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Steve Harrington had never claimed to be smart. He scraped through high school by copying from other students and charming his teachers, and he often felt like common sense managed to escape him. However, contrary to what some may have thought, he wasn’t oblivious either. When it came to emotions, he was incredibly intuitive and found himself picking up on the smallest quirks in other people.
Steve could tell when Robin was putting up a front for people she wasn’t so close to, forcing her body to be still and her mouth to stay shut. He could sense the relief in her when they were left alone and she could drop the mask and continue her ramblings in peace.
He knew that if Dustin didn’t forcibly control the radio in the car, he was distracted by his own thoughts and didn’t want to sing along. Nancy quit biting her nails years ago, but when she was especially anxious, she fell back into the habit. Max hummed Kate Bush beneath her breath when she needed to feel safe.
Lately, he had started to notice these things about Eddie. The jokes he cracked to diffuse tension, the way he fiddled with his rings as a distraction. As he spent his time learning Eddie Munson, there was one particular thing that he couldn’t get off his mind.
Eddie seemed to lean desperately into every touch, like a drowning man grasping for the shore. It would have been adorable if it wasn’t also sort of sad. While Wayne seemed like a great man, he didn’t strike Steve as the overly affectionate type, and based on what he knew about the rest of Eddie’s family, he figured that hugs were not a very common occurrence.
He had grown up similarly, grasping for affection in the form of friends or girlfriends, trying not to seem as desperate as he felt. So, having been in the same place, Steve would never deny Eddie a bit of platonic affection. The only issue was, his feelings towards Eddie were straying closer to crushing territory, and he didn’t quite feel ready to unpack that.
So, Steve compromised. He gave hugs, shoulder pats, and playful shoves, but was careful to not linger too long, knowing it would only send blood rushing to his cheeks (and possibly elsewhere, if he wasn’t careful). But it broke his heart to see the disappointment in Eddie’s eyes when the touch retracted.
Dignity and pining aside, Steve figured it couldn’t hurt to dial it up a notch.
And that was how he wound up on the floor of Eddie Munson’s trailer, grinning like mad as the guy that most of Hawkins feared laid beneath him, giggling like mad. A quick jab to the side had sent Eddie jerking away as if electrocuted, and Steve wasted no time in pouncing.
The two of them went sprawling to the floor, a mess of flying limbs and giggling, for once, acting like the age they truly were.
Eddie wasn’t weak by any sense of the word, but he was less athletic and still giggling like mad, making it easy for Steve to pin him to the floor and tickle his sides with vigor. The giggles quickly turned to real laughter, loud and uncontrollable.
As Steve switched between squeezing his sides and poking at his belly, he picked up on something else. Eddie didn’t seem to be fighting back. Like, at all.
Normally, when Steve tickled anyone, he was met with playful resistance, begging, and the occasional injury. Robin babbled out pleas for mercy, Dustin kicked as though his life depended on it, and Nancy had once bruised his jaw with a flying elbow. But Eddie just…took it. He squirmed, sure, but that was just a natural reaction. No words of protest had left his lips, only laughter. And his smile was not a forced grin, but rather a genuine beam of childlike joy.
“You like this, don’t you?” Steve asked, stopping his tickling and instead leaning his face close to Eddie’s ear.
Eddie’s cheeks turned red. “What?” he asked, his voice breathless and pitched much higher than usual. “Of course I don’t.” If he were aiming for nonchalance, he was failing miserably. Steve could practically feel the nervous energy radiating from the man beneath him.
Steve hummed. “I don’t believe you,” he replied. “You’re barely fighting back. I mean, you haven’t asked me to stop once, and you could fight back, but you’re just grabbing at your hair instead of trying to push my hands away.”
Eddie’s face was an odd shade of crimson that Steve couldn’t imagine was normal for the average person. He seemed at a loss for words, which was rare for someone who talked so goddamn much. Not that Steve minded, though. It was cute, all his rambling. God, he was really becoming a fool for Eddie, wasn’t he?
“Hey, I’m not making fun of you,” Steve said, sensing that Eddie’s embarrassment was straying into actually upset territory and desperately trying to wrangle it back to cute, playful teasing. “I mean, it’s fine if you do.”
Eddie huffed out a laugh, basically a scoff, but he had stopped denying it.
Then, Steve decided to tell him something that he’d never told anyone before. “I don’t mind it either, you know. Like, it’s sort of fun depending on who does it. Ever since Robin found out I’m ticklish, I haven’t known peace, and like, I could tell her to stop if I wanted and she would. But it’s fun for both of us, so I don’t. So, basically, if I’ve misread and you aren’t having fun, I’ll stop right now and never do it again. But if you’re having fun, I won’t tease you about it anymore.”
Those already big brown eyes somehow widened further as Eddie squirmed. Steve had a hunch that talking about feelings and secrets wasn’t something that he was used to, so he didn’t pry, he just let him figure out what to say next.
“You don’t have to stop,” he said after a moment.
Steve grinned, and resumed his attack on Eddie’s belly, making him bark out a surprised laugh. Once again, his intuition hadn’t failed him, and he was feeling indescribably giddy.
He didn’t expect Eddie to try and fight back after that flustering talk, and so he was taken entirely off guard when Eddie suddenly managed to sit up and push Steve back against the floor, clambering on top of his thighs and grinning like a maniac.
“Since you gave that sincere, adorable little speech, I figured I had to return the favor,” Eddie said, shooting him a wink before latching onto Steve’s sides and letting his fingers dance across his thin t-shirt with the precision only a guitarist could have.
And if Steve wasn’t laughing so hard, eyes squeezed shut and mouth falling into a helpless grin, maybe his intuition would have told him that the way Eddie looked at him, soft eyes and fond smile, maybe he would realize that Eddie totally had a crush on him too, and maybe he would make the first move and kiss him, right then a there, on the floor of his trailer.
There had been enough confessions for the evening, though, and the tickle fight left them both breathless and delighted, and Steve found himself smiling the whole drive home.