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It's not even six in the evening and the fair is already crowded. Most of the kids had scattered the moment they got inside, not even waiting for Steve to get out half of the 'try to stay in pairs and don't spend all your money in the first half an hour,' speech he'd been making.
He doesn't know why he bothers some days. He catches Robin on the way back from loading up on snacks, a mission that seems to have been successful, since she has the bulky rustle of paper bags in both hands.
"Robin, did you see Hayley anywhere?"
She frowns in thought, eyes drifting towards the sound and noise to their left.
"I think I saw her by the funhouse? Yeah, the funhouse, maybe ten minutes ago."
Steve and Hayley hadn't technically planned to meet up, but she'd leant over the counter at Family Video two days ago, her smile fixed on him and the fold of her arms positioned in a way that pressed her breasts up against the open vee of her shirt. She'd said that she'd see Steve at the fair, and that she was looking forward to it, in a way that he was definitely supposed to take to mean she was interested. He'd actually spotted her when they arrived, most of the parking spaces already full, but Hayley had been a few rows ahead of them, and she'd been tugged laughing through the entrance by her friends, offering him a wave as she disappeared.
He'd assumed she wouldn't be too hard to spot once they got inside, being almost as tall as him, with dark hair that fell in waves, a black and red striped shirt and bright yellow tennis shoes. But the whole town seems to have shown up tonight. Steve knows he probably should have expected it, since it's the first thing that's given them any reason to celebrate since spring. There are children wearing face paint and glitter, adults following behind, teens queueing for rides, college-age kids showing off for their friends, and a scatter of people alone, just taking the opportunity to eat burgers or watch their friends get flung around to repetitive music. But a lot of people had clearly decided this was the perfect place to bring a date.
Steve had mostly given up on trying to meet anyone new after everything, but it's been six months and his friends had started giving him pointed nudges to get out there again.
He doubles back to find the funhouse, a blocky, temporary building covered in weirdly distorted faces and mirrored mosaics that scatter his reflection into a hundred pieces. He slips in through the glaring neon entrance and immediately finds himself in a maze of corridors with mirrored walls and floors that shift under his feet, much to the delight of the kids ahead of him. The next area is a big, smoke-filled room with a steady stream of giggling teens working their way through it, some of whom he recognizes. No sign of Hayley though, or any of her friends. Steve thinks he's nearly through the whole thing when the next door leads him through a series of heavy curtains, and then into a long stretch of darkness, with nothing but a faint glow from the painted rope along the walls to light the way to the exit. He can hear the odd giggle and shout of surprise as people knock into each other in the dark, and there's a strangely muffled flatness to the sounds, as if the walls have been insulated against it, making them feel closer than they are.
Steve's starting to think the place is a bust, that Hayley's not here at all, when he catches the vague shape of someone by the far wall, reaching up to touch pieces of glowing neon rope that had been mounted to the wall in a way that looked like a face. It's the only reason Steve can see their outline in the dark.
He can just make out the height, the narrow waist, the tumble of long, wavy hair. He grins and heads over with his hands out, careful not to walk into any walls in the darkness.
"There you are," he says simply.
He feels the movement of air when the figure turns, close enough that he catches the faint scent of cigarettes, hairspray and something sweet like cotton candy.
She clearly recognizes his voice, body shifting in a way that's trusting and open and he takes that as an invitation.
Steve realizes he's been more excited for this than he'd thought, because the others were right, he's been lonely and the idea of dating again is less daunting the more he thinks about it. Hayley is a good choice to try something new with, she's sweet, she's funny, and she has good taste in movies, according to Robin. More importantly, she's actually interested in him.
So he's fairly confident when he leans in and kisses her.
He thinks he'd caught her trying to speak, the shape of her mouth half open, she stiffens immediately under the first press, an inhale catching when Steve increases the pressure. He draws back a little, blinking and seeing nothing, worried that he'd moved too fast.
"You want this, right?" he asks. "You want this as much as I do?"
All he gets in answer is a cracked noise, a quiet shift in the dark towards him, and that's enough to dip in again, to kiss the impossible softness of her mouth. This time she presses back, the fall of her hair in his face, a faint tug to the bottom of his jacket turning into a pull and a clink-clink of jewelry.
She pushes Steve's mouth open, a moment of roughness that he's not expecting but is honestly pretty exhilarating. She kisses him with a quiet sort of impatience which almost feels like desperation, dragging him back towards the wall, away from the slow traffic still working their way through the pitch black room. Hayley tastes like cotton candy and cigarettes, and she's confident enough to push back when he opens the kiss out.
Steve's hands bunch in her shirt, knuckles against the warm, bare skin above the waist of her jeans. The shape of a thick leather belt along the curve of his smallest finger.
There's a hand on his neck and Steve has a second to register surprise, because he realizes immediately that it's much too big to be Hayley's, the curl of fingers is wide and strong, the thumb drifting up into his hair too long. A host of other details become obvious as well, the depth of every quiet noise that breaks between kisses, the faint roughness to the other's jaw, that Steve had originally taken for the same glitter the kids were wearing.
He's kissing a man.
The world tilts under him and he realizes, with a quiet sort of shock, that they're still kissing, that he hasn't pulled away. If anything he's pressing down harder, chest going tight even as his stomach heats.
For all that this is their first kiss there's nothing careful about it and Steve - Steve likes it. He likes the way there's no hesitation, just the confident rhythm of it, mouth firm against his own. He still feels wanted, he still feels desired, but there's something indulgent about it, as if whoever's kissing him knows how to please him and wants to. In a way that doesn't necessarily feel different, but it feels like more.
The kiss deepens and there's another man's tongue in his mouth - part of Steve thinks this will be the moment he stops and pulls away, but instead his hands fist tighter in cloth, tension pulling him in. He can hear them now, the shameless wet sounds as they open and meet and then part only to shove into the kiss again. He can feel the heat in his cheeks, the tension in his belly, he's aroused, faster than he has been for months, and it feels like falling.
But Steve realizes, all at once, that he's kissing a man he doesn't know and he's not stupid enough to think that's entirely safe. He eases back and licks his lips, tasting sugar, he knows they're still close, he can feel the rush of breath across his mouth, fast enough that he can tell they want to lean in again.
He makes his voice work, because he knows that maybe he needs some plausible deniability here.
"Hayley?" He makes himself sound confused, uncertain.
The man in his personal space jolts back so fast he knocks into the wall, his touch gone in an instant. The distance is so sudden and so violent that part of Steve feels awful for it. To leave the other guy thinking he'd met someone that was happy to kiss him, only to realize he'd been mistaken for someone else. Steve's halfway through an apology but it's too late, the man's already out of his reach, the solid bang of an arm knocking against a wall in the dark, shoes rapidly retreating.
Steve's left in a black void, breathing hard, feeling like a total fucking asshole. His mouth is cold and empty, lips still wet. He waits in the dark for a while, to let the other guy leave, to preserve whatever anonymity they both have left. To calm his racing pulse. Then he heads for the exit.
He doesn't have to go far before he finds some of the others at the picnic tables by the burgers and refreshments. Dustin's complaining about something which Max apparently 'won't understand'. She looks tempted to hit him with one of her crutches for being a patronizing little shit and Steve decides he's not even going to chastise her if she does.
Robin is at one of the tables, one bag of snacks is empty and scrunched into a ball, she's knuckle deep in the other.
"Did you find Hayley?" she asks.
Steve shakes his head, foot shifting back and forth in the grass under the bench, his mouth feels warm and a little bruised, tingling from the slight roughness of a jaw. He resists the urge to touch it, to press at it.
"No." His voice sounds hoarse and he clears his throat. "No, she wasn't in there."
"Huh." Robin shoves a handful of green candy in her mouth, frowning while she chews. "Maybe it was longer ago than I thought. I know I saw her by the spin the wheel game, for sure, if you want to check."
He shakes his head without really thinking about it.
The bench shudders when a leg in black denim gets flung over the other side, shoe kicking the edge. Eddie drops onto the wooden seat, strawberry ice cream cone wrapped in paper in one hand.
"See, told you they would serve you," Robin mutters.
"Could you blame me for questioning though, really?" Eddie's voice is tight, glaring at his ice cream like it's offended him.
"Most of these people don't even go here," she argues. "They don't give a shit about Hawkins business."
"And fucking 'hear, hear' to that," Eddie decides, raising the cone like a toast. He's not looking at Steve, his attention solely focused on Robin, and the table, and Dustin, and Max, though their argument has a touch too much whining now, so it feels like Max is probably just ignoring Dustin entirely at this point. There's nothing he hates more than being denied the opportunity to win an argument.
Even a short distance from the funhouse Steve's heart is still tripping faster than it should, palms tingling, the faint memory of bunched fabric in them. There's no one else around, no one that stands out, just the crowds behind them, the scattering run of children, holding balloons and stuffed toys and cotton candy.
He tries not to make it obvious that he's looking around, though he realizes he's the only one that spoke inside. If whoever he was kissing recognized his voice then they already know who he is. They'd probably left already, too spooked to stick around.
Robin finishes the second bag of snacks, scrunching it and balling it with the other.
"You want to take another circuit? See if you can spot your date?" she asks.
Steve blinks.
"Huh?"
"Hayley," Robin reminds him, like he'd forgotten.
Eddie goes very still, half an ice cream cone still held in his hand. It's dripping towards his wrist and he shifts to take it in the other hand, the rings on his fingers giving the faintest clink-clink.
Steve is still staring at Robin, too afraid to look away. Because the sense memory in his head comes together in pieces. Long wavy hair that smelled like smoke and strawberry sweetness, as tall as him, thickly belted jeans with a soft, worn shirt which bunched easily on either side. The faint low tone of every huffed-out breath between kisses, and the softest mouth he'd ever felt.
"Steve?" It's sharp, Robin's hand smack-smacking on the table to get his attention.
Steve's looking at her and nothing else, forces himself to while his heart pounds in his chest, feeling a little like he's falling while sitting down.
Because he'd kissed Eddie. He was fucking sure of it. He'd kissed Eddie, and Eddie had kissed him back even though he must have recognised his voice. He had to have known that it was him from the start. Steve can't help taking a brief look at him when he scans the fair again. Eddie's still staring down at his ice cream, a smear of pink melt curving down his wrist but he's not wiping it away, he's just bunching the napkin in his fist, frowning at nothing at all.
"No, I'm pretty sure I've missed her at this point, I'm just gonna -" What is he going to do? He doesn't even know.
Robin stares at him for a minute while he obviously doesn't finish the thought, he eventually just shrugs.
"I think I'll just stick around with you guys."
Robin scoops up her trash and gives him a look, eyebrows pulled in a little.
"What brought about the change of heart?"
He stares at his own hands, watching Eddie's fingers tap against the wood, rings bright under the strings of artificial light. He half remembers the way the back of one had felt against his neck. The way Eddie had leaned into him with no hesitation, no doubt at all once Steve had kissed him.
"I don't know if I'm feeling it anymore, is all."
A stranger, Steve thinks, would be easier. A stranger would have meant nothing, it wouldn't feel so sharp and so complicated in his chest. It wouldn't leave him wondering if this is why he'd been so quick to keep kissing once he'd realized. He'd come out of the dark not just with a new experience but an understanding that it hadn't come out of nowhere.
But Eddie had never told him, which means maybe Steve isn't supposed to know.
He's not even aware right now that Steve put it together, that he knew it was him who'd cut out of there after hearing how badly Steve had fucked up, tried to fix it and fucked up harder. Eddie had known from the beginning that it was him, and he'd kissed him anyway, kissed him like he meant it.
Which explains why he currently looks like hell, pretending not to care about whatever's going on around them, tearing his napkin into smaller pieces. Robin's talking about the odds in carnival games, doubting his ability to win a stuffed toy and all Steve can think about is what he would have done if Eddie had said his name in the dark. Just the faintest curl of sound. If he'd breathed it into his mouth while Steve kissed him and gave himself away. Whether he would have left, or just kept kissing him, too long to pretend it was just something he wanted in the dark.
Which is a big thing to realize about yourself. Or maybe that's the wrong thing to say. Maybe it's less of a realization and more just admitting it, that what Steve wanted could be different to what he'd always imagined.
The thought of kissing Hayley had felt exciting and new. But the thought of kissing Eddie again, not in the dark but where Steve could see him, could drag him in by his stupid belt loops, talking about whatever nonsense was on his mind, and bury a hand in his hair, watch the way his eyes fall shut, the way Eddie says his name, low on a breath… that feels like something he'd step into the upside-down for. Which is more than a little terrifying.
It makes the way Eddie looks right now - kind of broken and trying not to show it - hurt like hell.
But Steve thinks that maybe he can fix this.
If he's brave enough.