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Reckoning with the Upside Down was always difficult, no matter how many times Steve Harrington has had to deal with it. It’d been three years since his first encounter and this spring marked his fourth go-round with demon creatures better suited for one of the kids’ D&D games than a sleepy town in Nowhere, Indiana. He’s watched a lot of people die, been concussed at least twice, was drugged by Russians once, and somehow he feels like his new friendship with Eddie Munson is the hardest part to reconcile.
It might be a little easier if he wasn’t convinced that Eddie was constantly flirting with him, and that he was definitely flirting back. Aggressively flirting. The kind of flirting that made other people uncomfortable, if Robin’s comments were any indication. To her credit, she hadn’t been pushy about Steve coming out to her, even if he knew it was killing her that she had to wait for him to bring it up first. But she did wait, and eventually Steve asked her if it was possible for someone to be “half gay” and she explained bisexuality and handed him a pamphlet she’d found at a bookstore in Indianapolis. A week later, Steve pulled her into a family bathroom at the mall the next town over, declaring it the best place to share secrets and told her he was pretty sure he was bisexual.
Eddie had been stopping by Family Video all spring and summer, flirting with Steve without much reciprocation. It mostly amused him that Steve had a tendency to stare at him with confusion, a slight tinge of pink making its way up his neck. If you asked him when it changed, when Steve started to flirt back, Eddie wouldn’t be able to tell you. Steve gathered courage slowly, starting with witty one-liner responses that would have Eddie doubled over in laughter. Then he was smiling at Eddie whenever Eddie showed up to Family Video or Steve dropped Dustin and Lucas off for D&D. A few times during group outings Steve would purposefully sit next to Eddie, knees touching under diner tables or in dark theaters. Once, Steve leaned in towards Eddie and Eddie nearly had a heart attack thinking Steve was about to kiss him in front of everyone, but all he did was smirk and grab a glass from the shelf behind them. From then on, it was like a competition between them, and if anything was true about Eddie, he loved to control the game. He became more blatant in his innuendos, his suggestions more vulgar. Steve returned it all in kind.
Despite being single and no stranger to finding a hookup ready to submit to him for a night or two, Eddie was not interested in flagging anymore. He still wasn’t sure if Steve was actually into men, but something about the way Robin watched them every time they were together made him wonder if there was a chance. And, if there was a chance, Eddie wasn’t keen to screw it up by wasting his time on someone random. The black handkerchief disappeared from his back pocket.
And then one day, weeks later, Steve cut him off mid-sentence.
“Your bandana is missing.” It was a simple statement, not a question and it wasn’t flirtatious. Eddie froze, unsure how to respond. “Did you lose it?”
Eddie’s eyebrows went up as he appraised Steve.
“Looking at my butt, are you, Harrington? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find out you’re an ass guy.”
Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Obviously, butts are fantastic. Yours isn’t terrible to look at, but don’t let it go to your pretty head,” Steve warned. “But I did notice you haven’t had it for a few days and I thought it was part of your whole look.”
Steve waved his hands in the air, vaguely miming the shape of a body. Eddie grinned, leaning onto the Family Video counter and lowering his voice so that only Steve would be able to hear his response.
“Oh, sweetheart, it wasn’t part of my look; it’s what I was looking for.” He raised his eyebrows as he emphasized ‘for’, waiting on Steve’s response. Steve seemed speechless again for the first time in weeks, but there was no confusion this time.
After a beat, Steve finally responded with a simple “oh my god” as his eyes unfocused and he froze in place.
Eddie didn’t know what reaction he was expecting, but he was pretty sure that Steve going catatonic in the middle of his workplace wasn’t it and he said as much out loud. Robin looked over from the Horror section she’d run off to in order to escape the flirting and was startled to see Steve completely zoned out behind the counter.
“Eddie, what the fuck did you do to him?” She yelled. Eddie shook his head.
“He asked me where my bandana went and I might have broken him with my response?” Eddie turned to look at Robin, his eyes wide with concern.
“Oh no. Eddie. This poor boy just learned about hankie code… did you tell him it was hankie code?”
“Robin, why does Steve know about hankie code?” Eddie was now looking back and forth between Robin and Steve. Steve was shaking himself back into reality and focusing back on Eddie.
“Eddie,” he whispered. “Eddie, are you gay? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you are but I’ve been hoping I wasn’t reading into our thing incorrectly. The flirting, I mean. It was flirting, right? Because if it wasn’t, and you aren’t into men, then maybe you’ll hate me now and oh my---.”
Eddie watched Steve slowly spiral into a meltdown before finally cutting him off by grabbing Steve’s hands which were flying around in the space between them and shushing him. Robin had made her way back to the counter and was hugging Steve from the side as she kept an eye on Eddie. Eddie finally met her steady gaze with his, his eyes wild with bewilderment and concern.
“I think you and Steve need to have a talk, Eddie. The back of the store has an emergency exit that doesn’t alarm, you guys can go out back and Steve can get some fresh air.”
Eddie nodded and hesitantly dropped Steve’s hands and walked to the back of the store to wait for Steve to catch up. He watched as Robin spun Steve to face her and spoke to him in low tones, hands braced on his shoulders. It looked like a coach giving a Little Leaguer a pep talk before heading to bat for the first time ever. Eddie watched Robin give her pep talk and Steve pull himself together, finally cracking a smile and laughing before grabbing Robin’s head and giving her a dramatic kiss on the forehead. Eddie could hear Robin’s protests from where he was standing and could imagine the face she was making as she scrubbed at her forehead. Steve was finally making his way to the back of the store and shyly motioning for Eddie to follow him outside.
Eddie watched Steve carefully as he propped the back door open and then turned to face him.
“Eddie, I—look, I shouldn’t have asked you that. I’m sorry.” Steve looked truly remorseful about bluntly asking Eddie about his sexuality, and for some stupid reason Eddie couldn’t help but laugh. Steve scrunched his eyebrows together, obviously trying to figure out what he said this time that was so funny.
“No, Steve, please don’t apologize.” Eddie attempted to wave of the apology.
“Eddie, stop. Robin, she uh. She said you were safe to talk to about this, but it doesn’t make this any easier for me.” Steve was starting to fidget with the hem of his work vest, rolling it up and down. He hadn’t moved away from the door, and Eddie realized it was so he could escape back into the store if he felt like he needed to. Realizing this, Eddie sobered up and forced himself to take a step back from Steve, hoping that the additional space would help him feel less anxious.
“You can tell me anything, Steve. I’m a judgement free zone, I promise.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Steve had his body pressed up against the side of the building, the bite of the brick giving him something to focus on as he prepared himself for the next words he was going to say out loud.
“Eddie, I’ve been flirting with you. I like you. I had this fucking identity crisis after the last go-round with the Upside Down and Robin had to help me understand that some people are attracted to more than one gender. I realized I’m bisexual. When you said your bandana was about what you were looking for, I think my brain shut down for a minute. I hadn’t really thought that maybe this thing we’d been doing had been more than just a weirdly aggressive game of Chicken, even though I wanted it to be. I hope… I hope you don’t think any differently of me. I want to stay friends, if you are okay with that. With me.”
Eddie felt the air go out of him the moment Steve said the word bisexual, and with every word following that it felt like his vision was tunneling smaller and smaller until all he could see was Steve’s face. A face that was desperate, one that couldn’t look directly at him.
“Steve,” Eddie approached him, noticing how tense Steve was against the wall. He got as close as he dared, still allowing for several feet between them. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he continued, “Steve, I’m gay. I’m more than okay with you. And I like you, a crazy amount.”
Steve glanced up, searching for any hint of deception and knowing that he wouldn’t find it. Eddie was an aggressive flirt and quick witted, but he was never cruel the way Steve knew people could be cruel. It was unfortunate that at this very moment, when he was about to reach out to Eddie and hopefully kiss him for the first time, the arcade’s back door slammed open and one of the employees came barreling out with two giant trash bags.
Eddie had a cigarette in hand, the box extended to Steve casually before the arcade worker could register that he wasn’t alone in the back of the building. He exchanged a round of curt nods with Eddie and Steve as Steve was pulling a cigarette out of the pouch, Eddie now snapping a match against the striker and pulling the flame up to his mouth to light his cigarette. Steve felt weirdly untethered during the whole exchange. It wasn’t until Eddie was pushing the matchbook into Steve’s hand, giving him a quick squeeze, that he felt like he was standing on solid ground again.
The arcade worker had returned to his work inside, the stench of old, warm garbage from the dumpster slowly disappearing around Eddie and Steve. They stood in silence for another minute, smoking their cigarettes and staring at each other. Finally, Eddie broke the silence.
“Come over tonight? Wayne is still working graveyards, we’ll be alone. If that’s okay with you?”
Steve smiled and put his cigarette out against the wall. Robin was going to give him shit for smoking, but he was too giddy from the nicotine and Eddie’s invitation to care.
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
Eddie decided it would be best to leave Family Video for the rest of the day, and allow Steve some time to do whatever it was Robin and Steve did that made them so RobinAndSteve. As he walked away, he turned around and shouted out to Steve a “See you tonight, big boy,” grinning madly at the blush that crept up Steve’s neck.