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Some nights, Steve lay awake out in the fields of Hawkins, as far away from the town as he could get and just stare at the clouds. Stared at the sky until the colours faded from the soft shade of blue to orange and pink and then dark. Out here, he could see all the constellations. All the distant stars, glittering in the sky above.
His mind would run, thoughts drifting through his head like the clouds gently rolling through the blue above. Thinking of everything and nothing all at once. If he was anywhere else, those thoughts would likely overwhelm and consume him. Here, though overwhelming, he could think more clearly. He'd never tell anyone where he was, so no one could disturb him up here. Here, he was alone, but he could breathe. He could lay on the grass at the apex of the hill, take a deep breath, and lose himself.
Maybe Steve Harrington didn't understand what love was.
Sure he'd kissed girls before and had girlfriends- had relationships his whole adolescence. But looking back on it, did any of those girls ever even love him? When perfect Nancy Wheeler came along, he thought she was the one. She didn't use him for the money or the popularity or the access to Tommy H's parties. She wouldn't randomly disappear only to leave him feeling worthless, or force him to do anything he didn't want. And sure, he may have appeared like an asshole from afar but she never said that. She never did.
Perhaps that's why he fell for her harder than anyone else before. Because she was so kind to him. Because she cared about him.
Was he in the wrong to be jealous of her and Johnathan? Calling her a slut and publically shaming her in front of the entire town was a far stretch- he recognised that. And Jonathan had physically punched some sense into his stubborn head. The guilt bubbled from inside, eating away at him but why had he let it? What else was he supposed to do when his girlfriend was spending more time with some random guy she hardly knew than her own boyfriend?
She had called their relationship bullshit. Sure she was drunk, but that usually gives people the courage to say what's really on their minds. A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, right? But something he was always so curious of but too terrified to ask- where her feelings for him bullshit, or did she think his love for her was?
Those two thoughts clashed together in his brain for the entirety of that fall. When he wasn't saving kids from the Upside Down or battling against Demogorgons, Steve would feel... Empty.
Maybe Steve wasn't deserving of love.
He'd see other kids with their parents- running to them with their exams marked with big bright 'A's and hugging them. Hugging their own parents. The last time any of his parents had hugged him was for family photos last Winter- and that let alone could hardly be defined as a hug. Just gentle pats on the shoulders- nothing bone-crushing or severe. Sensible.
He'd walk around that huge house of his sometimes and stare at those pictures. How his parents never smiled, never expressed emotions. Always stoic, always emotionless. Always them. He'd think about going to the parties in houses a few blocks down, and about taking a moment to lock himself away in a room and just be by himself. His eyes would always drift to the happy families in their pictures, the polaroids of kids opening Christmas presents with dates marked in December. Their first days of school. Their first football, or basketball games.
Steve didn't have any polaroids. He rarely asked for Christmas or birthday gifts anymore, he just made sure to smile and thank his father and kiss his mother on the cheek for a sweater or some cash. That is, if they were around. In the evening, they'd go visit his aunts and cousins to wish them their Merry Christmas' and disappear once again, leaving him alone.
When they first started leaving- to work, on business trips out of town- Steve thought he was the luckiest kid in the world. No babysitter? No parents? He could watch cartoons until the sun rose in the morning and eat chocolate pancakes for lunch. But that lost the charm as quickly as it came. When he became a teenager, it was only useful for parties. The house would be full of people in the once-empty rooms, the water of his pool rippling against the bodies there... Though he knew he'd be cleaning vomit from the kitchen and scrubbing the counters clean until the late afternoon the day after, alone once again.
Everything he learned to survive was on his own, and a large part of him decided maybe that's how he'd live for the rest of his life. No wife or children to come home to. Just him and his big, empty house.
He always longed for a family. Someone to fill the empty spaces. He hadn't expected Dustin Henderson, a kid grades below him, to become like a brother to him on a hunt for a creature that ate his cat. He didn't expect to be defending Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield from said creatures with a baseball bat- or for Max to steal his car after he got beaten up by her step-brother. Protecting them from threat, and imminent death- it filled the emptiness of being needed. And being in pain at least made him feel something.
By the time he graduated and summer came along, he took up a job in Starcourt and met Robin. The job gave him something to do now that he was out of school. His parents could afford for him to go to university but something was stopping him. He told himself it was the threat of those things coming back for the kids that he had adopted as his family but that wasn't entirely true. The honest, scary, truth was the knowledge that his teenage years would end and he would have become an adult- that is what kept him from going. Being anything remotely like his parents.
And even if in that summer, he had infiltrated a secret Russian base beneath the mall, gotten drugged and beaten within an inch of his life, and then confessed his feelings to his co-worker and got rejected by her... He still felt happy. They had all lived thanks to him. And he had gained a lifelong friend in Robin.
They worked together again in Family Video, which compared to scooping ice cream was equally as easy. Stacking tapes on the shelves, hanging up new posters in the windows or around the store and talking the customers into seeing certain movies- he could do that. Operating the computers was a little more difficult so he left that to Robin. She always seemed to get the hang of them quicker.
When they weren't working, they were talking. About the girls they liked around town, or home, or their friends' lives. Sharing how crazy it was that their children were all grown up- starting High school. Though he tried giving them advice, they weren't keen to hear it, claiming they'd be fine and 'thanks for worrying, mom'. At this point, he wouldn't fight them. He was starting to nag them like a mother would- or should.
When Dustin mentioned Eddie, it was almost like time stood still for Steve. He hardly knew the guy, Dustin had to fill some blanks in. Long hair, metalhead, plays DnD. Right. Steve had only heard stories about him- he didn't think ever shared the same class, let alone were in the same grade. Stories of how he punched someone in the face and got suspended because they'd cut his hair. Stories of him and his 'cult' in Hellfire sacrificing cats to the Devil from around town. Stories of an outsider everyone was seemingly afraid of.
He had been wary for his friend, attempting to retell him the sacrificing animals part, but when Dustin told him the club was nothing like that, Steve was confused. Of course it was about that dungeons and dragons game- though Dustin tried to teach Steve how to play countless of times before he went to Camp Know-Where, he never got the hang of it. And now that someone else was there for him at school?
Was it jealousy he felt? It was so stupid to be jealous of someone he hardly knew- with the way Dustin described him as almost Godlike, it was hard not to though. Some darkness inside him would whisper that he was being replaced, that Dustin wouldn't need him anymore, that no one needed him. Then Robin would click her fingers in front of his face and point to the Pamela Anderson cutout he still needed to take to the back and he would silence his thoughts until he got to the hill.
When Dustin appeared after that Hawkin's student was announced dead, begging him to help him find Eddie, he was reluctant. Eventually, he relented tapping away at the computer- he hated seeing Dustin so distressed.
Upon first meeting him, Eddie had held the sharpened edge of a bottle up to Steve's neck, shoving him hard against the flimsy walls of a boathouse he had never been to and threatening to kill him. And even with the adrenaline coursing through his body, the bruising grip on his shoulder that reminded him of his father on a bad day, Steve saw his eyes. The pain and the fear inside them made his heart constrict with feeling. Accused of murder- he didn't deserve this. They'd find a way to prove Eddie's innocence.
It should have been obvious to them all that the sudden murders occurring in town would be the fault of the alternate dimension under their town- though he wasn't sure how monsters would look in an alibi to the police.
Though Eddie had mentioned Nancy's selfless act of jumping into Lover's lake for him as an unambiguous sign of love as his cynical eyes had seen, Steve didn't believe that. Steve had long made peace with the fact that maybe he wasn't in love with Nancy in the first place. He had almost died with Robin and knew her secret- he loved her deeply but only only ever as a friend. Eddie... He hardly knew. And he still jumped after him.
He wanted to point that out to him, say something clever and sly to impress him but an earthquake sent them gripping onto one another arms to keep steady. And why did he suddenly, simultaneously feel so calm, yet so nervous in Eddie's grasp?
Their final, he hoped, enemy to kill would be the mastermind. Vecna, as Dustin had called him- a name taken straight from one of Eddie's campaigns. Though Steve hated the idea that they were all putting themselves into mortal danger and he couldn't be there all at once to help them- especially Max, having seen her almost die in the graveyard and entirely not approving of the plan that she'd be the one to bring him to Creele house- he had to bite his tongue. There was no other way, he told himself.
And by some grace of God, they had killed him. The molotovs Steve and Robin flung at him set him ablaze; Nancy dealing the fatal shots as he fell through the top-story window and dissolved gruesomely into the ground below. It was over.
Though of course they were stuck in the parallel dimension on the brink of its collapse without it's creator being alive- and when Robin mentioned she hadn't heard Eddie's guitar in a long time, an unexpected pang of fear shot through Steve's heart. The three darted between the vines, though found it odd to see them seemingly retreating away from the three as they made their way to the trailer park.
Dustin's heartbroken cries of Eddie's name sent his heart racing. Steve had never seen anyone die before, and Eddie certainly looked worse for wear with the amount of blood pouring from his legs and neck. How he, Robin and Nancy all managed to drag him out of there was a miracle- especially with the portal closing behind them so suddenly, the crack in the ceiling on their side disappearing. The connection forever severed.
When the police came for Eddie, Steve was the first to step up. He lied about Eddie being at his home for a small gathering he had with Robin at the time of the murder- just the three of them. Thankfully, she covered for him, forming a solid alibi. Eddie would be free once he made it out of the hospital.
Ever worried for his kids, he'd stayed behind all night to make sure they were okay. Something about Max's pale face and seeing her arms and legs in those casts constricted his heart. Memories of her on her skateboard outside his home, along the roads, orange hair a fiery blaze behind her. When would she be able to skate again?
It all became unbearable- knowing in part it was his fault she was stuck here like this. He stepped out of the room at the same time as an older man- someone he would come to know as Wayne Munson. The look of relief on his face spoke volumes, and when he walked over to Steve and enveloped him in a tight hug, he felt like sobbing there and then. He could hardly hear the man's rambling of thanks, the blood rushing through his ears the tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. But he couldn't cry. Not here.
He simply pat the man on the shoulder once he had let him go and returned his smile- his happy, relieved smile. "You saved my boy, son. Thank you." He had told him. Son.
Eddie's warm, brown gaze was fixed on the ceiling when he pushed the door open and entered. Steve knew they called him a freak and a devil worshiper... But here, he looked angelic. His hair an unruly mess creating a halo around his head, a single lamp off to the side casting him in white light. The bandana he had was removed from his hair and there was a bandage on his neck, splotched with blood. It had also stained the neck of the hospital gown he was wearing. To his surprise, he was handcuffed to the bed. He remembered the blue uniform of the officer standing guard outside. Why?
"Are you just gonna keep staring, or did you need something?" Eddie's voice was hoarse. It cracked, and tore through the quiet, only broken up rhythmically by the beeping of the heart monitor he was hooked up to,
"Why-" Steve's throat was so dry. When was the last time he ate anything? Likely before battle, "You're cuffed..." Steve gestured weakly. Eddie's gaze finally met Steve's before he glanced down. he moved his wrist so the metal clinked against itself,
"Mhm," Steve stepped closer, "Safety precaution. Hawkin's still thinks I'm a murderer," Eddie said it so casually, a hint of melancholy in his tone. Like he had accepted his fate. And for some odd... Odd reason, Steve's blood boiled at the thought.
"We'll make sure to change their minds," He said with determination, though Eddie scoffed and shook his head, "Hey, man it'll-"
"Why'd you even say anything?" Eddie spat, those brown eyes filled with anger and confusion, "Huh? You could have told them the truth but you lied-" He whispered, wary of the guard outside, "-to the cops about me!?" The anger morphed to something else- to... Confusion, "Why didn't you just hand me over? Told them I killed her- it's more hassle than I'm worth-"
"It's not...!" Eddie went quiet, fixing him with a stare, "Look, would you rather go to jail for a murder you didn't do?"
"Would you rather have the town know you hang out with a freak like me?" The hurt behind those words was so obvious to Steve as he watched a lone tear slip down Eddie's cheek. How long had people been calling him a freak that he grew this used to the word?
"Yeah," Steve said honestly, "Yeah I would, Eddie,"
Eddie leaned back against the pillows and blinked in disbelief. His eyes darted over the blank covers over his legs before he sighed. Steve was a jock- Steve was everything Eddie disagreed with on a fundamental basis. Good at sports, good at picking up girls, good at socialising with other people. He was popular. Belonged to a stupid system in schools- a pointless hierarchy the mindless asshats followed.
Eddie was shunned for not fitting in at all. He grew accustomed to the name-calling, to the labels. At some point, he thought there really was something wrong with him. And maybe there was- somewhere deep, deep down, something was just not right. Not how he was supposed to be.
Here he thought Steve would be one of those to call him the devil... Yet here he was, unafraid to protect him. To protect Dustin, protect those kids. He tried his hardest to save them all, and he did. It was because of him that he could make it back to Wayne in one piece, not yet digested by those bats. With another deep sigh, Eddie let his head fall against the fluff of his pillows,
"Well," He hummed, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thought, "You're saying I was at your place...?" Even if he didn't want to, agreeing to Steve's coverup held more benefits for him. They had already avenged Chrissy by killing off that monster...
Considering Eddie and Wayne's trailer had been destroyed with the closing of the portals, they were relatively homeless. Until Steve offered them both a guest bedroom each in his own home. Even though the town was less than approving, let alone his parents, he felt it was the least he could do. Give them both a home until they could find somewhere else to live.
It also gave them time to spend with one another. They shared a love for staying up way late into the silence of the night, where no one could yell at or bother them, gazing up at the stars above. Sometimes they would listen to music; sometimes Eddie would play music on a guitar Steve dug out for him from the garage. They always found themselves with one another at night.
The nightmares of it all- the fire, the bats. Wrapping around Steve's neck. Biting into Eddie's flesh. Sleep was difficult when their minds would replay the events of that fall on a loop. Their shared nightmares led to seeing the other more; either sleepily meeting in the kitchen, at the top of the staircase, or simultaneously leaving their rooms.
Steve was unsure when one night Eddie suggested they shared a bed. It had been a particularly bad night- Steve waking up shaking and crying and Eddie being on high alert, eyes darting over any dark corner in the kitchen as they sipped their tea together in the moonlight streaming in through the window. But he agreed.
Though he was still unsettled, being wrapped in Eddie's arms brought him more peace than he had felt in years. Knowing the exact pain one another was going through and either quietly whispering about it, or distracting one another with whispers of reassurance quelled their anxieties. Steve had never been held like this before. Like the other person truly and deeply cared for him, wanted to take the bad from his head so he would feel okay. He felt it so strongly from Eddie... He never wanted to let him go.
"Yeah so... They're giving us temporary housing out in Lawrence- I think it's right next to Indianapolis?" Eddie told him as they got out of the car, "I'm moving out to the big city, Steve," he chuckled, pulling a guitar from the back of Steve's car and slinging it onto his back. He falls into step beside Steve as the gravel crunches beneath their feet,
"Shit, that is far," Steve frowns as they step onto grass, footsteps muffled,
"Don't worry- I'll get you the address and phone number as soon as I can," He says quickly, "Oh! Also, since I apparently failed High School so many times and I can't retake any of the classes because of... All the shit that happened, they're giving me a- and hear this," He puts his arms out with a grin, "Circumstantial pass," He grins brightly, and Steve can't help but smile and laugh along with him,
"That's great for you, Eds," he says,
"I know! Good riddance- you know I really won't fucking miss Hawkins," He says fondly, sighing. They reach their destination and stop, staring forwards. The said town looks miniature from the distance they're at. Steve can't focus on it for long and instead turns his head to the side to watch Eddie's hair gently blowing in the wind. The pink sky fading behind him and the happy smile on his lips... "Maybe I'll miss you. And Hellfire," He says with a shrug. He gives Steve a brief look, before glancing around, "This it?"
"Uhh, yeah!" Steve nods, "It is," He's quickly taking off his old Hawkins High varsity jacket and sets it on the grass. He motions Eddie to it,
"You're such a gentleman, Stevie," Eddie smirks, and Steve just smiles and rolls his eyes like the nickname doesn't make him feel like he's on top of the world. His hands are on his hips as he watches Eddie sit on the material and pull the guitar from over his shoulder to set in his lap. Only then does he sit next to him, stretching his legs out before him as Eddie begins to pluck the strings gently. Steve can't recognise the tune, but whatever it is he likes it. It's calming, "I was telling the truth though," Eddie's voice is soft again when he speaks, just quiet enough that it doesn't interrupt the peace the guitar brings; just quiet enough that it gets Steve's attention,
"About what?" He asks, hearing Eddie chuckle softly,
"That I'll miss you," He says, "If someone told me that my last happy memories in Hawkins, Indiana would be with Steve Harrington, I would have called them a freak," He snorts to himself, "And that's coming from me," He grins,
"You really shouldn't call yourself a freak, Eddie," Steve says, and he can't stop fucking looking at Eddie. He feels the skin of his neck and cheeks burn whenever Eddie casts him these little glances, just little peaks of the brown eyes he so deeply longs to stare at forever. He needs to commemorate him to memory- he needs this version of Eddie, uncharacteristically calm and overwhelmingly happy to be the one that stays with him for the rest of his life,
"I've heard it all my life," He shrugs dismissively,
"That can still change," Steve shrugs back. Eddie hums, missing a chord,
"Oh?" He muses, "Change to what?" He asks curiously,
"Saviour," Steve breathes, "Of the world. Without you, we would have never defeated Vecna and saved everyone," Eddie has stopped playing music,
"You really think so?" Steve looks to see the smallest of smiles on Eddie's lips. He looks timid, uncertain of the compliment. Steve can only nod, not trusting his mouth to say the right words. Eddie nods back, though his smile widens and he grins to himself, "Eddie the Saviour," He breathes, rings clicking against the wood of the guitar as he rests his hands on it, "You know that has a good ring to it," He glances back at Steve when he laughs,
"Sure it does,"
"Though, I have you to thank too, King Steve," And when it comes from Eddie's lips, it's full of pride and joy. A beautiful warmth blossoms in Steve's chest, "Saving me like that and dragging me out of Hell," He feels a gentle push to his arm,
"Well, yeah I mean... You needed saving," He says, smiling and casting Eddie another glance,
"So you're saying I'm your princess? Fair maiden? Damsel in distress?" Eddie asks, a playful glint in his eye,
"No, I wasn't- don't put words in my mouth Munson," Steve laughs though, and just barely misses Eddie sitting up a little straighter and removing the guitar from his lap,
"Mhm... It'd make you a Prince," Eddie tells him, "Knight in shining armour... My saviour," He can feel Eddie shift closer, then appear into view. He's sitting with his back to the town, focusing his gaze on Steve's; eyes flicking over the moles dotting his cheeks, the upturned curve of his lips and the way his hair is slightly falling into his eyes,
"Your saviour?" There's no need to be loud when it's only them here. Only them, away from the prying eyes of the town they've grown to hate, the town they gave so much to protect,
"Mhm," Eddie hums happily. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, "And I think..." He pauses, "You deserve a reward," Eddie plucks a flower from where it grows beside the jacket, turning it over in his hands, it's white petals and yellow centre becoming a blur as it spins between his fingers, "For your valiant efforts and effervescent courage," Steve snorts at that,
"Right," He says with amusement, though plays along, "And what reward do you suggest, Eddie?" He asks, leaning forward in invitation.
From here, Steve can see the healed scarring on Eddie's neck, a paler colour compared to the rest of his neck. Then dipping just below the Motorhead shirt, a deeper bruise. A love bite from a few days before, formed in Steve's room against the wall near his closet. The sunlight glitters on the chain of Eddie's necklace under the rapidly setting sun, and a small grin is set on his plush, pink lips. He has never seen someone look so... Beautiful,
"A kiss," And who is Steve to deny the one he has found to love a kiss?
Lying together on the hill, Steve's head resting in Eddie's lap as he rambled on about Orion and Cassiopeia up there, Steve's heart soared. There was truly no other place he'd want to be.
Tonight, there were twice as many stars in the sky as there were before.