.” Steve plants his hands on his hips. “Ringing any bells?”
Robin crosses her arms. She’s wearing a one piece bathing suit the same shade of navy blue as their former Scoops Ahoy uniform and a pair of Steve’s basketball shorts rolled up a few times so they don’t slide off her hips. It’s hard to take her seriously right now.
“Okay, but let’s not forget that my mother puts the salt and sugar in identical plastic containers, side by side, and they’re unlabeled! Totally unlabeled, Steve, which is not my fault at all, especially when she’s always changing that shit.” Robin waves her hands around for emphasis. “One day, the sugar is on the right! The next day, she puts it on the left. I can’t keep up with her unhinged behavior! And it was an accident that happened one time.”
Steve raises his hands in surrender before the kids decide to jump in to offer their two cents. “Okay, alright! I’ll try it. But I’m testing it out on Eddie first.”
Robin splutters something from behind him, but Steve is already walking away. The concrete scalds his bare feet, so he walks at the edge of the pool where El and the Sinclairs have splashed enough water to prevent any lasting damage to his soles.
Steve doesn’t offer Eddie a greeting when he sidles up beside him at the hot grill. He just holds up both cups of lemonade with a grimace and wearily says: “I need you to taste this to see if it has salt in it.”
To his credit, Eddie doesn’t seem miffed at the request. He just grins at Steve and cocks his head to the side. “Hmm, Buckley’s concoction. Could be lemonade, could be deadly poison.”
Eddie shuts the grill lid and steps back to stretch. He’s wearing black jeans cut into jagged shorts and an Iron Maiden T-shirt that has been similarly hacked up so it no longer has sleeves. Eddie has wrangled his curls into a fluffy bun, but his bangs and tendrils of hair are plastered to his face with sweat. Steve has no idea how he hasn’t passed out from the heat of the day wearing all that black, let alone standing so close to the grill for an extended period of time.
Steve would bring it up, but he’s not in the mood for Eddie to joke about how he can withstand the flames since he’s sold his soul to the devil.
Conversations like that always lead back to Hellfire being accused (and acquitted) of cult activity, and Eddie’s own name eventually being cleared by El’s trusted government officials. Steve can’t think about the town’s hatred of Eddie for too long or he’ll get pissed. And being pissed and sad at the same time sounds like it would be icing on the shit cake, so no thanks.
“Please, man, I’m begging you. Just one sip. If it has salt in it, it might just send me over the edge.” Steve shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, the heat of the concrete making him grit his teeth.
He’s aware that he sounds ridiculous, but Eddie doesn’t question him. Eddie never really questions him anymore. In these past few months, they’ve gotten used to orbiting around one another, accommodating one another. It’s—nice, Steve admits. Eddie isn’t who he thought he would be.
Steve briefly wonders if Eddie thinks the same thing about him, but he quashes the thought before he can hurt his own feelings. Jesus Christ.
Eddie snatches the plastic cup from Steve’s hand, sloshing lemonade all over Steve’s wrist and his bare feet, and then lifts it in a mock-toast. “Here’s to good food and questionable drinks,” Eddie laughs. Then he throws back the cup and gulps down the lemonade in one go.
A drop of lemonade escapes the corner of Eddie’s mouth and slides down the hollow of his throat before it’s absorbed by the collar of his shirt. Steve watches the droplet’s path intently, aware that his mouth is hanging open. He quickly clamps it shut and tries to swallow down whatever feeling is lodged in his throat.
Eddie wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and ponders for a moment. “It doesn’t have salt, so that’s a plus. Definitely some sugar in there, but I feel like the kids would want more. I like my lemonade kinda bitter, so Buckley nailed it in my opinion.” Eddie nods to Steve’s cup and gives him a slow, sly smile. “What about you, Harrington? You like it sweet?”
Steve’s face is on fire. Normally, he would brush off the teasing by shoving Eddie’s shoulder and quipping something back, but today is different. Steve feels like he’s on the cusp of fully acknowledging something about himself that he’s shoved down deep for years.
If you don’t look at it, it’ll disappear with time, right? Just like words written in sand will eventually be eroded by a too-eager sea.
Bullshit.
Steve throws back his lemonade and chugs it just like Eddie. It hits the back of his throat with the same unpleasantness as ripping off a Band-Aid, but hey—it could taste worse. Steve’s wilting hair flops into his eyes. The sun is just as bright and unforgiving as ever, making him squint, and Steve half-heartedly wishes that he slathered more sunscreen onto the jagged pink scar tissue around his waist.
“You got me,” Steve finally replies. And Eddie does. He has for at least two months now. It’s the truest shit Steve has said today, and he can’t even bear to meet Eddie’s gaze.
Instead, he stares at the pool that’s full of his friends. Only Max and Will remain by the steps. Since El has already been using her powers for other things today, Lucas will probably offer to carry Max so she can sit on the pool steps with water up to her chest. Steve’s just waiting for her to shoot him the look that means he needs to step in before she accidentally winds up on the concrete. Lucas has almost gotten the hang of it—all of his basketball practice has paid off. In a few more months, Max might not even need Steve to carry her anymore.
Steve is happy to do it for now.
His attention is only pulled back to Eddie when the metal music that had been pounding out of the boombox speakers changes to something with far more synth and familiarity.
“The Boys of Summer” thrums through the open air. Eddie has gone back to flipping the ribs, and he’s piling the finished hotdogs and hamburgers onto a plate with ease. He sways to the music, his ringed fingers tapping against the tongs to the beat. It’s such a bizarre scene that Steve can’t help but blurt out: “Since when have you ever listened to Don Henley?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Since you’ve insisted on playing your own mixtapes between mine when we’re hanging out, Steve. You’re always complaining about my heavier music giving you headaches so—” Eddie waves the tongs around with flourish— “voilà! I made a Steve Harrington-approved mixtape. There’s Bananarama, Tears for Fears, Heart, you name it. They’re all just mixed in with some power ballads from bands that I like—that you said you didn’t hate, remember—so I won’t want to rip my hair out by the end of the evening.” Eddie pushes his sweaty bangs off of his forehead with his free hand before taking the ribs off of the grill and placing them on an empty plate. “And besides,” he hastily tacks on, “you look like you could use some pop rock tonight.”
When Eddie looks at him, his dark eyes curious but also strangely solemn, Steve doesn’t know what to say. No one has ever made Steve a mixtape before. And even more importantly, no one else but Robin has clued into Steve’s awful mood this evening.
Something thrills in Steve when he considers that Eddie is paying more attention to him than he anticipated.
Maybe it shouldn’t surprise him—Robin has pestered Steve enough that he can finally admit that he and Eddie are friends. Great friends, in fact, but he’s not telling Eddie that aloud. The first time Steve even mentioned that he and Eddie were friends, he instantly regretted it. Eddie made a show of clutching his hands over his heart and giving him a shit-eating grin before declaring: “Bosom buddies at long last! Now I can thoroughly corrupt your music taste for the better. I’m introducing you to Metallica, Steve, they literally saved our lives in the Upside Down—”
And because Steve has gotten to know Eddie so well, he’s quickly learned that despite all of his usual bravado, Eddie Munson doesn’t like to bother people with the ugly shit that bares its teeth in his own mind.
So Steve has been doing the bothering, which he admits he’s gotten pretty good at after wrangling an increasing number of wild kids over the years. When sitting in his own echoing, empty house grows unbearable, Steve drives to the new and improved Munson trailer to watch movies with Eddie on their old buzzing TV at 1 AM.
On the really bad nights, Steve will recount nightmares of being choked by the demobats or tortured by the Russians to Eddie in a measured voice that definitely doesn’t shake, and then Eddie will pass him a joint or a beer or sometimes hot tea with honey depending on how riled up Steve is.
It’s become their routine, really—Steve has learned to swallow his pride and let himself be vulnerable enough that Eddie has started to ramble about his own nightmares, too. It’s not therapy—god, they all really need to see a shrink—but it’s something. Steve likes to think that it’s helping.
What started as an excuse to check up on Eddie quickly evolved into something more. Steve does hate sleeping in his place alone—that’s not a lie. His nightmares are varied and unhurried, slow dread creeping up until everything is irrevocably twisted. Images of Max floating above gravestones on a perfectly sunny day and Nancy’s eyes rolling up into her head just as they were almost, almost free from the Upside Down are some of the newest additions. Dustin screaming. Eddie bloody and fading fast after the demobat attack. Lucas weeping as he carried Max’s prone body out of the Creel house.
Steve can’t escape that carnage. But when he’s with Eddie, his mind stills somewhat.
It might seem silly, but a part of him had thought that…Eddie was just putting up with him for the sake of the kids. Maybe he tolerated Steve, but he didn’t like him. Not really. Even though Eddie said all that stuff about Steve being a good dude when they were in the Upside Down, it was hard for Steve to believe any of it.
But here’s the proof—Eddie is staring at him with concerned eyes, not pushing or prodding, but waiting.
“The pop rock is good,” Steve concedes. “But I think those ribs will be even better. That’s the recipe you made for me last time I was over, right?”
Eddie’s face lights up. “Same one! Uncle Wayne taught me the sweet heat combo recipe for the sauce—it’s the best sort of burn, you know?” Eddie nods to himself emphatically. “He’s a meat-and-potatoes type of guy, so ribs were one of the first things I got really good at making…”
The frenetic energy that comes pouring off Eddie eases the tension that’s been building in Steve’s chest all day. Bananarama croons from the boombox, and Steve snickers when Eddie cups his hands around his mouth and yells for the group to evacuate the pool if they want to eat while the food is still hot.
Eddie pushes a flyway strand of hair behind his ear and laughs so hard that he almost chokes when Dustin clambers out of the pool and trips over Lucas’s sandals. The whole group loses it when Dustin lets a long string of curses fly and flips them off. Even El looks away and bites her lip to hide her smile.
He lives for these moments of happiness that they carve out for themselves between the horror.
Steve refuses to ruin Eddie’s evening with the truth he’s finally ready to share, so he tucks the words away for later and laughs along with the others.
Steve wants to say: Today’s the tenth anniversary of my sister’s death. I was ten. She died when she was only five, hadn’t even started kindergarten yet. I’ve never been good with big words, but I knew how to say tricuspid atresia since elementary school. How fucked up is that?
He wants to say: My parents didn’t call this year. Too hard on Mom, I’ll bet. But they call every year. They used to make sure they were here for the Anniversary every year, too, though, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
He wants to say: They made me keep her a secret when I was growing up. They took down our family photos and replaced them with expensive art pieces. They scrubbed every inch of her from this place, because Dad said it hurts Mom too much to be reminded that she’s gone. I think they just want to pretend that she never existed.
Steve wishes he could speak until he loses his voice, until every secret that he’s swallowed down for twenty years pours out of him and he’s light as air. If he could wrangle his own fear, Steve would tell Eddie things that not even Tommy H. or Nancy know about him.
But for now, they all sprawl out on the pool chairs, knees knocking, and eat the majority of their food with their fingers. For now, the group talks about everything and nothing—movies coming out in theaters soon and preparations for moving to college, hints for Eddie’s new D&D campaign and Corroded Coffin’s scheduled performance at a dive bar in Kerley County.
And when Max shoots Steve the look as the sky begins to pinken and everyone slides into the pool one last time before they plan to leave, Steve scoops her up from her wheelchair without a word shared between them. El has been using her powers for games all day, so both Max and Steve bypass asking her to assist.
Max is light in Steve’s arms. She laces her fingers behind his neck and tucks her head against his shoulder, murmuring a quick and stilted: “Thanks, Steve.” She doesn’t have to thank him.
He remembers visiting her in the hospital only a few months ago, when Hawkins had been ripped apart and nothing felt like it would ever be right again. Steve hadn’t been able to look away from Max’s broken limbs, her slack face. A coma, the nurses said. A coma. He felt so sick seeing how small Max looked among all the wires and tubes, her red hair bright against the starched white linens. She looked just like—
Max’s twin braids tickle the crook of his arm, so Steve readjusts as he slowly walks into the pool and places Max beside Lucas. They immediately lace their fingers together, Lucas smiling like Steve just handed him the sun.
Steve swims to the deep end where Eddie is staring up at the sky and floating on his back, wearing only his cutoff shorts like the weirdo he is. Eddie turns his head and grins at him. He’s bathed in shades of pink and gold from the setting sun, his tattoos and scars intermingling and standing out in sharp contrast against the chlorinated water.
And it’s enough. To Steve, it’s enough.
For now.