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Eddie was confused.
He often was these days, between the sometimes crippling pain and the faded brain fog from the pills to counteract it, it made the whole thinking and words thing sometimes a little difficult, the words would come out backwards, forwards and sometimes in the wrong order.
And for someone who prides themselves in their ability to tell a good story it was debilitating.
Oh, not that Eddie couldn't still jump on a table and make a spectacular spee;h if needed, it was more the fact he sometimes struggled to remember what day it was, or if it was his turn to pick up the rugrats.
He didn't think he was doing bad for someone who was clinically dead for a good while. Although he took umbrage at Mike dubbing him, El, Max and Will his zombie army.
Out of the four of them, he and El were the only ones that were technically dead.
And Steve fucking Harrington of all people had been the one to drag him back to life, and out of Hell to boot.
It wasn't fair, not only did he have to deal with the fact that Steve was actually a good guy, he had to deal with shared custody of the gaggle of children who had added themselves completely and utterly onto his very existence.
And on top of that, he owed Steve a life debt.
Hopefully, he would never have to cash it in because unfortunately for Eddie, he was enjoying having the other man around. Three years, countless hospital appointments together, and NDAs that made their friend circle increasingly difficult to add to, made it inevitable that the two of them had gotten close. And if he had developed a bit of a thing for the handsome reformed ex-jock? Well, that was between him and whatever god wanted to take him, he was pretty sure they just passed him around like a bad nickel.
It was just as well that they already cast him out of the good god-fearing household of Wyatt Munson, because he was pretty sure he would get a beating for the impure thoughts he had about that their Harrington boy. It was just as well he hadn’t listened to anything his father had said to him since he was seven years old, or he was pretty sure he would have to be locked up a few cages down from old Victor by now.
But circling back around to his first point.
Eddie was confused.
He had been sure that he was supposed to be at Castle Harrington on this balmy sunny Friday evening, but it was quiet. Too quiet for the usual gathering of chaos that normally descended on Steve… or at least Steve's pool.
He parked up, scanning the drive for bikes, and the street for any sign of the kids, but the only other sign of life was Steve's Beemer sitting in its designated spot under the gigantic tree.
Had he gotten the wrong day? It wouldn’t be the first or the last time he had turned up at the completely wrong place on a wrong day, this was why he made lists, why he always had a pen and a notebook in his pocket, between his forgetfulness and brain fog and Steve and the deafness (that nobody seemed to notice but Eddie and Robin) they almost made a functioning human adult between the pair of them, at least if Steve remembered to put his glasses on.
Eddie was second-guessing himself now, were they supposed to be meeting at the arcade? Was it Hellfire at the Wheelers? Pulling down his sun visor he checked the notes pinned there to help keep track. Nope, he was supposed to be at Harrington's, Steve's spikey scrawl was clear enough.
With trepidation he clambered out of his van and headed to the side gate, they always entered from the backyard now, because Steve would panic if anyone knocked at the front door. leftover trauma, adamant that the Russians were still out to get him. Eddie didn't want to point out they were hardly likely to knock. Steve was jumpy enough at the best of times.
He found Steve quickly enough, flicking through some sports magazines lying near the pool Not in it. Never in the pool alone, that was the rule, and they all stuck to it. Even if the danger was long gone, there was always a chance, always a fear that something would break through, and come back from the dead. After all, Eddie had, so had El.
"Have the brats been ruptured?"
Steve looked up, face brightening at the sight of him. And wasn't that a thing that Eddie loved to see, he was glad he was one of the precious few who got to see Steve's genuine smile. It really was a sight to behold, it lit up his tanned face, eyes sparkling behind the frames he hated but would wear because it wasn’t worth everyone who loved him nagging at him if he didn’t.
"They're all the way in Utah, went to visit Suzie. She won an award or something." Steve shrugged, leaning over and grabbing Eddie a beer from the cooler beside him. Eddie could almost hear the 'they told you this, they told me this, but our brains don't work ' that Steve didn't have to say.
Steve gestured for Eddie to come to join him, room on the lounge for two.
Eddie and Steve spent a lot of time as just the two of them, the kids would run off and leave them behind, the fair, the lake… the kids wanted them there but on the periphery, close enough for just in case. It was just the way it was now. A phone call, just in case. Late-night drives, just in case. I'm here, we're here, it's fine. No danger, no code red.
One at a time the older kids had moved on, Robin and Nancy to college and Jonathan back off to California with Argyle.
It was just him and Steve now, a fact Eddie hadn't really lingered on too much with the kids keeping them on their toes.
But soon it would be time for the kids to move on, lives bigger than the traumatizing confines of Hawkins.
Soon it would be Steve and Eddie, Eddie and Steve, nothing to bring them together but the fact that they enjoyed spending time together.
They both had money to fall back on now, so it wasn't a lack of funds that had them staying in the cursed town. Eddie was pretty damn sure that Steve's parents hadn't been home since Christmas, so Eddie figured Steve was still here for the same reason he was.
The kids, and to make sure the damn gates stayed closed.
"Was that this weekend?" He took a seat on the end of the chair taking the offered beer.
"Yeah, left this morning, they're gonna call in a bit to check in, it’s not that I don’t trust Lucas and Mike’s driving, but…"
“It’s not the same as you driving them, Yeah I get it, our little birds are ready to fly Stevie, we must let them cast their wings into the great unknown.” he pulled Steve in with one arm while pointing his beer at the sky, it took everything in him not to turn to look at Steve, who’s breath he could feel warm and inviting on his cheek.
“Is it bad that I’m kind of enjoying the silence?”
"I can go? Not like it takes two of us to babysit negative amounts of brats" Please don't send me away. Something in Eddie was worried that Steve only kept him around because of the kids, the voice that sounded an awful lot like his father nagging at the back of his head saying that he was the reason that the family had fallen apart, he was too much, always too much.
Eddie dropped his arm from around Steve's shoulders, already missing the feeling of him as he moved away.
Steve's smile faltered, "If I hadn’t wanted you to come over, I wouldn't have left you a reminder under your sun visor,"
"If the kids aren't here why did you?" He searched Steve’s face for answers, knowing that whatever he wanted to say wouldn’t be what came out of his mouth, it never was, Steve Harrington was good at hiding the truth under layers of something else, and it might fool the others but Eddie could see right through it.
" Because believe it or not Eddie, I like spending time with you, and it would be nice to do it without worrying if Henderson is trying to shotgun my beer.” is what he said, but it sounded a lot like ‘don’t leave me’ to Eddie.
************
It was almost ten, and Eddie still hadn't left, and to his surprise, they hadn't run out of topics to talk about. Steve was currently fussing with the messy pizza they had made, trying to work out how to get the thing to fit on the shelf in the oven.
Eddie could help, could, being the important word. He wasn't going to; it was far too amusing to watch Steve's domestic struggles.
The phone rang, and Steve nodded for Eddie to answer.
"It'll be the kids" He explained as he finally maneuvered the pizza onto the tray, only partly covering himself in tomatoes and cheese. Eddie did as he was told, only feeling slightly strange at answering the phone in someone else's house.
"Harrington house, who's calling?."
"We've been gone a day, and you already got your feet under the table?"
"Hello to you too Red." Eddie smiled as he heard the gaggle of munchkins gathering around the phone.
"Eddie?" That was Mike. "What's he doing at Steve's?"
"Told you so. I knew you didn't need to ring his apartment but nobody listened to me "
That was Lucas, he sounded more and more like Erika the longer they spent together.
"Nobody likes a know-all Lucas, and that's what you sound like right now."
"Whatever Micheal, some of us just aren't oblivious to the world around us"
The sound of Will's laughter in the background made Eddie's heart sing. It was good to hear, especially when it was at Mike's expense, it might have been frowned upon to have favorites, but Will was quickly becoming a contender, especially now he was becoming more and more outgoing, it made Eddie happy that he could at least make a difference in one of his sheep' life. And it wasn’t as if Eddie could call him out on his questionable tastes when the object of his own affection was standing in the middle of the kitchen wearing an apron that stated he was the world's best mom.
After a scuffle for the phone, Lucas came back on the line.
"Is Steve there ?"
"I'm not good enough for you Sinclair? After all the things we've been through, I'm hurt."
"Do you want to hear about Suzie and Dusty Bun or what ?"
Eddie turned around to yell for Steve to hurry the hell up because, it didn’t matter that the kids were nearly nineteen now or that Suzie was very much an active part of all their lives, whenever Dustin was near his girl he turned into an idiot.
Eddie didn’t need to yell Steve was already at his side leaning in to get as close to the receiver as possible, his hand reaching up wrapped around Eddie's to hold the phone in place. Warm fingers pressed into the back of his hand, and it was as if it had hit him with a bolt of lightning, the casual touch wasn’t new, but this felt different. All night Steve had been casually touching him, a hand on his lower back as they maneuvered around the kitchen, feeding him bits of pepperoni as he had attempted to stretch the doe how Argyle had shown them in a doped-up haze the last time he had been over. Now Steve was running his thumb over the knuckles of Eddie’s fingers where they held the receiver, and no matter how much Eddie wanted to hear what the kids had to say, he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything but the feeling.
"Come on then, should we be worried?"
Absolute chaos broke out on the other end of the phone, and Steve laughed at his kids' shouting, holding the phone away from the two of them to escape the sound. He rolled his eyes fondly, before pulling the phone back towards them, stepping closer as he did so. Eddie wouldn’t be able to tell you what the kids had said to them even if you held him at gunpoint. Steve was too close and his mind had gone completely off on its own, trying not to think about how Steve was resting his thigh between Eddie’s leg as he lent inwards, and how Steve’s free hand was playing with the hem of Eddie’s vest top, almost absentmindedly.
It was a relief when the buzzer went on the oven and Eddie excused himself to go save the food.
******
"Kurt Russell would totally get some."
Eddie rolled slightly to the side so he could look at Steve's face in the flickering light of the television.
At some point they had ended up lying on the floor, the effects of Argyle's other parting gifts making the world seem lighter when their feet were on the sofa and their backs on the stupidly fluffy rug.
Steve had acquired big trouble in little China for them to watch for the tenth or maybe eleventh time. Perks of managing the video store, deeming it a cinematic masterpiece. Eddie wouldn't have gone that far, but there were definitely perks to re-watching Steve's current favorite movie.
Mainly Kim Cattrall and Kurt Russell.
Eddie appreciated them both, it wasn't like he could hide that part of himself, not after his mouth had moved of its own accord in the hospital.
That fuzzy brain fog that came with his meds really didn't help the brain word filter, at any point Wayne could have cut in and shut him up about the handsome knight that had saved him from a hell dimension, but apparently, his uncle had the same mischievous streak he did and enjoyed watching both Steve and Eddie squirm, it hadn't been like either of them could escape the confines of their hospital beds.
He knew Wayne would have stopped him if he thought Steve knowing was dangerous, and Wayne may be a man of few words, but he was a good judge of character, and he would never have let him wax poetic if he didn’t think Steve was safe, that Steve was at least an ally. So the fact that he had outed himself in a drugged-up medical haze to the notorious ladies' man and ex-king of Hawkins High, and Wayne hadn’t stopped him? It spoke volumes for Steve as a person, it kind of made it considerably worse that Eddie had developed this complicated web of feelings for him in the meantime.
But more and more Steve would come out with things that made Eddie question the fabric of his own reality. And bring into scrutiny his one-sided crush on the straightest man he knew (other than Hopper and who knows what happened in Russia during desperate times and all that) Steve said things that sometimes made Eddie stop and think, an offhand comment about some celebrity in a magazine, or the infamous time he let slip that he knew of Eddie's favorite queer club in Indy.
But Eddie didn't want to force anyone's hand, it wasn't for him to assume or make someone out themselves.
But maybe his one-sided crush was oh so much worse, and actually on someone who could like him back… and just didn't?
Eddie wasn't sure if it was the brain fog or the weed that had him analyzing, but he was sure that Steve had moved closer Almost on top of him again now they had rolled to their sides. And Steve was very much not watching the television, his eyes were fixed on him.
"That almost sounds like you want to fuck Jack Burton Stevie?" He had aimed to make it sound like a joke, but his voice faltered making it sound more like a question.
Steve moved quickly, sometimes Eddie forgot he could do that, it had been a long time since either of them had run for their lives or done any sort of sports, but Steve was clearly still working out, he slung his leg over Eddie and pinned him down by the shoulders, leaning in close, and the fucker was grinning.
“Just listen to the ol' Porkchop Express and take his advice on a dark and stormy night, alright?” Steve started monologing in a way that was so damn reminiscent of Eddie’s own style he was almost touched, “When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye, and asks you if you paid your dues;” Steve lent forward, and Eddie almost saw god as Steve’s hips pressed down towards his own, but Steve either didn’t hear or ignored the gasp that escaped him, really leaning into quoting the movie. “you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that:” Steve was practically nose to nose with him now, Eddie had to go cross-eyed to focus, the smell of the weed was heavy between them, Steve’s breath was ghosting on his lips as he spoke "Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes, sir, the check is in the mail.”
Neither of them could remember what day of the week it was but the lunatic could recite the entire opening of the damn film they were watching word for word, it shouldn’t be as hot as it was, but Eddie was above everything else a nerd.
Then the madman laughed, swinging back to break the trance that he had captured Eddie in, but not removing himself from where he straddled Eddie. It was on the way to becoming a problem. A problem that Steve was probably going to become aware of sooner rather than later.
“Not answering my question sweetheart?” he somehow asked when he got the blood to re-direct to his brain.
"I mean, jock action heroes are more your thing, so maybe not Jack Burton. But Snake Pliskin? One of us wouldn't be walking for a week after." Steve didn't even look embarrassed, like admitting he would fuck Kurt Russell wouldn’t get him murdered if he muttered it in the wrong place.
Although Eddie was one to talk, he was currently the one with a lap full of another man.
Plucking the joint from behind Eddie's ear where he had placed it for safekeeping (Steve's rug had a habit of eating anything left unattended, the shag pile was great for getting lost in when you were stoned. The one on the floor not the one on Steve's chest, although Eddie had wondered on more than one occasion if it might have the same effect.) Steve went to light it again wriggling around while he tried to find the lighter in his back pocket.
Suddenly the position they were in became dramatically different to any other time they had found themselves lying like this, it was loaded with something almost thrilling. Like the anticipation in line for a rollercoaster, or the thrill of waiting for the headline to perform.
Eddie really really wanted to kiss Steve.
And he felt Steve had orchestrated a master plan to get him to this point, the note, the weed, the goddamn pizza and the fact that he was lying on his back with Steve straddling him like the opening scenes of some skin vid.
Steve hadn’t moved away, the trail of his fingers along the shell of his ear was almost deliberate, like Steve was testing the water. The two of them never really shy away from the other's touch, but this was more, Eddie could feel it.
"I don't think I've got the jaw structure to be Kurt Russell babe."
Steve moved the hand from his ear down to his jaw, stroking the scarred skin that ran across it with his thumb, Steve's pupils were dilated and Eddie was sure now it was from more than just the purple palm tree, it was pure want; it was desire. It was everything that Eddie had been feeling for the better part of the last three years.
Brain fog be damned, Eddie couldn't take it anymore, he placed his hands on Steve’s hips and pulled.
Steve came willingly, it only took a moment for his lips to find Eddie’s, searching them out with laser precision, hands moving up to twist into Eddie’s hair and pull. There was no way that Steve missed that groan, to be fair Eddie wasn’t sure who it had come from, too busy sinking into the feel of Steve pushing his way past his lips with his tongue and pressing him further into the rug.
God, Steve had orchestrated this whole night with the precision of one of Eddie’s campaigns and Eddie was putty in his hands, hands that were currently exploring the shape of him, sliding over his hips, his ass his…
Eddie broke the kiss, sliding his mouth to Steve’s cheek, then across to his ear.
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"What are we doing?"
"I have no idea." Steve pulled back enough to look down at him, and Eddie got a moment to appreciate how damn disheveled the other man looked with his glasses all smudged and askew, hair a mess and lips bruised from kissing. I did that.
"So you don't do all this with all your friends?" Eddie joked.
"My friends consist of my ex, her boyfriend… Whatever Argyle is, a lesbian and a bunch of school kids… if you're talking about being stoned and having a life-changing moment while lying on the floor, that happens surprisingly frequently for such a dynamic group of people. "
"Steve…"
"If you're talking about this…" Steve nudged his nose against his cheek "This is just for you."
"So I'm special?"
"Mmm hu," Steve mumbled into his cheek, lips ghosting his skin, before his hand reached around to Eddie's back pocket and grabbed the pen from it, ripping the lid off with his teeth he lent back down and grabbed at Eddie’s wrist pulling his hand above his head and holding it in place. A shiver ran through him, and yeah Eddie would unpack that later, but for now, he watched as Steve traced the line of the worst of the bat bites on his arm down to the point where they had given him a blood transfusion in the hospital.
Steve signed his name next to the mottled skin, before reaching up and kissing the inside of his elbow. “Did you know you called yourself a vampire in the hospital when they gave you my blood to save you?”
“You did what now? I did what now?” Eddie had no recollection of this at all.
“I told Wayne you wouldn’t remember, I told Wayne a lot of stuff over the last few years,” Steve released his grip on his wrists, letting Eddie move to hold him. “I told him back then you were special and I couldn’t lose you, and I’m telling you now Eddie, You’re special, and I want to keep you… If you’ll have me.”
Eddie pulled him closer, taking Steve’s face in his hands, scanning for the lie, the unsaid things that Steve Harrington didn’t say, he couldn’t find anything.
“Hope you’re up for a trip.”
“What?”
“I'm getting that chicken scratch you call a signature tattooed on, I’m not forgetting this.” Eddie grinned and pulled Steve in for another kiss.
Eddie Munson was confused. But not about this.
They might be battered and broken, but together they at least made a fully functioning human and that was enough.