Archive of Our Own

Steve thanks his past self for rolling up the windows before he started driving. Between the music and the rush of air as he goes forty on a twenty-five, he wouldn’t be able to ask Eddie the question that’s been bothering him since they scrambled out of his house in Loch Nora and into the Beemer:

“Why the hell do you have a curfew at nineteen years old?”

Because a curfew is such a buzzkill. A curfew, one that Eddie remembered mid-spectacular makeout session, effectively killed the mood they were building up to while pretending to watch a movie, replaced it with panic and confusion and this Cannonball Run -like race back across Hawkins to Forest Hills.

Eddie sighs, dramatic like he always is, and thumps his head back against the headrest. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“No shit,” Steve says. “All I’m saying is that Wayne doesn’t feel like a curfew kind of guy.”

Truthfully, Steve doesn’t know what kind of guy Eddie’s uncle is. He’s never had a chance to talk to him. Eddie has never said a word against him, talks all the time about how he saved his life when he took him in, but Steve has never met him. He isn’t even sure if he knows that Eddie and Steve are dating. He doesn’t know if Wayne would be okay with it. 

For all that he talks, Eddie’s never said anything about that.

“That’s because he isn’t.”

Steve glances at Eddie as he hooks a right way too fast. “Then who-”

“It’s a legal curfew,” Eddie says with a small smile on his face. “Hopper made it.”

“Hopper gave you a curfew,” Steve deadpans.

“Yup,” Eddie says, popping the p. “He was incredibly sick of my shit during my first senior year, so he said that if he ever caught me out after midnight, he’d throw my sorry ass in jail for a week instead of just overnight.”

“Didn’t you deal at my parties that year?”

“Oh, yeah. But Hopper doesn’t work Fridays.”

“Does he work Saturdays?” Steve asks, pulling into the trailer park.

“I wouldn’t be rushing you if he didn’t,” Eddie says.

Steve pulls up in front of Eddie’s trailer. The light is on, its yellow hue attracting a few moths to it. The couch sits on the porch, and on the couch sits Wayne.

Holding a shotgun.

“Eddie,” Steve says. “Why is your uncle sitting outside with a shotgun?”

Eddie peers forward. “That’s a rifle, actually.”

On the porch, Wayne stands up.

“Oh, that’s the good rifle,” Eddie says. He points, his finger nearly pressing into the windshield. “See? It’s got the scope on it.”

“I don’t care what it is,” Steve snaps. “Why is he coming toward us with the gun?”

Wayne is, in fact, walking toward the car, which is thirty feet from the porch.

“Beats me,” Eddie says, infuriatingly calm.

Steve has never been threatened by someone else’s parent before. He’s good with adults. He’s great, actually. Charming, even. He asks them what they do for work and answers all of their questions with polite smiles and light laughter. Steve is good at winning over the parents of people he’s dated. Hell, even Ted Wheeler begrudgingly had a positive opinion on him.

Then again, the only people Steve has ever dated have been girls. At least, before 1985, before Eddie.

Figures that in the same month he figures out he likes boys, too, Steve manages to snag a boyfriend. Then again, he’s lucky in love in a way he isn’t with anything else.

Right now, though? He doesn’t feel lucky. Not at all. His boyfriend’s uncle - who Steve has never met -  is coming toward his car with a rifle in his hand, and he doesn’t know what the hell to do about it.

So, he does the only thing he can think of: hHe throws the Beemer in reverse and pushes the gas pedal down to the floor.

No way in hell he’s dying in the driveway of his boyfriend’s house. No way in hell he’s getting blood in the upholstery of his car. It was such a bitch to clean the backseat from the aftermath of Hargrove and the plate last November.

“Shit, Stevie!” Eddie hollers, nearly face planting into the dash. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Not taking chances,” Steve says, whipping the wheel all the way to the left and turning a full one hundred and eighty degrees faster than he ever has in his life. He floors the gas again, and the squeal of tires announces their departure out of Forest Hills.

Eddie’s twisted around in his seat like a pretzel, watching the lights of the trailer park recede in the rear window. “Holy shit.”

“What time does Wayne go to work?” Steve asks. He prays that he actually has a shift in the morning, then prays again that he’ll go in rather than wait on the porch with the good rifle. It’s the most religious he’s been in years.

What makes a rifle the good rifle? What’s the bad rifle like?

“5 AM,” Eddie says. “He got put on early morning shifts this week.”

Steve checks the clock on the dash, which, as he expected, reads a solid 12:00 AM. So. Five hours to kill, and Hawkins is dead after eight, unless there’s a house party going on. Steve doesn’t get invited to those anymore, and Eddie never was in the first place. 

That means there aren’t a lot of options besides wasting gas driving around or parking somewhere in the woods. Gas is really expensive, and Steve hates the woods because of the monsters.

“Make a right here,” Eddie says.

“Huh?”

“Make a right,” Eddie says urgently, so Steve turns right, nearly swinging onto the wrong side of the road - thank God there’s no oncoming traffic - as he does.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere to kill time.”

“Not the Hideout,” Steve warns. He doesn’t hate the place. Far from it, actually, with the good memories of seeing a few of Eddie’s shows there. It’s just way too close to Forest Hills for his comfort.

Eddie laughs. “No, not the Hideout. If Wayne’s after us, that’s the first place he’ll look.”

Steve almost turns around to check before he remembers that he’s driving. He settles instead on glancing back in the rearview mirror and is reassured by the absence of headlights in the pitch black.

“Why the hell is he after us?” he asks, readjusting his clammy grip on the wheel.

“No idea.”

“How are you so calm about this?”

“Well, he won’t shoot me. Make a left.”

Steve makes the turn and then glares at Eddie.

“Sorry,” he says, and he blows his bangs out of his face. “I don’t know. I don’t… listen, he probably wouldn’t shoot you.”

“Probably?”

“He says ammo’s expensive.”

“You,” Steve says through gritted teeth, “are not helping.”

“Well, we’re in this now. Fully committed to the next five hours of evading my uncle and the law,” Eddie says, rolling down his window.

Steve, for some reason, does the same. “Aren’t we out of Hawkins by now?”

“Not sure. I know there aren't a lot of people, but I don’t know how big town actually is. Turn in this driveway.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave off a headache and pulls into a big parking lot for a little bar.

It looks cozy, almost. Warm light spills out of every window, music plays from inside, something with a good bass and steady beat, and a blue and red neon sign above the doorway proclaims it as “The Broken Windowpane.”

Steve thinks the name fits, though all the windows are open and intact.

“What is this place?” he asks, turning off the car when Eddie gets out.

“A place with decent drinks and better dancing,” Eddie says.

Privately, Steve can’t imagine Eddie dancing without looking like a pool noodle in the hands of a five year old on a sugar high, but he doesn’t think he should mention that fact to him.

They walk toward the front door, which Eddie holds open for the two of them. 

Steve still isn’t used to that. Being on the receiving end of those chivalrous gestures. Then again, he and Eddie have only been together for two months, while Steve has been taking girls out for years. Still. It’s nice. The gestures are nice, and so is the off-kilter feeling of his heart at seeing Eddie perform them for him.

He really hopes he never gets used to that feeling.

The inside of the bar is about what Steve expected: wood floor, haze of smoke, yellow lights, men standing around pool tables and occasionally taking a break from trash-talking each other to actually make a move. It’s cozy and almost welcoming, and the dance floor to the right and behind a few tables makes it different from any place Steve has been.

(He hasn’t been to many places. He’s really only ever gotten drunk at his house, sometimes off alcohol he didn’t even have to pay for. Carol used to joke, a little mean like she always was, that the phrase pretty people don’t buy their own drinks applied to girls and Steve.)

“Eddie!” the bartender - a woman in her mid-thirties with vivid red hair and big, dark eyes - calls out.

“Charlie!” he says. “If-”

“If Hopper comes, you weren’t here,” she finishes with a smirk.

“No. If Wayne comes, I wasn’t here,” Eddie corrects. “If Hopper comes, you don’t even know who Eddie Munson is.”

Charlie throws her head back to laugh loudly and grandly. Steve likes her already. She’s inviting in a brash sort of way, kind of like Eddie.

“Who’s he?” she asks once she’s done, pointing sharply at Steve.

“A friend,” Eddie answers. “Steve, Charlie. Charlie, Steve.”

“Nice to meet you,” Steve says, and he offers her his hand to shake over the bar.

She takes it and shakes it firmly. “You too. Anything I can get you?”

“I’m driving.”

“Just water for both of us,” Eddie says. “Gotta keep our heads on straight in case we need to make a quick getaway.”

Charlie shakes her head, smiles, and sets two glasses of water down on the bar. “Suit yourselves. Have fun, and don’t-”

“Make trouble?” Eddie finishes.

She shakes her head fondly. Steve picks up the glasses and lets Eddie lead him to a small table. “How do you know her?” he asks once they sit down.

Eddie takes a sip of the water before he answers. “Our band used to play here, and when Charlie was on, she’d comp our drinks.”

“Used to play here? So not anymore?”

“Doing two shows a week was too much, and the crowd here gave us trouble sometimes.”

Steve wants to take Eddie’s hand over the table. He wants to lace their fingers together, rub his thumb into Eddie’s skin, feel Eddie’s callouses scratch lightly against the back of his hand.

But he can’t. They’re out, and they’re not in the right kind of place to do that. He doesn’t even have to look around toward the men around the pool tables or the women near their boyfriends for confirmation of that fact.

Between that realization - one Steve isn’t used to and one he isn’t ever sure he wants to get used to - and Eddie introducing him quickly as a friend, Steve starts to get an idea of the kind of trouble Eddie and the band got when they played here.

After all, Steve never wondered amidst his crisis back in the spring if Eddie liked boys.

“Come on,” Eddie says, dragging Steve out of his head. “I promised dancing, didn’t I?”

Steve lets Eddie drag him over to the sparsely but enthusiastically populated dance floor. Couples spin each other around, and groups of people form little circles with their friends in the center, loudly cheering them on. Steve watches and wonders how he didn’t notice earlier that all the music that’s been playing since they walked in has been country.

Like, aggressively country. There’s banjos.

“Why do you look confused?” Eddie asks, tying his hair back with his bandana.

Steve tears his eyes away from his arms, stops looking at how his shoulders flex where the tank top leaves them bare. “This place is really country.”

“You can find country outside of the South, Mr. Top 40.”

Steve laughs. “Doesn’t seem like you, is all.”

“I think,” Eddie says as the song switches to something Steve doesn’t recognize, though the rest of the bar clearly does, “you’d be surprised.”

Before he can blink, the few but excited inhabitants of the dance floor have congregated in the center, doing the same steps at the same time, laughing and talking all the while.

Eddie, of course, is right in the middle of them. He dances between two brown-skinned, black-haired girls.

Steve isn’t jealous. Even though what he and Eddie have is new, he’s secure enough in it, trusts Eddie enough to not be jealous. Eddie doesn’t even like girls, at least not that he’s told Steve.

And, anyway, how can he be jealous when he’s so focused on Eddie having fun?

He’s beaming. Steve doesn’t know if he’s ever seen him look happier. He’s absolutely grinning as he steps and spins and moves in time with the music, in time with the other people around him.

Eddie looks so happy, and he looks so good.

Steve knows this is neither the time nor the place to openly ogle his boyfriend, so he tries to stop himself. He really does. But Eddie’s legs in those tight black jeans, his hips as he spins around, and his arms completely exposed by the Judas Priest shirt he made into a tank top out of boredom last month do not get Steve to stop staring.

His shoes do, though. There’s something almost silly about Eddie dancing to a country song Steve doesn’t know the name of in his white high tops.

The song ends soon after, and Eddie leaves the dance floor with a wave to those two girls. He heads over to Steve and says, “Are you surprised?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and he thinks the universe should award him some points for managing to sound normal.

Then Eddie gives him a knowing smile, so maybe Steve wasn’t as normal as he thought. “Come on.”

“What do you mean, come on?”

“Come on, I’ll teach you,” Eddie says, just a shred condescending in the fun way.

Steve looks around hesitantly. Only when he sees a girl trying to teach her friend and two guys laughing as they dance together and no one saying anything about it does he follow Eddie over to the dance floor.

He’s not afraid. He’s not ashamed. He thought he was, at first, before he learned the difference between that and being cautious, staying alive.

It’ll hurt, though, to have to treat this like some sort of joke. But if that’s what Steve has to do to get to be close to his boyfriend and watch him dance and smile, then he’ll force all the laughter in the world.

“I’ll start you off easy,” Eddie says. “Just mirror me, yeah?”

He starts off slow to an exaggerated eight count. He steps to the right, crosses his feet, steps again, hops forward, then repeats it. To another eight count, he does the same thing on the left side. And at the end, he steps forward, swings his hips right-left-right, then left-right-left, and turns left to start it all over again.

Easy, like he says. Steve has no trouble following him step for step.

“I know I said this was easy, but this seems unfairly easy for you,” Eddie says mid-turn, going through it again.

Steve stops to shrug. “Doesn’t seem that hard.”

“Some of us were not coordinated children.”

“And some of us were thrown into sports from the time we could walk,” Steve says. “While others of us aren’t very coordinated adults, either.”

Eddie laughs and shoves him in the shoulder. If his hand lingers there, if Steve lets his hand linger there a little too long to be considered entirely platonic, well, no one says anything.

“Fuck you, man. I did just fine, and you know it,” Eddie laughs.

“More than fine,” Steve murmurs, and Eddie lights up like a Christmas tree.

“See,” he teases.

Steve rolls his eyes as the song changes to something he knows, something he’s heard on the radio, something a little fast and a lot of fun.

He takes Eddie’s hand and tugs him a little closer, a little more toward the center of the dance floor. “Let’s go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s dance to this.”

Eddie looks at him, wide-eyed and panicked. “I don’t know a dance to this.”

“We’ll make one up.”

“Steve,” Eddie says very seriously. “Some of us aren’t very coordinated adults.”

“Some of us are coordinated enough for the two of us,” Steve says, and he tugs Eddie along with him to start dancing.

He’s just making it up as he goes. Feeling the beat and figuring out what fits, what feels good, what’s fun.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Eddie says, almost tripping and falling on his face.

Steve grabs him by the shoulders and straightens him up. Instead of saying something along the lines of “neither do I,” he says, “How about you just follow me?”

Eddie looks at him with big, dark eyes. Even in the dim light of the bar, amidst the haze of smoke wafting over from the men near the pool tables, Steve sees himself reflected in them. He sees the awe in Eddie’s eyes. He sees the love.

“Okay,” Eddie says, and he looks at Steve like he hung the moon and stars.

Steve hopes he’ll never get used to that.

But now, he focuses on the now, and the now is dancing. He spins, Eddie spins. He steps, Eddie steps. He smiles, Eddie smiles. It’s messy and uncoordinated and not half bad and full of laughter.

It’s perfect, even when Eddie manages to jump right onto all ten of Steve’s toes.

The song lasts forever. The song lasts an instant. Regardless, it ends, as songs always do.

When it does, Steve and Eddie end up face to face, nearly chest to chest, to the cheers and laughter of the rest of the bar. And, though it hurts, though it’s the opposite of what he wants to do, Steve steps back and laughs with them.

It has to look like a joke. Jokes are safe. Jokes are straight. Jokes keep them alive in the middle of country bars in the early morning, far from the law they’re running from, the law that, if this place isn’t in Hawkins, wouldn’t do anything to help.

It’s stuff like this that almost makes Steve wish he never figured himself out. If he never figured out he liked boys, too, he wouldn’t have to know these things. He wouldn’t have to worry about how he looks and how much affection is acceptable in public. He’d only date girls, and it would be so easy.

Steve doesn’t want easy. He wants Eddie.

And from the look in Eddie’s eyes, he wants Steve, too.

Like, wants wants Steve.

Oh.

They’ve never done that before. They’ve never gotten that far.

Steve surprises himself with the realization that he wants wants Eddie, too.

He’d rather have their first time somewhere else. In a bed, ideally, though a couch would work. A car would do in a pinch, with the extra room in Eddie’s van being preferable to the potential of ruining the expensive upholstery in the Beemer. A bar bathroom, particularly this kind of bar’s bathroom, is less than ideal.

It’s dangerous. But when he’s with Eddie, Steve finds he doesn’t mind dangerous.

“Bathroom,” he says, and Eddie nods frantically. “Meet me after a few minutes.”

Because girls go to the bathroom in groups. Guys don’t. Guys only do that if they’re really drunk, which they’re not, or if they’re really obvious, which they’re trying not to be.

Eddie nods again. Steve squeezes his hand once, softly, before he lets go in favor of walking through the battered wooden door with “men” faintly scratched into it.

It’s not awful. The floor is a little sticky, but no less sticky than the rest of the bar. It smells like a bathroom smells and, thankfully, not any worse. There’s two of everything - stalls, sinks, et cetera - except for windows. There’s only one of those, right above the corner stall, cracked open so the cool summer air can ventilate the space just a little bit.

Steve thinks he can see a couple of stars through the grimy glass. It’s almost nice.

Being sentimental about this bathroom is easier than being nervous about screwing Eddie. He shouldn’t be nervous. It’s Eddie. But Steve has no idea how to make a guy feel good. His gag reflex sucks (there were some very weird truth or dare games in middle school that made information public knowledge to most people his age in Hawkins) and going all the way requires prep or whatever else Eddie mentioned the one time they blushed and stumbled through a conversation about it. Steve didn’t do anything about that, and he doesn’t think Eddie did, either, so that’s off the table. What can they do, then? Just use their hands? Is Steve going to embarrass himself by trying to suck Eddie’s di-

His thoughts are interrupted by a flurry of limbs crashing into him. One hand goes into his hair, the other around his waist, and then Eddie’s lips are on his, kissing him feverishly.

Steve, of course, kisses him right back.

He’s probably biased, but kissing Eddie is the best kind of kissing Steve has done. He’s done a lot of kissing, but something about Eddie’s enthusiasm, the mess, the way he uses his teeth, make Steve weak in the knees.

Eddie isn’t like any of the girls Steve has kissed. He isn’t-

Oh, shit.

Eddie isn’t a girl.

Duh.

“Stall,” Steve says, breaking away. Eddie drags him back, and Steve allows one more kiss before saying, “We can’t do this here. We need to get into a stall.”

“In a minute,” Eddie says, choosing to attack his throat instead.

“Now,” Steve urges, and if it comes out a little whiny as the result of Eddie sucking a nice hickey under the collar of his shirt, where it’ll stay hidden, that’s nobody’s business.

Eddie sighs and backs Steve toward a stall as he fumbles for his belt.

And the door opens.

Steve freezes, making wide, panicked eye contact with the man who just walked in. He’s a big man, one who was over by the pool tables while they were dancing, one with a gold front tooth, one with a tattoo with words Steve can’t quite read in the dim light of the bathroom.

One whose face morphs right into anger.

One who starts coming toward Eddie.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he growls, “you fucking fa-”

He never finishes the word.

Steve doesn’t know what happens. All he does know is that this big guy went straight for Eddie. Eddie, who’s always been a target. Who’s always been easy to spot. Who’s unapologetic and uncaring, who covers his soft heart with leather armor.

He ignored Steve. Like because Steve isn’t dressed like that, if he isn’t the one reaching for a belt, if he looks normal, he’s less queer.

Steve didn’t want the guy to come at him. He doesn’t want to get hurt. But no one comes for Eddie without him getting involved.

Because he loves him.

Oh, fuck , he loves him.

The guy - Gold Tooth, Steve calls him in his head - doesn’t finish the word because Steve’s fist connects with his jaw so hard and so fast he’s out cold before he hits the wall, then the floor.

And that’s when Steve realizes that God damn do his knuckles hurt.

He clutches his hand to his chest and doubles over as the sting spreads through his hand. “Fucking hell!”

When he manages to shake his hand out and is reasonably convinced that nothing is broken, he sees Eddie crouched next to Gold Tooth, two fingers on his wrist.

Steve can read the tattoo better in this position. Born to kill, it says, and he has to suppress a ridiculous giggle at the circumstances.

Eddie stands up. “Well, he’s not dead.”

“Why the hell would he be dead?”

“He hit his head. He could have died.”

“I’ve hit my head and managed to stay alive.”

Eddie cocks his head to the side in confusion, then shakes it like he’s snapping himself out of something. “He’s not dead.”

“Why,” Steve asks cautiously, “do you seem disappointed by that?”

“I’d feel better about hiding a body than trying to get out of here without anyone noticing.”

Steve blinks. Blinks again. “Okay, but for the record, we are both glad he’s not dead, yeah?”

Eddie nods, then gently prods the guy’s face with his foot. “We gotta get out of here.”

“Yeah, through the door.”

“No, his buddies will - ooh, what’s this?”

Steve watches as Eddie bends back down and picks up-

“Eddie, put the tooth down.”

“It’s gold.”

“It’s his tooth.”

“Is it his anymore if it’s not in his mouth?” Eddie wonders, examining it underneath the lights. “It’s almost pretty.”

Steve wants to bang his head into the wall, but that would be both gross and unhelpful. “It’s evidence. Put the damn tooth down.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and places it back by Gold Tooth’s head. “You’re no fun.”

“You said something about getting out of here,” Steve reminds him.

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie says. “Window.”

“What?”

“Window. And we gotta hurry in case any of his friends notice he’s missing.”

Steve walks over to the corner stall and, before he can overthink it, stands on the toilet seat to better reach the window. “How are you so calm about this?”

“I keep my panic on the inside,” Eddie says, standing behind Steve in case he falls, “where it belongs.”

Steve knows that’s not quite true. The small shake in Eddie’s voice, as well as his easily distractible tendencies, give him away as panicking very, very hard and trying so, so hard to hide it.

Not that Steve is doing much better.

Shit, is that guy gonna wake up before they get out of here?

Steve pushes on the window, but it doesn’t budge. He pulls, just for shits, and it closes easily because of course it does.

Alright. New plan.

He takes off his navy blue polo, narrowly missing the ceiling with his sore knuckles, and wraps it around his other hand.

“Steve,” Eddie warns.

“Time to make this place live up to its name,” he mutters, and he puts his closed fist through the glass.

He’s pretty sure Eddie says something along the lines of “oh my fucking God, I’m gonna owe Charlie so much” but it’s difficult to hear him over the resounding crash of breaking glass.

At least it sounds worse than it feels. This hand, by the time Steve is done knocking all the shattered remnants of the windowpane outside, hurts way less than the hand he used to knock out Gold Tooth.

He should probably double check that nothing is broken on that one.

“You first,” Steve says, stepping down from the toilet seat.

Eddie stares at him.

“We gotta go,” Steve urges.

When Eddie just keeps staring, Steve gets a better look at him, at his slack jaw and wide eyes. He tracks his gaze not to his face, but down to his shirtless chest, where he stopped shaving once his senior swim season ended.

“Eddie. Baby,” he says, a little nicer. “Not the time or place.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, snapping out of it. “Window, now, me, going.”

Luckily, the window is wide enough for his shoulders. It only takes a little wriggling, pushing, and once close call between his left shoe and Steve’s face for him to slide through the window and out the other side.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Eddie screeches, and Steve casts a glance back to Gold Tooth on the floor.

He’s twitching, but not waking up. At least, Steve hopes he’s not waking up.

“Farther landing than you’d expect,” Eddie says from outside. “But the trash bags softened it. Stick your hands out and you’ll be fine.”

Fine. Yeah, even with the trash bags, Steve doesn’t think he’ll be fine.

The window is wide enough for Steve’s shoulders, but it’s too narrow.

“My ass isn’t gonna fit through here,” he says.

“I fit just fine,” Eddie reassures him.

“No,” Steve says, sticking his head through the window. “My ass literally won’t fit through here. You can hang a picture on yours, so you didn’t have to worry.”

There isn’t enough light outside for Steve to see Eddie’s face, but he can imagine the pout on it just fine.

“Take off your jeans, then,” Eddie says after a beat.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, like, it’ll make you slimmer and reduce friction or something.”

“Reduce friction?”

“I don’t fucking know, I failed physics!” Eddie groans.

“I’m not taking my pants off,” Steve says. He runs a hand lightly over the rough wooden frame of the window. “I’ll get splinters in my ass.”

Steve doesn’t need any light to get a perfect sense of Eddie’s roaring laughter.

So much for a quiet getaway.

“Ass splinters,” Eddie wheezes, and, alright, Steve can admit that it sounds ridiculous coming from someone else, “are the least of our worries right now, Stevie.”

Steve sighs and empties out his pockets. “Catch these.”

“Don’t throw anything, I almost failed gym, t-”

Steve drops his wallet and his keys out the window before Eddie finishes his sentence.

He boosts himself up, getting his head and shoulders through the window. So far, so good. He sucks in, wiggles through, ignores Eddie’s vaguely encouraging commentary, and stops once his waist is through.

“Told you so,” Steve says, hanging half out the bathroom window. “My ass is too big.”

“Suck in,” Eddie tries.

“I can’t suck my ass in, dipshit.”

“Then - fucking, I don’t know - relax?”

Steve sticks his hands out. “Pull me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Eddie says, looking conflicted.

“I’m not getting out of here otherwise,” Steve says. “Pull me.”

Eddie grabs Steve’s hands, plants one of his feet against the wall, and yanks.

It feels like a truck is trying to tow his arms away from his shoulders, but Steve doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t cry out or make any sort of noise to indicate pain because Eddie will stop if he does.

Eddie can’t stop because they need to get out of here.

Eddie especially can’t stop because the door of the bathroom opens behind Steve and someone who sounds very big and very mean yells, “What the hell?”

“Pull harder!” Steve shouts.

“Get smaller!” Eddie counters, but it doesn’t matter.

Steve falls through the window and on top of Eddie and the trash bags the second he hears footsteps behind him.

Talk about a close call.

“You okay?” he asks Eddie.

“For being used as a shitty landing pad, I’m alright.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eddie says, and he stands up, offers his hand to Steve. “Let’s get out of here. We can even play it casual. Take a nice, leisurely walk across the parking lot.”

Steve takes his hand to stand up just as the sound of police sirens rises in the distance.

“Well, fuck me, I guess,” Eddie mutters, and he takes off for the car.

Steve takes a few seconds to put his shirt back on, and then he’s running after Eddie toward the Beemer.

Eddie, who’s already in the driver’s seat.

“Switch,” Steve says as soon as he reaches the car.

Eddie revs the engine, which makes Steve die a little on the inside. “I already have the keys.”

“It’s my car.”

“We don’t have the time to fight about this.”

Steve sees faint dots of blue and red along the road. They’re steadily growing bigger.

“I hate when you’re right,” he says, and because they’re running out of time, he slides across the hood of the Beemer instead of going around. As soon as he’s in the passenger seat, Eddie tears out of the driveway.

“Unfair of you to be that fucking hot and I can’t do anything about it,” he rambles, gunning the engine in an effort to lose the lights and sirens behind them.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Steve asks.

“The dancing, then knocking that guy out, then breaking the window, then sliding across the hood-”

“That can’t possibly be a turn on.”

“We left possible behind a long time ago, sweetheart,” Eddie says, and he whips the car to the right so fast Steve is convinced the road behind them ignites.

When he takes a look back, he finds that it doesn’t. He also finds that the lights and sirens are closer than before, not farther.

“We haven’t lost them yet.”

“I know,” Eddie says through gritted teeth.

“I could drive-”

“Stevie, you are not getaway driver material.”

“And you are?”

Eddie makes a hard left. Something crunches underneath the tires. Steve really hopes it was a mailbox post or something else equally innocuous.

“Done it before.”

“What?”

“Childhood trauma is a daytime conversation,” Eddie says.

“What?”

Behind them, the sound of sirens grows exponentially louder. In response, Eddie banks a hard left down a road Steve didn’t even think existed. It puts some distance between them and the cops, but not much.

“Fuck this,” Eddie says, and he starts driving toward-

“Eddie,” Steve warns, “There’s no road here.”

He doesn’t answer. He shifts to a higher gear. The wind whips through the windows, over the radio that’s just static at this point, over the sirens that are starting to get closer again.

“Why are we driving somewhere with no road?” Steve shouts.

He doesn’t get an answer before Eddie cuts the headlights and the car is filled with leaves.

“Oh, we left the fucking windows down!” Eddie curses.

Steve gets smacked in the face with alternating leaves and more solid things. “Are we in a cornfield?”

“Yup.”

“Who the hell has a cornfield in Hawkins?”

Eddie yells over the rush of leaves, “Someone who won’t like us very much in the morning.”

Steve spits out a piece of husk and starts cranking his window up. “I’m gonna have to clean so much tomorrow.”

“We gotta make it to tomorrow first.”

Eddie parks the car and cuts the engine. After a moment, he also rolls the window up, batting stalks out of its path.

“Why are we stopped?” Steve asks, once it’s up. He knows he isn’t the quickest on the uptake, but he thinks quiet is a good idea right now.

“Because,” Eddie whispers, “if I did well enough, they’ll think we left, and we’re free to go.”

Steve can’t resist asking, “And if you didn’t?”

“Then they’ll slam right into us, and we’ll have a new problem.”

Multiple problems, Steve thinks to himself, between the bodily harm and the damage to the car.

He doesn’t say that though. Not when the stars - and there are a hell of a lot of stars out here - cast Eddie’s panicked face in a crystal-clear silver. He’s breathing hard, and his hand, when he loosens his grip on the gearshift, shakes. The little reflections of light off his rings move around the car. Under different circumstances, it’d be pretty.

Steve puts his hand on top of Eddie’s. He squeezes it to stop the shaking, heedless of the way his rings bite into the palm of his hand. “Hey.”

Eddie looks over at him. His dark eyes shine, and in the dim light, there’s no difference between iris and pupil. They’re just infinite.

“You okay?”

“Am I okay?” Eddie repeats. “Steve, you’re the one who got threatened with a rifle and knocked a guy down with one punch and gave up your keys to someone who’s never looked at a car this expensive, nevermind driven one. You’re the one who got scared, and rightfully so. Nevermind me, I think I should be asking if you’re okay.”

Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand between both of his own.

“Are you okay?” Eddie whispers.

“I’m alright,” Steve says, and he means it. “My hand’s a little sore, and I have no idea if your uncle will have the rifle again when we get back to your place, but I’m alright.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. “Okay. I’m okay, too. Just don’t like cops, and the guy in the bathroom was pretty scary. But…”

“But what?”

“You’re a good dancer,” Eddie says, smile blooming on his face. “And driving this car is so fucking fun.”

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Steve asks. “It’ll be a bitch to clean, but that’s a tomorrow morning problem.”

“I’ll help,” Eddie says.

He didn’t need to say that. Steve didn’t doubt him for a second.

Twin pairs of red and blue lights pull in front of them, and, for a moment, Steve thinks they’re made. That he and Eddie will be sharing Hawkins Police Station’s finest accommodations for the night, if not longer. That he’ll have to use his one phone call for… probably Dustin fucking Henderson, since none of his old friends talk to him and his parents are out of town until Monday.

But the lights start to recede, so he and Eddie let out matching sighs of relief.

“What time is it?” he asks, once they’re certain the cars are gone for good.

Eddie glances at the clock on the dash, but it’s too dark. He squints at his watch instead, and, after a moment, says, “About two thirty. I think.”

Two and a half hours to kill, Steve thinks. Though he wants nothing more than to fall asleep with Eddie in the backseat, staying in the cornfield isn’t an option.

There’s always the woods, but Steve won’t do that. He hates them, has hated them since the end of ‘83, and, on the off chance that it comes back, he won’t let Eddie be there to see it.

Eddie thinks monsters only exist in his games. Steve wants to keep it that way.

“The quarry,” Steve says.

Eddie snaps out of whatever he was muttering to himself. He starts fidgeting with Steve’s hand, the one he used to break the window. “What?”

“We can kill the time at the quarry. No one’s around this late at night. We can watch the sun rise.”

Eddie thinks for a minute, then nods. “Solid choice.”

Steve lets go of his hand and offers one out, palm up. “Keys, please.”

“Oh, come on-”

“Eddie, you are getaway driver material, but I’m driving in non-emergency situations. Also, it’s my car. Gimme.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but he puts the keys in Steve’s hand.

They switch places. Steve doesn’t slide across the hood this time. He thinks Eddie might be a little disappointed by that.

The drive to the quarry is relaxed. No cops, no gold-toothed men, no uncles with rifles. Steve keeps one hand on Eddie’s the whole way there, squeezes back when he squeezes.

Like he said, no one is out there. They sit in the dark, on the hood, looking up at the stars. Eddie smokes a cigarette, and Steve only takes a drag when offered. He quit smoking before his senior year, tried to help his lungs out a little bit for swimming and for basketball. He doesn’t like it, anyway. He doesn’t like the feeling of smoking, doesn’t even like a nicotine high.

He only likes the smell because it reminds him of Eddie. And, anyway, why would he need a high when he’s with him?

They talk about everything and nothing, and, when they run out of things to talk about, silence settles. It’s comfortable, like it should be.

Silence is always comfortable with people he loves, Steve has realized. And, as they sit by the quarry, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, leg to leg, he knows with the same certainty as knowing the sun will rise that he loves Eddie.

That’s terrifying. It’s like the moment before a roller coaster drops, knowing his stomach is going to threaten to displace his throat but being unable to stop it. It’s falling and being excited about it anyway because he knows that he won’t crash at the bottom.

He’ll fly.

Steve has always fallen too hard too fast. He and Eddie have only been dating for two months. So, he won’t say anything. Not yet. He’ll wait for Eddie to get there, to say something. Anything to not scare him away.

Steve has always been too much. So has Eddie. He thinks they can be too much together instead of too much for each other, but until he knows, he’s just fine waiting.

The sun rises over the water, casting it gray, then pink, then orange, then gold. By the time it’s just barely blue, Eddie’s watch reads 5:00 AM.

Steve drives them back to Forest Hills. He nearly swoons with relief when he sees that Wayne’s truck is out of the driveway.

Eddie goes in first, checks the trailer for any sign of his uncle. When he doesn’t find any, Steve goes in, too.

They barely make it into comfortable clothes before they fall asleep in Eddie’s bed, together.

Steve wakes up to sunlight on his face, which is odd. His bed is nearest a west-facing window, so he’s usually able to see sunsets, not sunrises. He’s confused and more than a little alarmed before he registers the weight of the arm slung across his stomach and the face buried into his shoulder.

He’s at Eddie’s. He’s at Eddie’s, having fallen asleep and woken up after the most batshit five hours of his life. And Eddie is on top of him, softly snoring just below his ear, occasionally moving in his sleep like he wants to burrow into Steve’s skin.

It’s nice. It’s so nice that Steve doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. He presses a sleepy kiss to the top of Eddie’s head and rests his cheek against it.

He isn’t sure if he falls asleep again or just slips out of awareness for a while, but the next thing he knows, there’s a shadow across his face. He blearily opens his eyes to see Wayne Munson standing against the wall, right in front of the window.

Steve thanks his past self for putting on a shirt. He usually doesn’t sleep with one, but he automatically took it last night when Eddie offered it. It’s black and faded like most of Eddie’s wardrobe, band logo lost to time and washing machines.

He sits up a little straighter, careful not to move Eddie too much, and tries not to freak out.

At least this time the good rifle is out of sight.

“Morning, sir,” he whispers, and he’s very proud of himself for keeping the shake out of his voice.

“Mornin’,” Wayne says. “You don’t gotta whisper. Eddie can sleep through the rapture.”

True to his word, Eddie doesn’t budge at Wayne’s normal volume.

“Harrington, is it?” Wayne continues.

“Yes, sir. Steve Harrington.”

“Wayne Munson,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

Steve tries to keep the confusion off his face in favor of being polite. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“What time did you boys get in?”

“Around 5 AM, sir.”

“Make any trouble?”

“No, sir,” Steve lies without hesitation, valiantly putting thoughts of broken windows and missing teeth and police sirens out of his mind.

Wayne nods like he believes him. “Sorry for scarin’ you so bad last night. Honestly forgot I was holding the good rifle, but then I figured it was just more efficient than a shovel talk. Didn’t think you’d run that fast, though.”

What fucking maniac wouldn’t run from someone holding a rifle? Steve thinks, but he knows better than to voice that opinion.

He also answers his question in the next second: Eddie. That’s the maniac.

“But I think we understand each other just fine,” Wayne says. “Right, Steve?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You treatin’ him right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He treatin’ you right?”

Steve tries to keep the shock at that question off his face. “Yes, sir.”

“You a football fan?” Wayne asks with a smile.

Steve smiles back. “Yes, sir.”

“Bears fan?”

“Colts, sir. I try to root local, if I can.”

Wayne sighs, but Steve can tell it’s teasing. “I guess I can live with that.”

Steve laughs, and Eddie, still asleep, doesn’t even move.

“Your car is cleaned up. Sleep in as long as you’d like. Pancakes are on the table, nuke ‘em if you don’t like ‘em cold.”

Gratitude overwhelms Steve, but he manages a “Thanks, sir.”

Wayne walks toward the door. “You can cut the sir shit. It makes me feel old.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Wayne pauses by the table near Eddie’s door. He looks down curiously, then picks up something small.

Something that glints gold in the morning sunlight.

Oh my God.

“Do I want to know-”

“I really don’t think so,” Steve answers quickly.

Wayne stares at the tooth Eddie kept - despite Steve telling him not to - for another few seconds before he sets it down on the table with a shake of his head. “We’ll watch the season opener together, Steve, once fall rolls around. God knows I shouldn’t be the only football fan under this roof”

“Sounds great,” Steve says, and he means it.

Wayne walks out, chuckling to himself, so Steve lets himself get comfortable. As he shifts, Eddie mumbles something.

“What was that?” he asks.

“What’s the rush?” Eddie says sleepily. “Just lay back down.”

Steve thinks that sounds like a wonderful idea, so he does.

“Why did you keep it?”

“It’s a souvenir from your first bar fight! I was gonna make it a necklace!”

“What makes you think I’m gonna wear a necklace of a tooth that I punched out of a guy’s mouth?”

“If I made it, you’d wear it.”

Steve sighs. “You’re lucky I love you.”

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit, that’s too much, too fast-

“Oh, sugar, I’ve known that since the beginning,” Eddie says with a smile. “And I’m lucky for getting to love you, too.”

Maybe it wasn’t too much, too fast. Maybe they really are too much together.

Steve insists he won’t wear the tooth necklace. The day after Eddie finishes stringing it on a chain, he wears it under his uniform at Scoops Ahoy.

“What’s that?” Robin, his bored, snarky coworker a year younger than him asks.

Steve resists the urge to toy with the chain. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”