Chapter Text
He’d fallen in love again. Fuckin’ again. And he’d tried so hard to be careful this time. Not to go too fast. Not overthink things too much. Not assume what wasn’t there till… Well, clearly there had been something, right?
All the late-night calls, the occasional meetups, the sharing, the vulnerability, the listening even during sex when he’d never had that before. It had to have meant something.
“I’m sorry, I should have told you I was talking with someone else too. I… I do care for you, but…”
‘But not as much as I do for you,’ Steve bitterly thought.
Normally, he would assume and talk about his partners being just that: a partner, a girlfriend (most of the time), a boyfriend this one time; that they were “dating” at the very least. They always left him. They found him to be too much, recoiled when Steve named them anything with a label, or dropped once things got messy and irreparable, all thanks to how immature they had been with their relationship. That’s how it had been with Nancy — now that he was away from it, he recognized it. But fuck it’d hurt so bad. She was the first he’d ever truly loved. It was a scar that stung like a beehive in his chest if he let it.
After that, it was a string of trial and error. When he finally admitted to Robin (and himself) that maybe he found guys attractive too, that maybe he did have a crush on Bobby Nuñez during middle school, and maybe found Billy Hargrove toxically attractive in high school, but would never, ever admit his fluttering feelings for Eddie Munson, he decided to try his luck in love at a gay bar up in Indianapolis. Found a sweet guy who gave him so much affection from the get-go that Steve felt that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be so careful in keeping a relationship alive.
He got so scared about bringing up the subject of dating with him, and assumed it was best to let things grow, let things bloom and take root there before putting a label on and spooking him away before they were both really sure about what they had. They met up half-way between Hawkins and the sweet guy’s hometown a few times, just thirty minutes away from each other, and talked on the phone most nights for hours. Steve felt like “maybe this time it’ll work. It feels good, feels right…”
Soon Steve found himself falling so hard he crash-landed when Geoffrey called his landline one afternoon, sounding nervous and remorseful right when Steve had gotten home from work.
“Hey Steve, I… I gotta be honest with you about something.”
He’d been talking with someone from his hometown the whole time. Caught in a pretty similar situation as he and Steve, except Geoffrey was waiting for them to agree if they wanted to take their relationship further only for him to get caught up having a crush on Steve as well.
“We’ve finally talked about things, and we kissed. I’m sorry, I should have told you I was talking with someone else too. I like this thing we have, it’s been so great. And I… I do care for you but… they mean a lot to me, Steve.”
Steve could barely talk else he’d burst out crying. He was always a crybaby; he was just good at hiding it from the kids he babysat with his life.
“I… would like to keep you in my life,” Geoffrey continued over the phone, not fully aware of the hole he was digging in Steve’s chest. “Maybe we could… I have some friends that have these open relationships. I thought about that, with you.”
“I…” Steve really tried to pull together coherent thoughts but, Christ, it took him a minute. His brain had never been good at being smart. Or his heart for that matter. They both made him stupid. “I don’t know if I can do that, Geoff. I really… I don’t know how to do that, and I don’t think I can be with you that way knowing… knowing that you’re with…”
Steve heard him sigh. “I hurt you. I’m sorry. And I understand, Stevie,” ‘Don’t call me that, please.’ “I hope we can stay friends, even if that’s a really selfish thing to ask, I know. I enjoyed what we had, seriously, man. Your calls have been the highlight of my day.” ‘Not enough as theirs, though.’ “And I’m really, really sorry.”
It bit into Steve’s heart that he could tell, as wrong as the situation was, that Geoffrey wasn’t lying. He only later realized that Geoffrey had instead been careless about Steve’s true feelings. They said their goodbyes. Steve hung up. He walked to his bathroom and wailed in the shower.
Steve remained something close to a moping busybody for the next few days. He told Robin everything, and he let her see him cry as she held him tight in her spindly arms during the middle of a shift at Family Video.
He avoided talking to any of the kids, not that he didn’t want them to know it just… hurt to retell his pathetic, romantic tale. There was no reason to mope over it because they never had been anything, right? He assumed they were a… something, but there lay his mistake: assuming Geoffrey felt the same and considering them as a label more than merely friends who shared feelings and cum and spit on occasion. Friends who shared enough of their vulnerabilities that Steve was grateful he didn’t have to walk on eggshells for once.
It was a lot to feel, and his kids were too young to understand, and he was too tired to talk to them about it.
So he shared his feelings with Robin alone, and only when she asked how he was holding up. She reminded him that Geoffrey should have let him know he was talking to someone else. That just because he was fine with being with more than one person at a time did not mean Steve would be as well. Even if… well, she was right, but Steve couldn’t help but feel guilty about catching feelings for the guy and never finding the right time to ask “hey so what does this thing between us mean to you and are you cool with me saying that we’re dating among non-homophobic people?”
He felt so damn stupid. Because even if he tried to be careful and let things grow on their own, he was always too vulnerable, wearing his heart on his sleeve no matter how much he tried to hold back when it was someone he had truly liked.
But he had fallen in love by the time Geoffrey had given him the news.
His car radio was playing a Whitesnake song. It was the same one Eddie had played in his van stereo while they smoked together, ironically the day before that fateful call.
“Though I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for
Oh, Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
'Cause I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams.”
Steve’s chest was tightening again. ‘Fuck, c’mon, it’s been a week,’ he thought. But the tears gathered on his eyelids with the chorus, remembering how Eddie had sung along to it and something, somewhere, had gripped his heart along with the words and had given him a warning he did not want to heed.
“Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I've ever known
Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone…”
Alone. Yeah, maybe that was it for him. Fuck being only twenty years old. He had a right to believe his experiences had fucked him up enough to drain all hope of being anything but alone.
He cried in his car, driving away from his house, away from Loch Nora, away from the familiar, and spun around roads and fields for hours. Unwilling to let Hawkins see his red-rimmed eyes and bleeding heart. Wow, dramatic much?
But how was he not supposed to feel this way? With his goddamn track record, it was a wonder he still had anything left to give, any hope, any care, any love for someone else who never seemed to find Steve enough to love back. Someone who could take all that Steve held, from the tips of his toes to his bouncing hair, and not think it was too much or not enough for them.
And worst of all, he wasn’t even mad at Geoffrey. He’d made his mistake, admitted it, called Steve to let him know precisely what he’d done. Geoffrey knew it would hurt him, apologized and tried to reassure Steve that he had cared for him, but he felt more for someone else. Tried to value him and failed in the way that Steve had needed to be valued. Only admitted the hurt he had caused.
What Geoffrey didn’t know was that the grief remained as a sum of all that had come before into Steve’s heart, and that Steve had stupidly allowed.
“Stupid, I feel so stupid, fuck…” he sniffled harshly, his nostril stinging with the cold Spring air slipping in from the open windows. He gripped at the steering wheel for an anchor to keep him here, with his too-many emotions, with his overwhelming love that could not seem to find a place to rest. With all of his bullshit that he could never really outgrow.
Robin would scream at him to come back home and stop calling it bullshit. “It’s not, Steve. You deserve to feel, you just feel a lot and that’s okay!” She’d said to him.
She wasn’t here, though, so he felt he had permission to abuse himself a little.
Once he felt the tears were done and he could breathe easier, he figured it was time to go back home. Hawkins greeted him with a split-up sign of broken wood and a sooty “Welcome to Hawkins!” blackened with ash after the devastating “earthquakes” the year before. (They were all required to sign NDAs. Didn’t keep him and the whole gang from talking with each other about how violent bats, flower headed monsters, cruel doctors and Russian torturers haunted them even in daylight).
It was close to midnight by the time he was on one of the main roads, leaving the cornfields behind with nothing but trees surrounding him now. He had work tomorrow and no reason to sleep soundly. He figured why not waste his gas driving the rest of the night, when, suddenly, Eddie’s soft, croaky baritone slipped into his mind.
“You need help sleeping at night for any reason, Harrington, and I’m just one call away. Or a good toke away, whichever helps.”
Maybe his body instinctively knew he needed to take up Eddie’s offer because soon he was rounding out to Forest Hills Trailer Park. Steve slowed his car, and purposefully drove right to the Munsons’ driveway.
As the sound of gravel slowed to a stop beneath the wheels of his old Beemer, Steve looked out the passenger window, taking slow stock of the soft yellow lights peeking through the flowery curtains. Their new home was bigger than the one they’d lost in the earthquakes, thanks to the feds’ hush money. They could have bought a house all the way in Loch Nora (not that Steve blamed them for not wanting to live in the most bogus side of town), but they insisted on staying at Forest Hills. They had community, friends, and a support system among the folks at the trailer park. Max wouldn’t be alone during her long months of physical therapy after being caught in the “earthquakes.” He hated having to call them that instead of being upfront about the psycho, telekinetic serial killer that nearly destroyed her entire mind and body, but hey, whatever keeps the feds off their heels. She was often invited for dinner at the Munsons’ new place, farther away from the crack in the earth where their home used to be, but on the same side of the long road where Max’s home was.
So the Munsons remained with their community. Seemed all the more happy as Eddie, Steve or one of the kids brought Wayne Munson a new mug to add to his lost collection. Or an occasional trucker hat from a state Wayne may or may not have visited. He didn’t give two shits about that fact as he displayed them proudly on his new living room wall.
Steve’s hands didn’t shake as he gripped the steering wheel, even with his foot pushed harshly against the brake pedal. He took an unsteady breath, letting the tightness in his chest worsen beneath the mask he slipped on his face as he finally parked the car and tugged back the emergency break handle. He gave himself only one look in the mirror of his sun visor, his heavy-lidded eyes puffier, and hazel irises rimmed in pink and red. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes again before he turned off the car and stepped out.
Nearing the front door, the whining sound of violins and guitar slipped into his ears, dramatic and commanding as the singer who accompanied it.
In his attempt to listen, he gave a few uncoordinated knocks to the door. A moment later, muffled steps neared it and the door slowly opened with the security chain still latched, revealing one curious, round dark eye sneakily looking to see who it was.
“… Cordeles de esclava yo me ceñiría
Por tu libertad
¡Ay, pena, penita, pena, pena!...” The music was louder now.
“Steve?” Eddie spoke through the crack and Steve gave what he had intended to be a casual wave. That same dark eye creased in worry with his sparse eyebrow pressing further to the middle of his forehead. Eddie quickly closed the door and knocked the chain a few times against the wood before yanking it open.
“Hey Eds,” Steve said, pulling a smile from somewhere.
Eddie didn’t smile back, his deep eyes absorbing every single little detail about Steve beneath the yellow overhead light of his living room. It was brighter than the lamps in their old living room, and stark enough for Eddie to scrutinize Steve in a way that made him extremely exposed, which was the last thing he wanted that night.
“Come on in, Steve.” Eddie’s voice was so careful. Steve listened, for now, and stepped through the doorway but kept himself from facing Eddie directly as he closed the door behind him.
“Es lo mismo que un nubla’o
De tiniebla y pedernal
Es un potro desboca’o
Que no sabe dónde va…”
“What, uh, what are you listening to?” Steve said. His voice was still a little wet and croaked when he spoke. He vehemently avoided noticing the unnerving worry in Eddie’s expressive eyes.
Eddie blinked quickly, jerking his head to the stereo system beside their tv setup. It was a big thing, capable of playing cassettes and vinyls too. Wayne had figured “might as well use that hush money for some good that this damn government won’t do for regular folks.” Steve had been around that day. He laughed along with Eddie at Wayne’s grin as he made a show of presenting the new high-tech machine.
“Wayne likes to, uh, leave this late-night radio program on whenever he can listen to it. They play music from all over in a buncha languages, even in Spanish, I think? Yeah, that’s Spanish,” Eddie pulled a small smile from the corner of his lips that pushed out one of his dimples. Steve couldn’t help himself but look and smile back at that little wink on his cheek. “Says it makes him ‘all cultured;’ he just likes this stuff, he’s a strange fella like that.”
“Is Wayne here though?”
Eddie shook his head, his wide Bambi eyes coming back to attention. “Nah, left for his graveyard shift. I’m a strange fella too, didn't you know?” He grinned hard enough to force a chuckle from the tiny corner of Steve’s chest that could manage to do more than keep his breathing steady.
“Yeah, but who isn’t in this damned town anyway?” Steve huffed. “You’re probably the only one who’s fine being strange…” If he cleared his scratchy throat at the end, Eddie didn’t comment on it. Yet.
Those dark eyes dug into the side of his face, jarring, but not painful. “You all right counting yourself among us strange folk, Steve? Even with the town freak?” It was a tease, soft, but it was a key factor in how Steve viewed Eddie: sweet, genuine, and with an expanding consideration for others that allowed him to share his own love with worthwhile people. He’d once told him over a round of Pabst beer on the roof of his trailer how, for so long, he didn’t care for anybody. He’d had no reason to do so with an abusive father and a dead mother. Then Wayne took him in and gave him the tools to rebuild his empty heart. He learned to slowly but surely care for those he believed were the only ones he could trust empirically, until he eventually found more people he could love as well.
He had deemed Steve good enough to be among the people Eddie Munson cared for, and usually it would take him for a spin to remember that.
But somehow, Steve couldn’t accept that love from Eddie Munson right now.
“Yo no quiero flores ni oro ni palmas
Quiero que me dejen llorar mis pesares…”
Eyes tight on the stereo, Steve mumbled with a harsh grin. “Don’t think I’m good enough to consider myself that.” He knew the wrong words had slipped out at the wide take of Eddie’s eyes, face frozen around those parted, full lips.
They were never for him anyway.
“Stevie—”
Steve raised his head quickly as he hid the quake in his voice. “So, uh, I was wondering if I could take you up on that offer?” He stretched a tight smile towards Eddie as his eyes landed somewhere over Eddie’s shoulder, at a “Welcome to Big Eden, Montana!” mug Claudia Henderson had given Wayne in the ongoing effort to restore his destroyed collection of novelty mugs. She’d taken her son Dustin and the rest of the kids on a road-trip, away from the disasters of Hawkins and found the folk there friendly and welcoming. Insisted to Wayne that Eddie would enjoy that quaint little town because “it was safe, for all folk.”
Steve thought he’d like to feel safe too, if for the relief from having to smother down your grief in a town that wasn’t welcoming.
“You told me I could call you up sometime and get, uh, some weed? A… toke?” He scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “If you changed your mind about it, it’s okay, Eds. I know you have the best stuff in town, and I trust you, so…” Afraid he was pushing it, he shook his head, sparing a glance to Eddie’s damningly worried eyes. Steve gave him a weak smile and forced it to remain as if to say I’m fine, don’t worry. Stop giving me that sad look, I’m not worth it. It’s dumb.
Eddie kept those big dark eyes on him for another long moment. He closed his mouth and tightened his lips into a thin line before answering. “I mean, I could roll you a toke, but….”
Steve braced himself and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“… you sure that’s what you need right now?”
Steve dragged stunned eyes to Eddie. His chest got so tight.
Eddie opened a hand to the side, the silver rings on his fingers glinting in the yellow light. He still hadn’t taken them off for bed. “I also offered you an ear whenever you needed it. Could’ve called me instead of making the whole trip over to my humble abode, dude.”
Right, it was nearly midnight. He was intruding into Eddie’s house and the guy looked so soft and cozy with an old Dio shirt that was about two sizes too big that had seen better days. It was clearly loved, threadbare yet the big gothic font remained legible even after the years and washes and earth-shattering events it had gone through. Green flannel pajama pants, new by contrast, fell in tumbles around his feet. They were pale and bony, but not as thin as they had been after the “earthquake” fiasco.
Eddie had been ready to go to sleep and Steve had barged into his house. He was nothing but inconsiderate. It was enough to make his breath catch in his throat.
“I’m sorry, man, I’ll call tomorrow, or later. I didn’t even— I didn’t think, ha, typical. I was just driving and… I’ll leave, sorry.” During his short ramble, Eddie widened his eyes and stepped closer, grabbing him by his forearm.
“No! No, hey, I just meant that you could’ve called me instead, and I would’ve brought you the toke or talked with you on the phone instead of you having to drive all the way over here. I’m glad you’re here, Stevie, I am, seriously. I’ve told you you’re welcome here, whenever you want.” Eddie pulled the side of his mouth into a grin he hoped sparked warmth into Steve’s glassy eyes. “Hell, Wayne loves it when you come over, you’d be making more than one person in this house happy if you were around.”
Steve raised his brows, poised and ready to leave with his body turned towards the door.
“… Eddie, you don’t have to lie. You were clearly about to go to sleep.”
“It’s only midnight, not 2am, my good sir. Which, as you should know, is my regular bedtime. I was just gonna make myself some tea and read. I’m not lying, and I would never, not to you, Stevie.”
He really liked how ‘Stevie’ came out of Eddie’s mouth. It calmed his jumpy brain, like a sweet lullaby or a treasured teddy bear. He’d had one as a kid before his dad ripped it away from him. He was too old for it, apparently. Steve had to stifle his cries till he was alone in his room that day.
But Geoffrey had also called him ‘Stevie,’ a siren call filled with hot seduction, a purr that traveled sweetness down his spine. Now hearing that nickname pulled at his heartstrings, and it hurt more than he liked. He couldn’t listen to it even with Eddie’s honey-sweet tone. Not when he felt his eyes hot, Eddie becoming a watery vision he viciously tried to clear away with tightly clenched fists. ‘Not now, c’mon.’
“… Stevie, what’s wrong? Why the tears, sweetheart?” ‘Oh no.’
A sob broke out of his chest, completely unchecked and it made Steve angry. It choked his throat and his nose immediately congested. His eyelids tightened so much they hurt. He muffled the sounds coming from his mouth with a palm, but suddenly that hand on his arm slid up and across his back and a shoulder covered in a threadbare shirt soaked in his sobs. Strong, long arms tangled across his back and squeezed him fiercely against a welcoming body.
Steve fought so hard against his sobs. They battled relentlessly against his anger, growing louder till they shook him to the bone. Eddie held him firm, wanting to squeeze all of the unknown grief out of his lungs.
Murmurs of “Let it out, Stevie, you’re here, you’re okay” and “I got you cher, I’m sorry, whatever it is, I’m sorry, but don’t hold back” trickled into his ear even with how loud he was crying. Little by little, his strength dwindled till Eddie had to hold him up and take him to the couch in the living room. Not once did he loosen his hold on Steve. Not once did he let him fall apart onto the old blue Persian rug Eddie and Wayne had dragged out of the trash together in Loch Nora, back when Eddie had just moved in with his uncle. It took them three days to clean it, helped them take the first step to becoming a family, and survived their trailer being split in half. It gave the Munson home so much life, and Steve was walked across it by one of its family members.
He was gently rocked, just like his mother would do to him before she decided going after her miserable, cheating husband was more important than sticking around for her small son. It hurt in the sweetest way and uncorked a sadness beyond the heartbreak he had been battling this week. He didn’t want to ponder too much on how one correlated with the other.
He only allowed himself to grip onto Eddie’s soft shirt with his fist and pushed his face deeper against his shoulder. Maybe he could hide away from the pain as his stupid heart shattered itself every time he felt an inkling of love for someone else.
Steve didn’t know how long he spent bawling his eyes out in Eddie’s arms. The racking sobs left him unable to speak. When his lungs could gasp and breathe a little better, he let himself be rocked a while longer, Eddie’s fingers dragging themselves across his back and up into his hairline like trails of warm sparks that left his muscles loose and numb.
When his consciousness rebooted, Steve made to move his head and Eddie immediately leaned his face down to check up on his terribly splotchy face.
“How you feeling, big boy?” If Steve had not been currently floating in a mess of tears and snot, the memory of how that name had sent a shot through his bloodstream in the best way possible would have been hitting the forefront of his mind. But as it was, his ears received it as a part of Eddie’s gentle care, with his voice ever tender and careful.
Steve still couldn’t brace himself to gaze up at Eddie, so he rose his head and focused on the wet stain he’d left on Eddie’s previously gray-black t-shirt. “Like shit. And sad. I ruined your shirt,” he mumbled out, voice a croak that would normally leave him embarrassed.
Eddie shrugged, hands still around Steve even as he loosened his hold. “Nah, it’s just water and snot. You didn’t ruin it. Besides, this shirt’s gone through worse, believe me.”
Steve hummed in ascent while Eddie remained quiet, waiting for however long he needed until he was strong enough to muster a few words. His hand rubbed circles onto Steve’s back while the other held his arm. It kept Steve grounded onto the couch and this daring feeling of safety creeped into his chest in a way he had been wanting to be surrounded by before.
The radio station host spoke from across the room.
“… the incomparable gypsy singer from Spain, Lola Flores. Here, she sang about a person grieving over their lover and, unable to be with them, is left with a sorrow so big she’s willing to do anything to have them back. Now, to continue our night of classics, another Lola favorite, ‘Historia de un amor,’ also about heartbreak. She narrates a memory of a great love where…”
A beat of silence fell between them, the radio host took a moment before the new song rang aloud with the singer’s voice coming to life and demanding that Steve open his heart with the strength of her call.
He sighed, giving in with his head hung low. “I just feel sad, Eddie. It’s fucking stupid why, but I do.” He felt the hand around his arm squeeze. “This… thing with Geoffrey, it didn’t mean anything because we never talked about it, I didn’t ask him what this all meant to him and assumed…,” he let go of Eddie’s shirt, twisting his fingers around the hem of his own stone blue bomber jacket, staring at the yellow light turning it orange in his hands, “I assumed Geoffrey and I were dating? That we were together? I don’t fucking know. I just thought we… we were something more once things got intense and-and vulnerable when we talked, even if we barely saw each other. I mean, we called each other every day!” He scoffed out a ball of bitterness, but it was too weak to really land a punch on the emptiness he felt. He just gaped down the empty well he’d been dragging around for the past week and fell inside.
“But I never asked him what he thought about us and what this all meant for him. So he called last week to let me know he was gonna start a new relationship with someone he liked. More than me. And it just made me feel so stupid, Eddie, so fuckin’ stupid because I should have known this wasn’t anything more than just a hookup, a friendly hookup, I guess?! But I did the stupid thing of falling for him because I’m so fuckin’ dumb and this always happens! I never learn from my bullshit and I never will—”
“Stop it,” Eddie blurted out, and Steve raised his crestfallen face to his. Eddie was impassive. “Stop that right now, Steve.”
“What…”
“You’re not stupid and this wasn’t bullshit, Steven,” his tone stung, his full name ringing all the alarm bells from whenever his dad called him that. He hated it, but Eddie’s eyes were pleading so furiously it confused him instead.
“What you felt wasn’t bullshit; of course you were gonna have feelings for the guy! You told me that you two were constantly talking and flirting and being open with each other, never mind the phone sex and… in person sex,” he struck out a hand to emphasize his point, a crinkle to his eyes leaving before Steve could give it much thought. “You’re human, you made a connection with someone and caught feelings just like anyone else would have!”
“But I shouldn’t have," Steve’s voice was croaky and pained, "and they weren’t supposed to happen, Eddie! We were never anything more than a fucking hookup.”
“No, you were not!” Eddie’s eyes hardened, but the ire in those shining black pools of earth weren’t for Steve. “Steve, you’ve been talking about this guy non-stop ever since you met. Doesn’t matter that most of the time you two talked it was through the phone; he shared intimate things with you just as much as you did with him. You told me and Robin everything that happened and something like that isn’t just casual. It’s deeper. It doesn’t matter if you barely saw each other, it still counts.”
Steve wanted to retort and stop this, stop Eddie’s words. They couldn’t be right. He had to be guilty of his stupidity. It was the only thing that made sense given his luck with love.
His eyes couldn’t handle the harshness in Eddie’s gaze, though, and floundered. “He… he asked me if I wanted to have an open relationship with him but…” Eddie waited, quiet. Steve didn’t quite listen to how he caught his breath, how he looked just off Steve's forehead to the blue rug with an unfocused haze. “But I can’t. I can’t do that. I don’t feel like I can trust anybody enough to share a relationship like that. It feels so selfish, but it’s too much for me. So, I told him no.” He looked down at his hands, at the light on his jacket, at Eddie’s threadbare tee with the tiny hole right near the hem at the bottom, sneaking a peak at pale white skin hidden in shadow. He spoke to the torn hem.
“He apologized, which pissed me off too. It would’ve been so much easier to just hate him for this if he didn’t care about me. But he does… at least I think he does. He told me he did… but he knew it was going to hurt me telling me the news. He apologized and told me he did care for me just not— not as much as the other guy, or girl, or whatever.”
His tears filled the brim of his eyelids again.
“He cares more about them, probably loves them too and apologized for it when it just made me feel… It made me feel like I’m not enough. And I’ve always fucking believed I’m too much to love—”
“Steve—”
“No, Eddie, it's true. It’s always been true!” He tore his gaze away from the torn hem, letting Eddie see his eyes wide and murky, pleading. “It’s been true with my parents, a-and Nancy, and sometimes I feel like Robin doesn’t get why I’m so fuckin’ sensitive, and it scares me that I’ll drive her away, and the kids and you—,” he dropped his eyes again, burying the retch of feelings he’d been refusing to accept for months. “Because… because it’s a lot. I feel too much a-and it’s not… it’s not—,” his cries wracked his body again. He was so tired of it, but there was no other way he could find his body to release.
Breathless, his voice choked as he pushed it out. “I-it’s not meant for anyone to h-… have. It wouldn’t be fair…” Steve wanted to crawl into a hole and become one of those armadillos in the desert. Shrink down into a little ball of sadness and pathetic feelings that he believed could never find reprieve.
Because nothing in his life had ever taught him otherwise, how could anybody expect him to believe someone would find all of his overwhelming feelings just enough to hold all on their own?
Thin but strong arms wrapped around his folded body. They squeezed him, attempting to push out the ache that burrowed in Steve’s caved-in chest. “Oh sweetheart…” Eddie’s voice murmured against the back of his shoulder. He sounded so sad, and it only made Steve shake harder.
"I'm too much to love, Eddie, and yet not enough for anyone. It doesn't—," he sucked in a cutting breath, "it doesn't make sense but here we fuckin' are." Another bout of sobs came out, buried into his wet palms, pushing all of it inside and failing because they were too much to cup in his hands.
Eddie blessed him with his quiet care, the only sound being the strong crowing of Lola ringing through the trailer, giving them a bereavement from how fragile Steve felt in Eddie's arms.
But Steve couldn't fully drown in the feeling of Eddie's weight around him because he would know, knew now, this is what he would have to deal with if he…
Steve had reasons to never approach Eddie as more than a friend and this had proven it.
Eddie squeezed Steve, soothing circles on his shaking back till Steve slipped like a yolk from a cracked egg. He felt Eddie's soft thighs beneath his cheekbone. His lithe body covered him and felt three times bigger than Steve’s. Steve didn't know how he managed it, but he welcomed it and relief spread into the sobs he stifled. His hand fisted on top of Eddie’s knee, begging it permission to hold, squeeze and cling onto. How selfish of him. A new wave of tears slid down the ridge of his nose onto the green flannel smothering his face.
He felt chasms buil inside his chest, with quaking tunnels that led out his mouth. His sobs were hoarse enough it would surely scar his lungs with how hard he shook with each breath. The intensity of accepting how impossible it would be to have something you deeply desire with a supernatural need, it killed the child buried within Steve.
It was a child-like wish, this thought of loving and being loved so deeply he’d only ever really seen it in movies. Or in Hopper and Joyce when they felt at ease among the kids, that affection was easier to express after the hardships they’d each endured these past few years. He’d seen it in his grandparents, murmuring tender words in Sicilian, making the other smile and smack a kiss on each other’s lips. He’d seen it in his friends whom he believed were blessed with the wonder of wanting to live.
How could he have hoped someone would be in love with him when his own capacity to love was destroying him inside out?
Eddie’s calloused fingers never stopped their careful caress across his back. His other hand held the crown of his head firmly, Steve’s golden-brown hair slipped between the grounding hold of his fingers.
Exhaustion had already burrowed itself in Steve’s body by the time the radio ended its programming and Lola was allowed to rest her voice. Shudders left him in aftershocks as his consciousness struggled to keep him awake. He was scared to have overstayed his welcome, but he could barely hold onto the bit of wakefulness he had left in the wee hours of the night.
“Stevie,” Eddie mumbled into his ear. Steve pulled his head around to face him. “Cher,” Steve’s heart warmed, “get up so you can go to bed.”
Steve’s brow furrowed. He rubbed the meaty part of his palm into his eye. He thought he saw Eddie’s eyes grow tender just then, but he did feel his fingers rake soothingly through his ruffled hair before Steve’s blurry gaze cleared.
“Eds, I…,” his voice was still hoarse and thick, “… I’ll leave now, it’s late. You need to sleep.”
“And so do you,” Eddie’s voice was barely an octave higher than Steve’s. “You’re falling asleep and not doing so well, baby. I’d rather you sleep here tonight, safe and sound.”
Baby. Steve’s chest swelled and pinked his cheeks. “I…,” he was nearly cowering between his hand and Eddie’s thigh. Eddie kept petting him. His brows pulled together with a slight bit of worry he couldn’t hide behind those huge dark eyes.
“You’ve already done enough for me, Eds,” he sounded weak. With an indiscernible weight, Steve lifted himself off Eddie’s lap with a low grunt, though not too far from feeling the warmth of his thigh.
“I’d rather have you sleep here tonight. I don’t want to worry about you going home like this.”
“But…”
“You deserve to rest, Steve. Enough risking yourself, cher, please.” Eddie slipped careful fingers through Steve’s locks of hair, effectively slipping him a little further into dreamland.
Steve could only nod and close his eyes at the sensation of rough fingertips rubbing against his scalp with the care his mom and grandparents used to take with him. His body swayed towards Eddie a little.
He felt Eddie rise from the couch and his body sway the other way as the couch cushions swelled back to normal. A hand grasped him by the bicep and pulled him to stand (with some effort in the shape of a humiliating little whine and Eddie’s rough chuckle). He opened his eyes just as Eddie tugged him by the hand down the hall to his bedroom.
Once inside, Eddie made Steve stand to take off his jacket, remove his shoes with Steve’s hands on his shoulders (“keep it steady, big boy,”) and pull off his shirt, belt and pants. Then Eddie swathed him in the softest sweatpants he owned and in one of his favorite thrifted Black Sabbath tees. An all-around tender sting stroked Steve’s every nerve as Eddie surrounded him in his care.
His brain filled with cotton in one fell swoop and Steve barely sniffled back a surprise at the vulnerability he’d dropped into.
“Just sit down, sweetheart. I’ll tuck you in soon.” Eddie’s cold hands swiped away the tremor in his body like a snuffed candle. “You wanna brush your teeth?”
Steve nodded. Eddie took him by the hand to the bathroom, gave him a spare toothbrush and brushed their teeth shoulder to shoulder. Once they were done, Eddie pulled Steve back to his bedroom and, as promised, tucked him into bed.
When Steve noticed Eddie about to leave the room, his eyes watered on their own and the embarrassment clouded his voice as he mumbled.
“W-where are ya goin’?”
Eddie focused his gaze on Steve for a moment.
“…I’m turning off all the lights and sleeping on the couch. I’ll be right in the living room, Steve.”
Steve’s throat threatened him again with another bout of sobs. “I don’t wanna kick you out of your bed, Eds. You sleep here, please. I promise I won’t bother you anymore, I do,” he made to untuck himself from the bed sheets in a thrum of fear. “O-or I’ll go to the couch myself. It’s fine, I’ll be—,” but Eddie moved quickly toward the bed and cradled Steve’s head in his hands. He kneeled on the mattress and towered over him.
“Hey, hey. No, Stevie, you’re not kicking me out, okay? I want you to sleep here,” a press of lips, sudden and barely there, pushed against the invisible crown that had fallen long ago. “I’ll sleep here with you, okay? I still gotta shut off the lights and lock everything up. I’ll be right back,” he squeezed his cheeks a little and scrambled out of the room in a mess of yellow-pale limbs and feet under the lamp light on his nightstand.
Steve saw the faint glow of the lights outside each go out with a click, and a lock turned quietly. Quick, jerky footfalls followed, becoming louder as they reached the door till Eddie swung inside the doorway.
Eddie slipped beneath the bed sheets and shut off the bedside lamp. Just as Steve curled in on himself, Eddie slid closer to him and gently offered his hand.
Steve sucked in a small sob as he grasped onto the offered hand. Eddie dragged his armadillian body inside of his tight, thin limbs. Steve’s cries calmed down a few minutes later.
He fell asleep with the Fresh Start detergent smell pressed into his nose, his face burrowed into Eddie’s t-shirt, and slept the entire night.