Chapter Text
Steve’s POV
It’s a slow day at Family Video and Steve is on shift alone as Spring Break is still a day away. Robin won’t be in tonight because of the basketball game. He’s been working here for 8 months and to be honest, he actually really enjoys it. It gives him freedoms he wouldn’t have elsewhere as their manager, Keith, couldn’t give a flying fuck what they were doing as long as he didn’t have to do it himself. Steve jumps as the phone rings, startling him.
“Family Video, this is Steve, how can I help you,” he says in the peppiest voice he can manage.
“Hey, sweetheart,” the voice on the other end says.
Steve immediately perks up, a smile cutting across his face. He knows this voice. He loves this voice and has for the last 8 months. He looks at his watch and realizes it’s the end of lunch at Hawkins High. There’s no one in the store so he knows he can speak freely.
“Eddie, baby, shouldn’t you be in class,” he teases.
“Maybe I wanted to hear your voice to get me through the rest of the day,” Eddie says.
These calls have been pretty regular since Eddie went back to school. Every day after lunch, Eddie had one free period and he would usually spend it using the payphone outside of Hawkins High and calling Steve, either at home or at work. He’ll tell him about the first half of his day, complain about Ms. O’Donall and how she is still trying her best to fail him. Steve wasn’t about to let that happen and he and Robin had been helping Eddie study any chance they got. It had been working. Come May, Eddie would be graduating and they would be spending the Summer together.
“Don’t forget, my place at 8:30. Lucas’ game and Hellfire should be over by 8. I got that movie you wanted to watch and I have popcorn,” Steve says as he wedges the phone receiver between his ear and shoulder. They usually had date nights after Hellfire because all Eddie ever wanted to do was tell him how it went and they’d spend the rest of the night on the couch in his living room. Sometimes they snuggled. Sometimes they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Eddie had taught Steve so much in the last 8 months and he was the happiest he had been in years.
“Oh, princess, how you spoil me,” Eddie says sweetly, his voice deepening in the way that he knows riles Steve up.
Steve smiles wider, he feels his cheeks warming up. Goddamn that Eddie Munson. Where does he get off being so damn cute?
“Don’t call me that,” Steve says, still smiling, not an ounce of anger to his tone.
“Ah, but sweetheart, I know you love it. I can hear that big gorgeous smile even over the phone. And I promise, I’ll be there. If all goes well, Hellfire will be over by 7:30. I just have to make a pit stop at Casa de Munson, and then I’m all yours for the rest of the week because it’s finally fucking break. Already told Wayne I wouldn’t be home tonight.”
“Or the next few nights if I have my way,” Steve says lowly into the phone. This time, he hears Eddie chuckle and he knows that he’s got a smile across his face. That smile that always makes Steve’s heart melt as the corners of Eddie’s eye crinkle and his laugh lines deepen in a way that makes him just want to kiss them.
Since Steve’s parents have decided to work mostly out of state, the home is all his. They pay the bills still but he keeps it up. It’s been a lot less lonely these past few months as Eddie has started spending every break from school with Steve and if he was entirely honest, he spent most nights with him break or not. Maybe they were moving too fast. Steve honestly didn’t care that Eddie had a drawer in his dresser. That he had a toothbrush in the bathroom. Eddie had left clothes behind, even had his own pillow. Steve, when he would go grocery shopping, he bought foods he knew Eddie would like. It was domestic bliss at its best and Steve wouldn’t change a thing. Not a single thing.
He finally had good memories in his home. He had Eddie and Wayne over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They’d decided to exchange gifts but made sure they weren’t something that would expose their relationship. Eddie bought Steve a new watch. He wears it every day. Eddie had liked it because it was waterproof and damn near indestructible. And because Eddie already wore rings, Steve had gotten him a ring he’d found in a boutique that he and Robin had visited when they’d ventured out of town for a fun day trip for her birthday. It was silver with a black stone in the middle, it had designs on the sides that made Steve think it looked like one of the rings from The Lord of the Rings book that Eddie loved so much. He still hadn’t gotten Steve to read it but some nights when they would be lying in his bed, tangled in each other, Eddie would read to him. Steve rarely made it long as Eddie’s voice always calmed him and helped him fall asleep. The nightmares rarely came to him those nights.
Eddie wears the ring on his ring finger on his right hand and tells Steve he wears it there because he’d read that rings on that finger especially ones given to a person by the one who holds their heart, symbolizes their love and commitment to each other. It was their little way of having the other with them even when they couldn’t be together.
“You sure you don’t want to sit in on Hellfire tonight? It’s the Cult of Vecna and it will be amazing, babe,” Eddie asks. He asks Steve to come every week to Hellfire but Steve always declines.
He doesn’t decline because he isn’t interested in the things Eddie loves. He really loves to watch Eddie in his element. Things have been so good between them and he would love to sit in on Hellfire every week and watch Eddie immerse himself into his dungeon master role.
But they hadn’t told Dustin yet about them. They hadn’t told anyone about the yet really. The few arguments he and Eddie had had usually had been about telling Dustin. The only people who knew about them were Wayne and Robin. Steve quickly discovered that Wayne was a good man. He loved Eddie and Eddie had nearly pissed himself laughing when he found out that Wayne had given Steve “the talk.” Eddie told Steve that means Wayne likes him because no other boy had gotten that talk. But that had also led into him finding out what happened to Eddie when he was 16. That was when the hesitation to tell anyone else had begun. Steve could not live with himself if someone hurt Eddie because they were outed. So, instead he begged Eddie to wait. To wait a little longer. They had time.
He knows his kids, he knows they’ll be accepting, but he isn’t completely sure they understand the ramifications that could happen if they let slip to someone not as understanding. The part that Steve doesn’t tell Eddie is that he doesn’t want to tell Dustin yet in case he and Eddie end things. Not that Steve thinks they will as he is pretty sure Eddie is it for him, but, just in case something were to happen, he can’t hurt Dustin that way. Dustin loves Eddie as much as he loves Steve and he couldn’t break the kid’s heart. Eddie loves Dustin too, the very same way he does. So, he’d agreed and they’d stayed mum.
Eddie had kept his promise that he’d made before they got together. Day one of Dustin and Mike’s freshman year, Eddie had found them in the lunch room and welcomed them into his flock, as he calls them. Steve couldn’t have been happier when Dustin called him after the first day and spent 30 minutes raving about Eddie. He had kept the jocks off of them. Eddie was a very dramatic person and Dustin would tell him tells of Eddie’s theatrics in the lunch room and of Jason Carver. The asshole made sure that everyone continued to call Eddie a freak but Eddie made sure Jason never knew how those words hurt him. Only Steve knew that.
After an especially rough day with Jason, Eddie had shown up on his doorstep, his eyes puffy. Steve had held him as he cried. He cried for himself. He cried for what could happen to Dustin if he didn’t always have his eye on him or take the brunt of the bullying. There was an anger inside of Jason that Eddie worried would one day come out. Steve held him, stroked his hair, and peppered his face with kisses. He reassured him that he was better than any of those dimwitted jocks and that Dustin would be fine. Eddie gave him the confidence to stand up to dillweeds like Jason. And, thankfully, Jason and his band of idiots from the basketball team were graduating with Eddie this year.
Back in the present, Steve repositioned the phone, “Not tonight, babe. I promised Lucas I’d go to his game.”
“You know, Sinclair and I need to have a little talk. He abandoned us for the jocks, very uncool.”
“Lucas isn’t like the others, he doesn’t know how to deal with being the outsider and it’s harder on him when they would all get bullied. And since Max broke up with him, he’s been struggling. Give him a break, okay? For me,” Steve asks in the voice that he knows Eddie can never say no to.
“Ah, princess, you know I can never say no to you. You think they’ll actually let Sinclair play? He’s been a benchwarmer all season.”
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, “Yeah, I have a good feeling about tonight. But I also promised Robin I’d come tonight because she’s been going on and on about some girl she’s in band with, so I figured I'd scope it out for her. See if this Vicki is legit. I’m pretty sure she likes boobies but Robin isn’t so sure.”
“Always the heart of gold, Harrington,” Eddie pauses as Steve can hear the bell ringing, “Gotta go, babe! See you tonight. Love you!” The call disconnects before Steve can respond.
“Love you too,” he says to no one.
Hours later he is bursting with pride as he watches Lucas sink the winning basket. He’s cheering but stops when he sees Max. God, that kid breaks his heart. It’s been extremely rough for her since Billy died. Billy’s asshole father left them, taking with him their income. Eddie said they’d been living in his trailer park a few months now. He also told Steve about how he would see Max’s mom stumble in drunk on more than a few nights a week. Steve had been meaning to talk to her but she also seemed to slip his grasp.
“Dingus,” he jumps as Robin calls to him. He looks back and Max is gone again. Robin points out Vicki and begins tells him everything she knows about her and how she laughed at her joke about Tammy Thompson’s singing voice.
“I’m such an idiot, Steve. I almost let it slip about my stupid crush on Tammy. Vicki didn’t hear me, so yeah, still don’t know if she’s into me or not,” Robin says as they walk outside the gym.
Steve looks over at the pod that he knows Hellfire is finishing up. As if they knew what he was thinking, the group, sans Eddie, burst through the doors celebrating their win. Steve smiles, especially when he sees Erica with them. She’d become another of his merry band of kids after Starcourt. Steve hesitates for a minute. He knows Eddie always stays behind to put everything up and he’d be alone. Nothing wrong with starting their date night a little early. He feels a tug on his arm.
“C’mon, I’m starved,” Robin says as she pulls him away.
“It’s okay,” Steve thinks to himself, “We’ve got tonight.”
Only, Eddie never shows. Steve can’t get anyone to pick up the phone at Eddie’s. He’d lie if he said he wasn’t a bit pissed. He eats the bowl of popcorn on his own and decides he’ll find Eddie when his shift ends tomorrow.
“He better have a good excuse,” Steve mumbles to himself as he goes to bed.
Eddie’s POV
Chrissy Cunningham dies on his ceiling. Her body twisting as her bones snap. Her jaw breaking as her eyes begin to bleed. The lights continue to flicker around him. As much as he wants to, he cannot look away.
He screams as her bleeding eyes are literally pulled into her skull as though something was pulling them from within her. Her broken body crashes to the floor in front of him. Her arms and legs are grotesquely sticking out in directions they were never meant to go.
He runs.
He leaves her behind because he is scared.
He’s scared that what killed her will come for him.
He’s scared of what the implications of this will mean.
Chrissy Cunningham is dead in his trailer.
And everyone will think he killed her.
He drives away and doesn’t look back.