Chapter Text
The three of them becoming housemates was Steve's idea, but it didn't involve Billy at first. He figured Billy wouldn't be interested because with Neil in prison, Max just had her mom, and strangely, after he nearly died, he had the desire to become a decent, if not great, big brother. For a while when he was healing and basically not allowed to do anything - or trusted to do anything safely - she'd go to his room and check on him, and he would at first just be agitated with her, wanting to be left alone in his suffering. He smoked against everyone's recommendations throughout the whole process and struggled to get anyone to help him when he couldn't change his own bandages, because he was arguing with his own mind that told him not to let anyone else touch. He'd finally manage to ask on the days it was really bad and then be tense and gripping the sides of the bed, fighting the urge to run for the entire maximum of 40 seconds it took to remove what was there, give him a quick wipe-down, and then place a clean one on him. The last time he was simply too tired and it felt like it needed to be changed, Max offered, and he told her that it wasn't a child's job to take care of him, now an adult, and that she should just go be a kid for however much longer she can. He went to sleep itchy and dealt with it later.
Now, Max was definitely more mature and seemed to be having more problems he couldn't help with, or that she felt too awkward asking him for help with, and was going to her mother more. So when he saw Steve and Eddie whispering to each other across a store, looking at him, Eddie walking over and asking him to move in didn't seem like as big a deal as it would have a few months ago when they first got the place. It was kind of unexpected; he was under the impression Eddie didn't like him that much and was starting to wonder if he'd always be the odd one out from that point on when Steve showed him a picture he took of the front of the house just to show him how similar it looked to where he was living.
After Max stopped checking on him, Steve started. It didn't happen like that on purpose (as far as he knows, anyway) but he eventually stopped complaining, started teasing Steve about it, and then just straight up started flirting. It was hard to tell that he was flirting right away though, because of everything else before that point, their friendship being pretty confusing on both ends. It was Steve who took a chance and kissed him. He didn't even have a great reaction to it. He had to go to the Harrington house and try to apologize and didn't even give a good apology. He just asked for a do-over and Steve let him inside. He often wonders what the fuck Steve sees in him.
He wakes up after a night of drinking - and smoking something other than tobacco - to find that he's sandwiched between the other two guys. They were celebrating his birthday and had to convince him it was worth celebrating. He hadn't even told Eddie it was yesterday, so when Steve let that slip during breakfast, the slimmest of them went wide-eyed and insisted they throw a party and invite some friends over, and if he didn't like it, he could say it was a housewarming party instead and it just happened to be held on his birthday because they hadn't had one of those yet. They didn't really tell anyone except for Eddie's uncle, because the man wanted to make sure Eddie was living somewhere safe that didn't have any major issues the youngsters hadn't noticed. He asked to come by to at least inspect the place to make sure there wasn't hidden mold or anything else that would become a serious problem for them. Once he was satisfied with what he saw, he hugged Eddie and shook Steve's hand, and that was that. Steve knew his parents, or at least his father, wouldn't be supportive of his "lifestyle choices," so he opted to just not tell them when he was moving out until the process was already over and he'd already collected all of his belongings from their house, just in case he would have gotten a really bad reaction.
So that's what they did. They called up and invited all of their friends and family minus Steve's parents over, even the kids being welcome for the first couple of hours, and then somebody opened up a bottle of wine somebody else had brought. They looked to Hopper, seeing how he was eyeing them, and proceeded to party after he told them, "Just don't be stupid. Don't make me regret coming. I'm off-duty, boys." They had fun and now here he is, on the verge of panic because he is both spooning someone and being spooned by someone, and one of them has a hand on his chest, which for the first time since he moved in isn't covered in their presence. Steve and Eddie could take baths and shower together and he's fucking happy for them, he really has been… he's just stuck. It comes back to him that he was the one who took his shirt off. The memory doesn't make him feel any better. Eddie fell asleep with his rings on. The metal, while he was still partially asleep and waking up, reminded him of the little pieces of metal and glass that somehow got inside his fucking chest and had to be surgically removed. He feels what he thinks are eyelashes fluttering open on the back of his neck.
Eddie feels the slight tremors and knows he won't want to draw Steve's attention to anything wrong if Steve is still peacefully asleep and unaware, so he doesn't say anything, but presses a kiss to the back of his neck, causing him to gasp and bite his lip to stay quiet. Carefully rising, Eddie finds a shirt that was on the floor next to the bed and picks it up, and instead of just handing it over, leans back over to kiss Billy on the cheek and pulls at him at the shoulder. Not hard enough to actually move him, but as a silent request. Trying to steady his breathing, Billy slowly moves his arms out from around Steve, who doesn't fully wake, but grumbles at him for the movement, and sits up for Eddie, who apparently wanted to be in his lap and put the shirt on him for him… He doesn't know what to make of that. He lets Eddie kiss him. Then they wake Steve up.