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The day after Eddie was released from the hospital, he spent the night at Steve’s, because he didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Though Eddie’s life-threatening injuries had mostly healed, the hospital refused to let him leave without someone to pick him up. He’d also needed a ride back to his trailer. Enter Steve Harrington: chauffeur to children, teenagers, and anyone else, really, so long as they had no better options.
That would have been fine, except the trailer was vandalized when they got there. MURDER was spray painted in ragged red letters across the front, covering what little of the sides weren’t slashed or broken. It only a took a few moments of Eddie cursing for Steve to reverse and head back out to his house.
Enter Steve Harrington, part 2: sleepover host to the new sort-of friend that he’d known only in passing up to this point. Host that was now cooking a standard eggs and toast breakfast after a shitty night of sleep and an hour in front of mirror attempting to make himself look much better than he felt. Eddie had rolled out of bed approximately twelve minutes ago and spent half that time mocking Steve for how long he had spent getting ready when they weren't even going anywhere.
Steve naturally replied that Eddie could stand to spend a little more time getting ready, considering that his tied-back hair still had clumps of dirt and upside-down gunk.
Eddie went uncharacteristically quiet for a moment after that. Steve, who was standing at the stove finishing up their pan of scrambled eggs, glanced over his shoulder and saw the embarrassment flash quickly over Eddie’s face.
“Well, not all of us have the energy to spend an hour getting ready,” he drawled, though Steve could tell it was with an air of forced casualness. “I know painful flesh wounds don’t bother a hero like you, but some of us are still recovering.”
Steve gave Eddie a once-over. He wasn’t sitting at the counter so much as propping himself on with his chin on his fist, skin pale and sallow. He looked like he could put his head down and go to sleep right there.
Steve felt a flash of guilt for what he’d said. It wasn’t wrong, but it was kind of an asshole thing to say, and he was trying to not be that guy anymore.
He poked aimlessly at the pan and glanced at Eddie again to make sure what he’d seen was just exhaustion and not an oncoming sickness. Eddie had cleaned up a little and was wearing Steve’s shirt and shorts, but his hair was a tangled mess disappearing behind his shoulder. Considering how Eddie had been on the run before that, their little swim in the lake had probably been the closest he’d gotten to washing it in the past week.
The dirt and knots couldn’t be comfortable.
Steve twisted the pan and dumped the eggs onto two plates. “I’ll wash your hair,” he said.
He grabbed some slices of toast from the toaster in the corner and set them on the plates. When he turned to present the plates, he found Eddie sitting stiffly upright, looking at him with a guarded expression.
“Look, I know I’m injured, but I'm good. I don’t need you to like…mother me, or anything.” He made a face.
Steve stared at him for a moment, his brow furrowed. Then he realized he was doing it again, what Robin had fussed him for occasionally: swooping in and taking care of people who didn’t necessarily want to be worried over. Being too clingy.
Eddie had been forced to rely on Dustin and his other friends for food and shelter the past week. Now he was sitting in Steve’s house, wearing Steve’s clothes, about to eat food that Steve cooked. He had allowed Steve to help change his bandages, but this was probably just a step closer to infringing on Eddie’s bodily autonomy than he would have preferred.
Steve tapped his fork against his plate, trying to think about how to offer help without making it seem like that’s what he was doing.
He forced himself to scoff as if the idea of him trying to take care of Eddie were ridiculous, leaning over the counter and digging into his own eggs. “I’m not trying to mother you. This is an entirely selfish offer. No offense, dude, but your hair is a little gross.” He tried to say it as gently as possible. “I think it literally still has demo-bat guts in it.”
Eddie grimaced as if to say got me there. He ripped off a bite of toast as if it had personally offended him and stared sullenly at his plate.
Steve waved his fork in Eddie’s direction. “So just let me wash it real quick, no big deal. I’ve washed people’s hair plenty of times before.”
“Sure you have,” Eddie said disbelievingly, staring at him with that same sullen expression from under his fringe of messy bangs.
“I have! It’s not rocket science, Eddie. Just some soap and water.”
“Uh, somehow I doubt Steve the hair Harrington truly believes washing your hair is as simple as ‘some soap and water.’” He made air quotes with his fingers as he spoke, stabbing at his eggs more than actually eating them.
“It is just soap and water. Special hair soap called ‘shampoo’ and ‘conditioner.’” Steve spread his hands apart in a wow, would you look at that gesture.
“Oh, yes, I have heard of those, now that you mention it.”
“So…?”
Eddie gulped down a bite of the mash in his plate that was once scrambled eggs and made a groaning sound. “Sure, whatever, if you really want to.”
It wasn’t an enthusiastic yes, but Steve would take it. When they finished breakfast, Eddie grudgingly followed Steve upstairs into the master bathroom.
It was the nicest one in the house, equipped with plenty of space and a nice claw-footed tub in the corner. Steve went inside and looked around, hovering briefly. He could use his parent’s products, but…
Eddie lingered awkwardly in the doorway, looking around with obvious discomfort.
“Sit on the bath mat there,” Steve said, pointing to the plush navy-blue rug in front of the tub. “I’ll go get my stuff.”
Steve quickly went to his bathroom to grab his usual supplies. Eddie’s hair was slightly different than his, waving and curling at the bottom, but his texture was about the same, so this should work.
When Steve returned with an armful of towels and bottles, Eddie gave him a suspicious look. “That looks like more than some soap and water,” he said.
Steve began depositing the products, one at a time, on the floor beside the bath. Shampoo, Conditioner, and curl cream. “Have a little faith, Munson. I’m not going to wash your hair with sub-par products.” He waved his hand under the faucet. “Tell me how the temperature feels.”
Eddie put his hand under the water for a moment. “Um, a little warmer would be better, I guess.”
Steve turned one of the knobs a little as Eddie sat back down. He squirmed a little bit, shifting in place and twisting one of his rings.
The sheer, bizarre awkwardness of the situation was descending rapidly on them, and Steve was trying to shake it off as he messed around with the water temperature. It’s not that he was nervous about the task itself–he really had done this for multiple people, including Dustin and Nancy–but this setting itself felt weirdly intimate.
His friendship with Eddie had been cobbled together entirely from shared trauma and their proximity to Dustin. The word “friendship” might have even been a stretch for the handful of conversations and meetings they’d had, most of them about escaping murder chargers or demons. Trauma-bonded acquaintances?
Whatever he was, Eddie was sitting on his parents’ bathroom floor, and Steve was about to be close and personal with him for the next several minutes.
Realizing he’d been quietly leaning over the tub for a while, Steve cleared his throat. “So, I’m just going to use this little attachment right here to rinse your hair,” he said, pointing to a small handheld showerhead that was attached to the front of the tub.
“Fancy,” Eddie murmured, but he was still twisting his rings anxiously.
“And I’ll shampoo and condition it, and I’ll comb out the knots when it’s wet. Let’s, uh–let me use a towel to keep your shirt from getting wet. Here…”
Steve grabbed one of the towels he’d brought and made a motion towards Eddie. Eddie obediently leaned forward, his eyes determinedly not focusing on Steve, but he flinched a little as Steve draped it around his shoulders and brushed the hair away from his neck.
Okay, so the thing about doing people’s hair was that it could get really personal and weird if the other person wouldn’t relax. They would make eye contact repeatedly and cringe at every other touch.
Steve really didn’t want this whole process to be like that. He wanted it to be calming. Comforting.
“Lean your head back.” Steve had already folded up a small towel and set it against the lip of the tub so it wouldn’t be too painful for Eddie’s neck.
Sitting cross-legged with his back to the tub, Eddie complied, closing his eyes. His throat bobbed obviously as he swallowed.
Without thinking too much about what he was saying, Steve began to speak. “I did one of my mom’s friend’s hair when I was fourteen,” Steve said, tugging out Eddie’s ponytail with a few quick movements. He slipped it onto his wrist and turned on the attachment so water was coming out of the small showerhead instead of the faucet.
“No way,” Eddie said in a half skeptical, half amused tone that really said, Please tell me more. “No way any woman let young Stevie near her hair.”
The nickname Stevie made something in Steve’s chest swoop pleasantly. “Yes way,” Steve said.
He began to rinse Eddie’s hair, moving the water over it with one hand and going through Eddie’s hair with the other hand so the water would soak in. The water took on a cloudy tint as some of the gunk was washed out. “This was in the beginning of my hair transformation. I had just figured out how to do my hair and make sure it looked good. And, well, my mom’s friend was desperate. Really desperate.”
He carefully cupped his hand at the top of Eddie’s forehead so he could rinse all his hair without getting water in his eyes. Eddie barely reacted aside from closing his eyes, one side of his face twitching slightly.
“I guess you’d have to be to let some kid mess with your hair,” he said.
“Um, fourteen, not a kid.” Steve played up the dramatic tone in his voice, pretending to be offended.
“Dustin’s fifteen,” Eddie responded flatly. “What would you call him? A young adult?”
Steve snorted. “Okay, you win, I was a kid.”
He shut off the water and squeezed out a generous dollop of shampoo onto his hand. “She was supposed to have had this hair appointment or something before leaving with my mom to go to the city. But the stylist had a family emergency and couldn’t keep the appointment.”
He began to work the shampoo into Eddie’s hair, working carefully in discrete parts around the knots. He didn’t think he’d ever seen hair this bad. He felt a brief surge of guilt for teasing Eddie about it.
“So her next best option was you,” Eddie said. His sarcastic tone was back, and he seemed more at ease.
“I think she was too in hysterics to care much at that point. It was actually my dad who suggested it. He, um–” Steve considered briefly whether he should omit this more serious detail from this story but decided that Eddie had probably heard worse and barreled on anyway, “–he started mocking me, saying that maybe she should have me do her hair because I was a sissy who spent too much time on my appearance so I should know what to do.”
Eddie was quiet at this, but Steve didn’t allow himself to think on it. “Anyway, the joke was on him because she said sure, why the hell not, and let me do her hair. I was so nervous my hands were shaking.”
He remembered leading the way upstairs, his movements tight and mechanical while the thoughts Oh shit oh shit oh shit played on a loop in his brain. His parents would be pissed if he messed this up. At the same time, a kind of anxious excitement buzzed along his limbs. He had wanted to be good, not just because he was afraid of what his parents would say, but because he was proud of his newfound ability.
He wanted to be good at it for the sake of being good. He’d never felt that before.
That same feeling remained now, the nervous desire of wanting to be good buoyed by the confidence of his experience.
When he moved the shampoo into Eddie’s tangled hair, he worked with firm, confident movements. As he was speaking, his hands moved to the tops and side’s of Eddie’s head, massaging the product in.
Eddie shoulders drooped as he relaxed, letting out a soft sigh. The sound seemed to travel straight into Steve’s chest, curling up with warmth and fondness.
Steve smiled to himself, rubbing his fingers firmly at the back of Eddie’s head. “I think I could do better now, but I did pretty good that time,” he said. “She was even happy enough that she paid me ten bucks.”
He grabbed for the attachment again, leaving soap along the handles. “I was over the moon about it, but boy, were my parents not happy,” he said, beginning to rinse out Eddie’s hair again. The shampoo streamed down into the tub, forming a little dome of bubbles over the drain.
“Why weren’t your parents happy?” Eddie asked. His voice had grown quiet and hazy, like he was getting sleepy.
“It’s stupid. It’s… They just thought it would encourage ‘girly habits’–” Steve made air quotes even though he knew Eddie couldn’t see them, “–which is stupid, because god forbid I want to make myself look nice, right? Also, my dad thought I had disobeyed him by doing her hair, which doesn’t even really make sense because it’s not like he told me I couldn’t. I think he was just mad about the fact he was trying to humiliate me, and I actually did a good job.”
“That is stupid,” Eddie agreed.
Steve paused his movements for just a second, noticing how Eddie’s responses had become slow and mellow, like he was high. He seemed utterly calm and still now. Steve didn’t think he’d seen Eddie sit this still and still be conscious since Steve had met him.
Despite himself, Steve grinned, feeling satisfied. He turned off the water and began to work conditioner into Eddie’s air, which was significantly harder now that he was dealing with knots. “This might tug a little,” he warned apologetically as he worked through the snarls with his fingers.
Eddie sighed. “Try your best to be gentle, Stevie,” he said.
Although Eddie probably meant it sarcastically, the soft tone of his voice made it sound intimate. Steve felt flustered for a moment and searched for some expression to cover it up before he remembered that Eddie’s eyes were closed.
For the last few minutes, it was quiet aside from their breathing and Steve’s shuffling around. Steve worked out the major knots with his hands, then he took a comb to all the smaller ones. Eddie’s hair streamed smoothly between his fingers before fusing back together in big, wavy strands, glistening with conditioner. A pleasant, slightly floral smell wafted through the air.
When Steve rinsed Eddie’s hair out the final time, he decided to massage Eddie’s head again as he did so, fingers digging in gently at the base and temples. That wasn’t strictly necessary, but Steve liked the way Eddie slumped and sighed under his hands.
Maybe he should have felt weird about giving another guy a head massage, but he didn’t. This was a normal thing to do when you were washing someone else’s hair, and besides, he’d seen how shitty Eddie’s last week had been. He deserved to relax for a little bit.
Eventually, it was time to turn off the water. He squeezed Eddie’s hair a few times to ring the excess moisture out of it then tapped him on the shoulder.
“Alright, sleepyhead, wash is all done. You can sit up straight.” Steve straightened up with a small groan, his back protesting at being hunched over for several minutes.
Moving slowly, Eddie put a hand behind him to brace himself and sat up, releasing a groan similar to Steve’s. “I feel like I’m forty,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes and rolling his shoulders a little to get the tension out.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed, slowly going down to his knees on the bathmat beside Eddie and giving him an apologetic grimace. “There’s no good way to wash your hair without getting sore like that. Sorry. At least we’re almost done.”
Steve reached for the towel around Eddie’s shoulders, and this time Eddie didn’t flinch. He was still blinking a little groggily. Steve took the ends of the towel and scrunched it around parts of Eddie’s hair in fistfuls until it was no longer dripping.
A few beads of water ran down the side of Eddie’s face, glistening like tears. Steve reached up and dabbed gently at them so they wouldn’t soak into the bandage on the side of Eddie’s chin.
As he did so, he caught Eddie’s dark eyes. They felt intense, alight with energy that contrasted the bags underneath his eyes. Eddie seemed like the kind of guy that regularly stayed awake all night but could also fall asleep at any given second.
Steve wondered what Eddie did with his nights. Probably started off hyping himself up while listening to the noise he considered to be good music and smoked until the bleary hours of the morning, with some partying somewhere in the middle.
Or maybe he was giving Eddie too much credit. He was a self-confessed nerd who spent hours playing games with teenagers, after all. Maybe Eddie stayed up late watching fantasy movies and brainstorming D&D campaigns. Maybe he hopped between his guitar and his desk chair with restless energy until he fell asleep with a notebook pressed against his cheek.
It was probably a combination of both, but they needed to start hanging out properly for Steve to be sure.
Pink spread across Eddie’s cheeks, and Steve realized he’d essentially been cupping Eddie’s cheek with the towel for the last several seconds, staring into his eyes. And they were barely a foot apart.
A warm, electric jolt ran down his hand and across his skin, no doubt creating a similar blush on his own face. This quiet gazing was the sort of thing he used to do to seduce girls, and it embarrassed him that he’d accidentally zoned out and done it to Eddie.
“Time for curl cream,” he said hastily as he broke eye contact, fumbling a little bit for the smallest bottle near the tub.
Eddie, thank every available god, didn’t comment on his strange behavior. He just fidgeted with his rings and watched Steve until he scooted around to Eddie’s side to get better access to the rest of his hair.
“This is going to help keep the moisture in,” Steve said, burning with awkwardness but determined to keep plowing on as if everything were normal. As if it were normal to be giving your barely-friend a hair wash because he was too exhausted to do it himself. As if anything about his life was normal anymore.
“I’m really getting the works, huh?” Eddie said as Steve worked the product into his hair. “Almost feel like you should charge me for this.” He put up a finger and paused. “Almost.”
“Oh, I am charging you, just not with money,” Steve replied. He used the towel to scrunch and dry Eddie’s hair again for a moment. “I’m charging you in compliments and reputation points. When people ask why your hair looks so soft and shiny, you have to say, ‘Oh, my friend Steve did it for me, he’s so cool and his hair also looks soft and shiny.’”
“Ah, I see. So your true intentions are revealed,” Eddie said solemnly. “I’m really just something pretty for you to show off, huh? Like a show pony. Or one of those dogs with really long, glossy hair.”
“I told you my motivations for this were selfish.” Steve dried his hands off on the towel and crawled over a few spaces to where his mother’s hairdryer was stored in a bathroom cabinet under the sink. He didn’t technically have permission to use it, but it’s not like she really used that thing more than twice a month anyway.
He plugged it into the nearest outlet and crawled back to Eddie, who was smirking at him. Steve made a serious face to communicate he was above that silliness and gestured sternly with his finger to tell Eddie to turn his head back to the front.
"Last step. Just a few minutes to dry.”
“Yes, sir,” Eddie said, making a little salute. “What’s this scary-looking thing on the end of the hair dryer?”
It was a wide, circular attachment with what looked like little spikes on it that clipped to the front of the hair dryer. It did look a little bit weird, but Steve was used to it by now.
Steve snorted, feeling a rush of fondness. For a guy that walked around in ripped metal clothes looking all cool, Eddie was such a dweeb. “It’s a diffuser. It’ll help your hair be less frizzy when it dries,” he said.
Steve spent the next few minutes drying Eddie’s hair in parts as he’d done with the rest of the wash, draping portions of it over the diffuser and letting it sit for several seconds at a time. He fell into the routine, moving with comfortable, easy motions as his mind wandered.
He really liked washing his friends’ hair. He’d never say that aloud, because that just sounded weird, but it brought a certain personal connection and implication into it.
The first occasion had been Nancy, when they were dating, and the second had been Dustin, before the winter dance. Both of them had been like Eddie: a little suspicious at first, gradually relaxing into it, and then being pleased with the outcome.
And Eddie’s hair was particularly nice. Steve had caught himself staring at it when Eddie would shake his head or flip it over his shoulder, wondering what it would look like when it was freshly cleaned, or what it would be like to play with it.
That was a dangerous road to lead his thoughts down, though. He could only justify a certain amount of… well… interest in pure, objective looks before it went too far. What “too far” was, Steve didn’t really know, and he wasn’t interested in exploring it right at this moment.
Five or six minutes later, he shut off the drier and carefully threaded his fingers through Eddie’s hair to give it one final bounce.
“All done,” he said, offering Eddie an arm around his back to help him rise off the floor.
When Eddie turned and caught his reflection in the mirror, his face broke out into a giant grin. His hair fell in dark, sleek waves around his shoulders, just a little bit of frizz at the edges giving it what Steve had come to think as his signature “rock star” look. There were still dark circles under his eyes and that bandage on the right side of his face, but the clean hair framing his face made him look much better.
“Looking good, Munson,” Steve said as Eddie gently ran a hand down his hair.
“Are you complimenting me or yourself?” Despite Eddie’s sarcastic response, genuine happiness was breaking through, his expression lighting up.
Steve smirked. “Can’t it be both? Your hair is really nice.”
Wonder of all wonders, Eddie blushed and smiled, twirling a large strand of his hair around his finger in a way that was almost shy.
Steve was shocked. Eddie, who strutted around jumping on tables and playing awesome guitar solos, was blushing just because Steve had said his hair was nice.
Hadn’t he ever gotten a sincere compliment before? The thought was kind of sad, and it made Steve want to shower him in compliments. Screw social conventions, he’d tell Eddie he looked good if that was the response he got each time.
“You really think so?” Eddie asked, flipping his hair and striking a little pose.
He was being more sarcastic this time, but Steve nodded excitedly. “Absolutely. I mean, I didn’t even add any mousse, gel, spray, or anything like that,” he said, gesturing around Eddie’s head. “That was just the basics. If you got a little trim to get rid of any split ends go through a whole work-up, then it’ll be just, wow.”
Eddie let out a little laugh and bumped Steve with his shoulder, but it was clear he was incredibly pleased. “You’re such a nerd, Steve.”
“I’m a nerd? That’s rich coming from someone who practically makes a spreadsheet to play a storytelling game,” he teased.
Eddie looked at him seriously. “How else am I supposed to keep track of the characters and plot lines? I can’t let any of the gremlins see me slip up somewhere. You know they won’t let me forget that shit.”
“I know, right?” Steve threw his hands up. “Like, I make blueberry muffins with baking soda instead of baking powder one time, and Dustin won’t ever let me make muffins for the party again. Just because of that one time. I can make blueberry muffins.”
A little smirk jumped onto Eddie’s face. Steve liked it so much that he couldn’t even be mad it was at his expense. “Of course you can.”
“Don’t patronize me. I can make blueberry muffins.”
“Hm, I don’t know,” Eddie said, his hand cupped in a mock-thoughtful position on his chin. Oh, Steve could see where this is going. “I might have to see evidence of that. Or rather, taste evidence of that.”
“You didn’t even eat the eggs I made you,” Steve said a little accusingly.
“Eggs are boring. Blueberry muffins, on the other hand…”
“God, you’re as bad as the kids.” Steve shook his head. “What happened to ‘thank you for your hospitality, Steve’?”
“Thank you for your hospitality, Steve,” Eddie parroted. Then the grin on his face broke down into something smaller and softer. “But seriously… thank you. This is good. I...I feel better.”
They looked at each other in the mirror, Steve with his hands on his hips and Eddie with his hands picking at his hair. Eddie’s eyes looked big and deep, and Steve felt like they were having that moment again, even though their stares were filtered through the glass of the mirror.
Steve could have played dumb, laughed off the thanks and said that it was just eggs. He could have downplayed it and said that would have done the same for any of his friends, which was both true and felt like it was missing the point.
“Anytime, Eds,” he said, trying the nickname out as he squeezed Eddie on the shoulder. “I mean it. Okay?”
Steve half expected Eddie to parry his attempt at sincerity with a joke, but he seemed to have caught onto the moment they were having. “Yeah. Okay,” he responded, that soft almost-smile still in place.
Steve allowed it to go on for several more seconds before he spoke. “Now let’s go back downstairs. You need to eat more to get your strength back.”
Horror and disgust warred on Eddie’s face. “For the love of all that is good and holy, please don’t make me eat cold eggs.”
“Of course not. I’m going to make new eggs.” He started towards the bathroom door, unable to fight back a smirk. Really, he would have made Eddie whatever he wanted that was in the fridge and cabinets, but he couldn't say that. He was trying to follow Robin's advice and not be too overbearing.
“Steve, I’m begging now.” Despite his words, Eddie was quick to follow, clasping his hands together in a praying motion. “Please forget the eggs.”
He would have to make Eddie blueberry muffins some time, Steve thought as he went down the stairs, Eddie whining dramatically as he followed. If only to prove that he could. And if he and Eddie hung out more in the process, well. Maybe part of Eddie's night would be eating muffins with him.