Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I: Junior Year (1983/1984)

“I can’t. Sorry.”

Right. Well.

It’s not the first time Steve Harrington has heard those exact words, from Nancy Wheeler no less. It’s a little game they play, it’s innocent and fun, keeps him on his toes. It ends, always, with a smile and a quiet but confident “yes.” It ends with a little giggle and a blush and a date set up. So while his smile chips a little at the sides and his stomach makes a little tug that doesn’t, maybe, feel particularly nice or comfortable, it’s expected. He just needs to try harder, is all.

“Come on, Nance- Nancy ,” he keeps his tone light, teasing, despite the growing weight of the eyes on them. The corridor is too narrow, too crowded, for this, but Nancy Wheeler sometimes drops from the face of Earth and turns unreachable in a way Steve isn’t used to. She’s a private person dealing with someone whose privacy ended the moment high school began. Their names sit on the tongues of the students that pass them, heads leaned in to catch a word or two. Nancy, despite the reservations, is intrigued by this dynamic, he can tell. She wants in and out an equal amount.

Steve leans his back on the lockers, arms crossed, hair fluffed just right. A twinkle sparks in Nancy’s eyes. He grins back up. “You said you’d be free yesterday. I promise it’ll be fun.”

Somehow that feels like a miss, too, with the way her arms tighten around the books tugged close to her chest. The smile she gives him is tense, the way it’s been more often than not recently. He wonders where that shy grin and blushing cheeks have gone. From Tim’s Party. From Skull Rock-

“I’ve thought about it,” Nancy hesitates. The math textbook curves under her arm. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“We can do something else,” Steve jumps in, fuck, too quickly, voice too loud even to his own ears. He settles back against the lockers. “It’d probably be lame anyway. Murphy’s a total dud. We could go-”

“Steve.”

And – oh. He doesn’t like that tone, so eerily similar to his mother’s. For a moment he wonders if he’s back in Loch Nora, sitting by the grand table in the dining room, Angela Harrington in the chair opposite him and a piece of paper held between her perfectly manicured fingertips. Average grades. Not good enough. Steven, when will you-

But no, it’s only Nancy Wheeler, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

“I mean us,” Nancy adds after a minute and winces, shifting the books from side to side as if they were her weighing guilty conscience. “I don’t think this is going to work out. I’m sorry, Steve.”

Nancy slips out of his line of sight, quiet and sleek, before he can think of a reply. Not that there’s much that can be said, though he thinks he’d like another chance to change her mind, and maybe another one after that. But he can feel the shift, the gradual yet abrupt decline of her ‘no’s. He can give her time. Space. Maybe that’s what she needs.

It’s okay.

Steve has been broken up with before. He has been rejected, too. Water off a duck’s back and all, he has always been fine in the end. He’s going to be fine now, too.

Then why does it hurt so much?

-&-

Will Byers goes missing not even a week later, something Steve notices only when Nancy and her attached-at-the-hip friend, Barbara Holland, pin a missing poster by the gym just as he’s leaving basketball practice. Afterwards, more often than not, he sees them with Jonathan Byers, face weary and dark bags under their eyes, but determination set in the straight lines of their shoulders.

“What’s up with those two?” Carol points to Jonathan and Nancy with a tilt of her head, red curls bouncing off her shoulder almost comically. She slides up to perch on one of the cafeteria tables, smacking pink gum between her lips. Steve finds himself grinding his teeth, his whole being bristling at the sound. “She dumped you for that guy?”

Smack .

“Nancy didn’t dump me,” he bites back with more force than he’s intended. Against any voice of reason, his eyes are glued to Nancy and Byers talking as they pin another poster in the place of a torn-up one. He aches, but not for Will Byers, his exhausted brother, or devastated mother. He aches for her, yearns for her attention, and isn’t that pathetic.

“Sure looks like it,” Tommy pipes in, shoving a spoonful of overcooked potato mash into his mouth, bits and pieces falling back onto the plastic tray that has seen better days. His arm curls around Carol’s thigh comfortably. The gum smacks again.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Tommy calls out and it’s only then that he realizes he’s moved at all. Numerous pairs of eyes following his every move tell him it’s too late to backtrack now, and so he lets his body move towards Nancy. When Jonathan slides out of the cafeteria, all Steve can think of is – great, good riddance.

“Do you need help? With that?” Nancy startles when he speaks up and he does feel guilty, a little bit. “Or just, like, in general?”

Nancy looks contemplative for a moment, subtly eyeing him up and down – assessing – before putting on a small smile. Not fake but not real either. He hates it.

“Thank you, I’m good,” she gestures to the pinned poster. “But if you’d like to help, they are doing ground searches every day. There’s one today starting at six by Lake Jordan.”

“Oh, great! I mean, not great but-“

“Nance!” They both turn to see Barbara rounding up on them. She’s gripping a stack of papers – more missing posters, he assumes – close to her chest. She shakes the arm with a watch strapped on. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“Coming!” Nancy gives him a quick apologetic smile, one hand smoothing down the poster she just pinned. “Look, I have to go. But if you can join that search, I’m sure the Byers’ would really appreciate that.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, I’ll-” but she’s gone before Steve can finish, not that he knows how he’d continue. The easiness that had been there between them before, the easy banter and joking, it’s gone and he doesn’t know why or how or when. He’s mourning what could have been, all the what-ifs and that realization feels like a sharp kick to the gut.

Carol and Tommy pester him the second he sits back down at the table but he just waves them off, a middle finger promptly shoved in each of their faces. The kick in the shin he gets in reply feels numb when he notices Eddie Munson gearing up for one of his patented speeches on dirty lunch tables. As if anybody asked. As if anybody cares.

Time and place, Steve thinks to himself.

Freak.

-&-

Steve had every intention to go to that ground search. He really did.

The thing is, Steve can plan and prepare all he wants but the moment he notices the pristine silver BMW parked out on the driveway, he knows none of it will come to fruition. He comes to a home with the lights turned on and music playing for the first time in months and it’s as unsettling as it is unfamiliar. The violent tunes of Vivaldi’s Winter echo around the walls, reverberate around his skull until there’s nothing else left but needles prodding at his brain. The music is loud but so are his father’s insistent questions and by the time he is allowed to crawl upstairs, there is no strength left in his body.

All he can do is lay in his bed and sleep, just like the lazy and disobedient son he is perceived as. And maybe that’s all he can be right now. Maybe that’s okay.

There is another search the next day. Multiple ones. Saturday is when a lot of people can spare a moment and help in any way they deem appropriate. Saturday is when Steve is asked to pull out all the non-existent weeds from the garden, water the over-watered plants and scrub the bathroom tiles under his mother’s critical yet absent eye. Afterwards, he finds himself out of the house for the night. Tina Mackenzie is having a party and he has promised to come. The vow made to Nancy, and himself, slips from his mind. The vodka and orange juice in his red solo cup slip it out of his mind in just a few hefty sips.

Sunday is- He doesn’t know. Doesn’t remember.

Come Monday morning Steve finds himself avoiding Nancy Wheeler more than she seems to be intent on avoiding him.

“You know, we could still do my plan,” Tommy offers at lunch, mimicking a spray paint can with the bruised apple he’s been given. The loud cackle that follows leaves Steve feeling even more hollow than before and not for the first time he asks himself why he’s even friends with these people. It’s the first time, though, that he’s thinking of telling Tommy Hagan to fuck off and mean it. 

For some reason, Nancy Wheeler became Tommy's favorite type of ammunition these days, uncharacteristically targeted and vicious.

Additionally, Will Byers peers up at him from a black-and-white photo everywhere he looks. Guilt churns at his inside at every corner, right until the last bell of the day rings out in the hallway. He ditches swimming practice, something he knows he’ll hear about plenty, but he can’t bring himself to care right at that moment. He pauses before one of the missing posters right by the main entrance, a column of students pushing him back and forth as they leave the building. His nerves feel remarkably jittery when he spots the meeting points and times for searches organized this week.

Steve leaves the building in a hurry, a torn piece of paper hanging from his back pocket. 

-&-

The forest by Loch Nora buzzes with a sense of hopeless urgency. Firefighters and police officers divide the ever-dwindling group of volunteers into smaller groups, some tiredly explaining what to expect and look out for, others loitering around half-given up. There’s tension in the air, small sparks of nervous electricity you can almost taste on your tongue.

No one really knows what to do, small towns like Hawkins in bumfuck nowhere, Indiana, are simply not equipped for anything more extreme than a drunk and disorderly - especially when the drunk and disorderly ends up being the Police Chief more often than not nowadays. It’s chaotic, all of it, incompetence of the Man in Charge, all capital letters, shining through the poorly-hidden cracks, and Eddie is thriving.

Except for, well, the missing kid, obviously.

Callahan keeps shooting him loaded glances, as if Eddie would suddenly spurt out a bag of weed and start dealing with the retired grandmas at a possible crime scene. Eddie would, for the sake of delectable chaos, but he’s not living that dangerous life anymore – if anyone asked. Callahan, for example.

“Okay, Steve, walk over there. We’ll start soon,” another officer’s voice rings out and, lo and behold, there’s Steve Harrington in all his hair-sprayed plastic-doll glory, walking Eddie’s way, looking like a baby whose candy has been taken by force. It’s clear he doesn’t want to be here and Eddie mentally starts a list of what made him do it; a pretty girl would’ve been here with him so Steve could play the hero, none of his friends are here either, and Stevie-boy there isn’t, to his knowledge, a friend of the Byers family in any way, shape or form. Everything about the smile Harrington gives Callahan is fake and whenever fake is involved, the prestigious Dick Harrington weasels his way in.

Bingo.

“You sure about going in those shoes, dude?” Eddie leans in closer, peering at the pristine white sneakers Harrington’s wearing. The plastic hair remains eerily still even as Harrington snaps his head Eddie’s way, eyebrows going up before he frowns.

“It was a last-minute decision,” he bites back and that’s all Eddie needs to confirm his theory.

“The shoes or the search?” Eddie is maybe – probably - being an asshole but he’s not going to praise the guy for having enough decency to show up and help with the search when it’s so painfully obvious it wasn’t of his own volition. But before Harrington has a chance to respond - and what an utterly fascinating answer that surely must have been judging by the empty look on his pretty face -   Callahan finally gathers them around to do his patented speech about the rules of the search. It’s not Eddie’s first but with every description, every item of clothing, every detail of the never-to-be-completed ride home, a silent wave of grief, a heavy weight, presses onto his entire being all over again. For the next three hours that’s all he focuses on – no Steve Harrington, no Mrs. Click, nothing of the sort.

Not that it matters because Will Byers’ body is fished out from a lake a day later.

Except it isn’t.

There’s a funeral.

Except there isn’t.

Somehow, life goes on.

-&-

Steve is soaked to the bone when he enters the house, cold February weather trailing behind him. His shoes leave puddles following him through the entryway under his mother’s scrutinizing gaze. He mops it up immediately but the damage is done and Angela Harrington is gone.

He manages half of the vast staircase before his father’s voice thunders from the office.

“Steven, come here, please.”

Richard Harrington sits alone at the grand mahogany desk that looks plucked straight from the 1800s, stacks of papers neatly and evenly sorted in three groups. He takes a silent sip from the crystal whiskey glass and gestures for Steve to take a seat in front of him with his free hand, tips of fingers shaking just barely as he does so. It’s a terribly uncomfortable chair, stiff-pillowed and rigid, and it never brings good news. A brief look to confirm his son is indeed seated is the only acknowledgment Richard is willing to give before grabbing a paper from the middle stack.

“Coach Jenkins called me yesterday,” Richard doesn’t look up from the report but his hands tense around the paper. Steve wonders sometimes how someone like his father could still remain friends with people he went to highschool with, although maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising at all. They both seem terribly proud of their shared high school days, whether that’s a good thing or not. “Steven, you’re still too slow. If you want a chance at the scholarship, you need to pick up the slack.”

It’s only then that Richard finally peers at his son from under his thin-rimmed glasses. “Let’s be honest, son. Your grades are not going to get you into a good school.”

And just like that, shame burns through his organs, melts his brain.

A familiar sting settles at the corners of his eyes but Steve refuses to give in. Men don’t cry and Steve, he’s a man, he’s not a - 

There’s a crack in the ceiling. It’s been there for as long as he can remember and hasn’t grown or shrunk, just a little vein, a little gape into another universe Steve would theorize as a child. Only for him to see. Who would be looking at the little crack when there is antique furniture, oil paintings and wool carpets to assault your gaze the second you step your foot inside. The richness of the office has always been a particularly stark contrast to how empty the house felt otherwise. 

“Right. You’re right, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“I’m expecting more satisfying results the next time I’m here,” his father adds as a pointed end of the conversation. “Use the pool if you need to.”

Richard and Angela Harrington leave on a wispy Thursday that week. They do it during the day, under the guise of Steve’s longest day of the week, seven periods and no time to spare, not that Steve can point and pin the blame on them; because how could they have known he’s not going to be back home until late, they couldn’t have.

His house in Loch Nora is pristine, clean, and dead silent when he unlocks the front door. He shoves a Toto tape on full-volume in the living room before slinking upstairs, skipping over every other step and slamming the door to the en-suite bathroom in his room. Shaking the walls are the notes from Child’s Anthem and Steve glares at the cream-apathetic tiles on the floor. He glares at them when the hot water from the shower hits his back with a sting, when he stands there until his skin feels unbearably raw, when he steps out and shivers. God, he hates them so much.

The tiles- He- The tiles are awful.

Drying out his hair to the rhythm of Hold the Line, Steve lets him look through the window. The pool is empty, as it always is during the winter months but it still makes Richard Harrington words ring out in his head. Steve knows he’s right. And he knows he can trust his father’s judgment – not in many things in life, but in this, he can. After all, Richard Harrington was a prolific swimmer from high school all the way through college. He was the one that taught Steve how to swim.

Steve likes swimming. He would like to make his father proud, too - see how that feels.

The choice seems easy.

Swimming practice takes priority. Other things naturally need to take a step back.

At the beginning it’s not that hard to balance all those things out. It’s the beginning of the semester, so teachers are more lenient in their expectations. That strike of luck, however, ends after two weeks and Steve can feel it – can see it, too, with every C and D on the assignments he’s turning in. It didn’t used to be this hard but he feels as though everything has started to slip right through his fingers.

-&-

The moment winter starts giving into spring and the sun begins to fight its way through the clouds, Steve cleans the pool in the backyard; gathers up all the leaves, scrubs the tiles of algae, adds chlorine. The heating has been turned off by his father long before winter started so the first dip is freezing cold and leaves him shaking with goosebumps covering his whole body. The second one is slightly easier. The third one is almost bearable. With every dive that feels skin-shattering Steve wonders whether this is what his Richard Harrington calls building character. 

He gets faster in the pool. Slower in class. At a standstill on the basketball court.

“Mr. Harrington? Stay, please,” Ms. O’Donnell asks on a Wednesday, face blank and tone even. Someone ‘oooh’s in the back, someone else snickers, but it’s hard to tell who when a column of students rush out of the classroom, leaving him and the teacher alone.

“Yes, Ma’am?” Steve stands up straighter and tries to pull up one of his more charming smiles. The clock by the door keeps ticking and he knows he’s already on thin ice with the coach and the rest of his basketball team. He can’t afford being late yet again.

“Mr. Harrington, you have three missing assignments.”  

That. Sounds like a lot. More than he anticipated. Steve scrunches up his brow. She starts listing the things he’s missed in a perfect monotone and it feels like hours pass.

“Oh. Are you sure?” he bites his tongue too late and Ms. O’Donnel lets him know it, a frown etched onto her face. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I must have missed them somehow. But I promise I’ll make it up.”

“You have one more week, Mr. Harrington,” she tells him like a bad omen but he takes it because that means he gets another chance and maybe even not be so late for practice that Daniels chews him out. He thanks her and apologizes in one rushed breath, picking up his pace once slid back onto the corridor.

“Shit,” he curses when the changing rooms turn out to be empty already. Throwing on his uniform is a battle against time – a battle, he knows, he’s losing. Every movement rigid, he can’t make his hands and legs do the things he wants to, any by the time he’s rushing out of the changing room, he’s-

“Almost fifteen minutes late, Harrington,” Coach Daniels looks up from his watch, face molded into a frown. “New record.”

“I’m so sorry, sir, Ms. O’Donnell-”

“Harrington, what are the rules?” Steve clamps his mouth shut, knowing what’s going to follow. A few snickers behind his back grate at his skin. Coach continues, “What happens outside of this court right here?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Daniels claps his hands together before frowning. “I would like you to stay after practice, son. We should talk.”

Coach Daniels knows exactly what he’s doing when he says that. Steve knows this because he’s seen him do it time and time again with different team members over the years. He himself experienced it only a handful of times but it was enough motivation for him to never repeat the mistakes that led him there. Until now. Until the hole he dug himself in.

For the entire hour of practice, it’s all Steve can think about. The ball keeps slipping from his hands, his teammates’ calls are distracting, he doesn’t land one shot. It’s all worth shit. And all this is leading to a chewing-out he probably frankly deserves.

“Harrington, you’re out of your captain position.”

Oh.

That’s…not what he expected. Maybe it should have been, all things considered.

“Sir, I promise I’ll try harder. I’ve been distracted, I know, but I can-”

“Harrington, son, you’re a good kid but your head ain’t in the game and it hasn’t been for a while,” Coach Daniels settles behind his desk with a long-suffering sigh. It’s dirty and covered in so many little trinkets Steve wonders how anything gets done. “I appointed Hagan as the new captain. Dismissed.”

It’s harsh. Steve should be upset but, instead, he’s numb. Relieved? He doesn’t know.

It’s very overwhelming how underwhelmed he feels about it all. 

Tommy. Tommy Hagan, basketball captain. It has a ring to it. Doesn’t it?

“Congrats, man,” Steve claps him on the back in the changing room and it feels oddly sincere. He doesn’t like the guarded look Tommy gives him at first, but he likes the proud smirk that replaces it even less. 

The thing is.

Steve Harrington and Tommy Hagan have been best friends since second grade, everybody knows that. The arrival of Carol once middle school started, in retrospect, is the first of many dents in the relationship. Though if anyone asked, Steve would not be able to pinpoint how so, exactly. All he knows is that in 1981 he walked in on Carol and Tommy making out at one of Jackson’s parties and later woke up with blood on his cut fingers and remnants of a glass next to him.

He doesn’t party that hard anymore.

Not often, at least.

There’s been a growing strain between him and Tommy since Autumn. Steve knows that. Tommy knows that, too. They’ve been fighting more than usual, leaving Steve tired and annoyed at the smallest things. It’s tense, it has been for months now, worsened only by Tommy’s insistence on bringing up Nancy Wheeler at any given opportunity.

“She really downgraded since she dumped you, huh?” he would say and point at Jonathan Byers. Steve sometimes wonders if perhaps Tommy despises Nancy Wheeler more than he ever could. He doesn’t let himself wonder why that would be.

“She didn’t dump me,” he would grit out, old song and dance to which Tommy only rolled his eyes and trudged on about one rumor or another. The thing is, Steve knows Tommy doesn’t say those things out of malice, most of the time anyway. But the rift between them grows continuously and they both know it. Carol, for all her seeming air headiness she’s been cruelly accused of many times, feels it as well, spending more time with Jessica and Tommy and less with Steve. Which is fine. He’s used to being alone anyways.

-&-

Tommy Hagan has been the captain of the basketball team for less than a month when things get rough. Rougher. Him and Steve barely talk, even though they both try to mend something that seems impossible to fix at this point. Steve is busy with swimming, Tommy with basketball and, among all this, it’s just uncomfortable. The jokes between them fall flat, the conversations are stilted. There is no one decisive issue they’re supposed to tackle. It’s just – them. They don’t work anymore.

Despite all this, Steve clings onto Tommy walking the hallways. Less than a year ago it felt as though Steve was the one in control, he asked Tommy to jump and he would ask how high. Steve is starting to wonder if that was maybe an illusion he made himself believe. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.

On yet another Wednesday, three weeks later, Steve drops off the missing assignments on Ms. O’Donnel’s desk without waiting for her disapproving glare. He hopes that, if nothing else, it will get him a pass. Making his way towards the changing rooms fills him with dread, even though there is no reason for this, not really. What happened happened; c’est la vie and all that shit.

He's not late this time.

Except-

“Told you he’d chicken out,” someone snickers inside, muffled voices heard through a gap from the door left ajar. “Harrington might act all tough and shit but he’s first to run.”

And – oh. They’re talking about him.

Steve’s feet are glued to the floor. He should leave.

“Dude, he’s always been a coward,” Tommy’s voice agrees from inside. “When we were in sixth grade-”

Steve doesn’t hear the rest. He doesn’t have to, he knows the story well and how humiliating it is at all the right parts. He knows Tommy knows that, too – has sworn never to tell anyone – but what good are promises made by people like him. Like them .

The doors open. “Oh, shit-!”

Dave, a broad sophomore, spills out of the room first, a trail of teenagers quickly on his tail. The corridor goes quiet and stays as such for a moment too long before the group scrambles towards the gym at a pace that would otherwise make Coach Daniels infinitely proud. Someone says hi. Someone else apologizes. A hand claps him on the shoulder.

And then there were two.

Tommy steps out of the room with a chain of grief tied around his neck. “Steve-”

“Why?”

Hagan’s eyes refuse to meet his but Steve is glad, thankful for this. It makes the hard part a little easier.

“You’ve been distant,” Tommy finally says.

Steve snorts. This is the best he could come up with. You know why , is at the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t say it because maybe Tommy doesn’t. It’s not like they talk.

Maybe he has been distant. So sue him. A lot’s been on his mind.

“So-what? You humiliate me behind my back?” It comes out louder, more defensive than he intends to but there’s a growing part of him that wants to bite, wants to scream and kick, and it’s always been there but never to this extent. He wants Tommy riled up. He wants him to say the quiet part out loud.

“I wasn’t trying to-” but halfway through Tommy seems to give up, lets out a sigh and runs his hands down his face. He looks tired and stressed, Steve notes, alien in his own skin. This must be what looking into a mirror must feel like.

“You won’t talk to us. Me, or Carol. She’s been worried about you,” spills out, lie after excuse, after exaggeration. The thing is – the thing is – Steve knows Tommy cares. Whether Carol Perkins gives a shit or not is up for debate most of the time but Tommy, Steve knows Tommy does care. It’s not some deeply-rooted hatred that made him do it, it’s not revenge or an elaborate scheme, it’s – what?

They can debate all day long about what it is that made Tommy do what he did, betray his best friend’s trust like that, but what would it matter? In an alternative dimension it’s Steve who does the knife-twisting, in another it’s Carol, in the next, who knows? It’s how they are built, from the ground up, rocky foundation at best, latching onto any self-preserving opportunity in close vicinity.

So it’s not that Steve hates Tommy. It’s not even that he blames him. He’s just – angry.

“I don’t think we should be friends anymore,” Steve tells him and immediately hates every fissure on Tommy’s face in return, knows he’s no different, but he’s done running. If Tommy wants to take the cowards’ way out, Steve will not be there to join him this time.

“What? Steve, man, hold on a minute, we can talk this through-”

But they both know this isn’t something they can do. They’ve taken their sweet time. Borrowed time. Now they have to pay for all the extra that went past the due date. And the longer they wait, the higher the overdue fees climb. 

And so, this is how he finds himself under the bleachers the next lunch break.

Then the next, and the next; every few days, for the last month or so.

Early April in Indiana isn’t usually very forgiving. It’s cold and damp most of the time and 1984 is no different. Steve doesn’t mind though, not too much. He always preferred the colder months of the year, the dark evenings where a soft blanket and a cup of warm cocoa are the only things on the schedule. His spot under the bleachers allows no comforts like that but the metal turns out to be a great barrier against the wind. What’s left of the chilly breeze that does get in isn’t much of a nuisance.

Young Steve had mastered the art of being invisible. One with the walls, the curtains, the bushes in the garden; one with the background around him, precisely how he was requested to be. It was this unspoken game between him and his parents. Steve, a silent mouse, a shadow – a good son. He sat and smiled up at his father’s important clients and afterwards his mother would tell him how proud she was, how well her son behaved that day, before slinking off towards the mini bar and grabbing a bottle of wine. Penfolds. For the migraines.

Under the bleachers is where he finds his mind at ease, away from Tommy and pressure and stares. It almost feels like he’s a kid again but without the burning disappointment at expectations that were never going to be met. There is no Nancy Wheeler, no Tommy Hagan, no Carol Perkins, and no Richard Harrington under the bleachers and he likes it that way. He closes his eyes and breathes. For the first time being alone doesn’t feel lonely.

Then, lunch break ends with a shrill sound of the bell. It’s time to get back and be invisible in all the ways that don’t matter.

-&-

Something strange is happening in the Royal Court of Hawkins High.

It’s in the air, Eddie can smell it walking down the cramped hallways,can feel the tension weighing down on the flakey paint scrubbed down the walls, pulling all the way down into the concrete floor below. Something is off, Eddie detects it in the fervid anticipation setting electric jolts at his fingertips. It tends to bring anything but good news for folks like him. Eddie is still curious.

The jocks seem even more intent on hating themselves and those around them. It’s clear in the way they impressively compensate for what they lack with bull-like posturing, shoulders set straight and rigid, lips molded into a permanent scowl that you can barely see with the way they keep their heads shoved so deep down their own asses. A dense cloud composed solely of varsity jackets sits itself at the usual table in the middle of the cafeteria, something that surprises no one except for the fact that one key element is missing.

Steve Harrington walks into the room a moment later, looking as though he’s seeing it for the first time in his life (maybe, in a way he is, his recent absence there has been noted), and instead of making a beeline towards his loyal subjects, sits himself by the only empty table, just next to Eddie’s DnD club, Hellfire.

Eddie silently raises one eyebrow at the rest of his table. Mutiny? Lover’s quarrel?

Whatever it is, it bounces from Hagan to Harrington and back, though it’s Hagan who seems intent on making his disdain and superiority known more than anyone else. 

Eddie wants to laugh. For the sake of keeping his face arranged the way God intended, he does not.

“Word on the street’s that Harrington got kicked out of the basketball team,” Jeff unsubtly whispers in lieu of an explanation, hand cupped around his mouth loosely.

Huh, is Eddie’s only thought but, the lunch break goes on and as much as he’d deny it till his last dying breath, his eyes are glued to Harrington’s measly form peeking from between Jeff and Grant. A part of him that he would like to bury deep within himself, that betrays the Munson Doctrine’s complete and total disregard to jocks and their inconsequential drama, feels…a bit bad for Steve Harrington. Eddie would like to forget that thought crossed his mind at all but, alas, the pathetic way in which Harrington’s usually perfectly puffy hair falls lifelessly over dark eyebags does something horrible and unexpected to his squishy insides. He does not like it one bit.

So – what? One popular guy doesn’t get what he wants this one time and Eddie should care…why?

Cry me a river.  

Except, Eddie can’t do that. Maybe because he knows how much it sucks to be suddenly so alienated and excluded from people he thought were his friends. Maybe because he can empathize with Harrington losing something he clearly enjoyed doing. Maybe simply because, at that moment, Steve Harrington doesn’t resemble the King Steve who roamed around Hawkins High for three years, head held too high to notice what his newest pair of sneakers trampled on his way to the top. Eddie looks at him, hunched and defensive, and sees something of himself there, too. Not all good but not all bad either.

Steve Harrington is no freak by any means, don’t get him wrong. He doesn’t belong to the Eddie Munsons of this world but, as things stand right now, he doesn’t fit in with Tommy Hagans either. It’s very strange and it seems that, on the following days, the whole school feels slightly off kilter. Harrington stands out like a sore thumb as much as he clearly wishes to be invisible - and isn’t that a thought to mull over in itself. Eddie can’t look away; maybe because, for the first time in his life, Steve Harrington doesn’t seem so terribly dull and lifeless, and Eddie wants to sink his teeth into him, see what flavor it gives now that he seems to have one. 

Tension builds, more and more, like a rubber band ready to snap.

And it does, of course it does. It had to. Eddie just didn’t expect to be in such close vicinity when it happens.

“Playing your dumb little game again?” James, Tommy’s newly-crowned sheepie, comes up to the Hellfire table and picks up their newest freshman’s elven figurine. “Aren’t you a little too old to play with dolls?”

A string of canned laughter follows from the jocks slowly pooling in around the table. The freshman, Bill, looks terrified, eyes darting from side to side, squeaking high when James flicks the figurine off the table.

“Shouldn't you be off playing with your balls?” Eddie bites back, fingers already tapping at the plastic tray, itching to do, well, something . Anything.

“The Freak’s got a lot to say today, huh?” Tommy steps in, leans unnecessarily close, in Eddie’s opinion anyway.  “Why don’t we take it outside, fellas? Teach him a lesson or two.”

This is enough to set off an array of warning bells. They should have stepped in earlier, probably, stopped him from opening his mouth in the first place, but he tends to ignore the first warning signs. Playing it safe isn’t in his nature. But cowardice is. It remains a very dangerous combination.

“Lay off, Hagan.” Harrington is suddenly so impossibly close to Eddie, closer than Tommy, even; close enough for him to get a strong involuntary whiff of his cologne. Chanel? ( So not the point.)

“Why don’t you mind your business?” James sneers but Tommy, for all his previous bravado, stands still, an unreadable expression on his face. Interesting.

“Like you did with Gina Fisher?” Harrington’s words don’t make much sense to Eddie but they certainly do to James whose face turns pale before morphing into something resembling an angry chihuahua, all bark and teeth but no bite. Harrington leans in close, whispers something in his ear. James’ hands clench into fists so tight Eddie can see his blood pumping in the veins bulging on his arms. Whatever sweet-nothings Harrington whispers into the air head's ear sticks its landing perfectly.

Whatever Harrington doesn’t say to Hagan seems like enough, too. Maybe even too much because he looks on the verge of snapping himself in half. 

It’s not nearly as entertaining as Eddie has hoped for. Awkward would be a better way to describe it; the way Eddie feels whenever he sneaks out for a smoke in the middle of the night and Mr. and Mrs. Campbell are trenches-deep in a particularly nasty back-and-forth about who cheated on whom this time. 

Still, credit where credit is due, the jocks leave them be. 

Eddie isn’t stupid; Harrington isn’t doing all this for someone, he’s doing it against . As long as they both acknowledge it for what it is and nothing more, that’s fair game in Eddie’s book. Not that Harrington appears to be in the mood to acknowledge anything at all, much less Eddie Munson’s existence, for which he can’t really be blamed. 

It still feels like a victory.

-&-

On the first day of Spring Steve finds himself at yet another party. He hates it. He loves it too much to quit.

He’s not sure why he’s here. There was a reason, a long time ago, he reckons, but whatever it was, it long since drowned in the bottomless tequila shots. Was it to tell Tommy to fuck off? Fight him? Talk to Nancy? Get mindlessly drunk?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

He’s done at least one of those things.

Maybe only one. Shit.

The ground is spinning. Or maybe it’s the sky? The stars do look pretty. They hurt, too. Pinch at his sides.

“Earth to Harrington,” one of the stars tells him. Except the voice does not come from the sky. It’s close, very close. Warm like honey, it makes him feel all sorts of things.

“You really are totally shitfaced.”

“Yeah, I am,” Steve says with a string of giggles taking over his body. “My face is the shit .”

“Jesus Christ-”

His ass hits something hard – grass? No. Pavement. Hmmm. The ever wonderful Madonna turns into a quiet hum at the back of his head. She really does have a great voice.

“…touched for the very first time… mmmhhmmm.”

“This is some kind of punishment, I swear to-” the voice grumbles before something plastic slips into Steve’s hand, he almost spills, too, when his fingers slip. “Here, drink this. It’s water.”

The blurry shape kneeling in front of him sharpens enough for Steve to recognize a mop of long curly hair and sharp jaw. Brown eyes?

“Nancy?” he asks but then he remembers the deep voice that definitely does not belong to his- whatever. Whatever Nancy was, could have been – it’s all bullshit anyway. He should have moved on by now. He has moved on, so moved on, in fact, he might go and talk to some girls who are not Nancy Wheeler. Just watch him go.

He tries to stand up. The world tilts to the side and he realizes belatedly that his body is rushing towards the pavement. A pair of hands grab at his sides and suddenly he’s sitting again.

“Whoops. S’ry, man.”

“Don’t sweat it, Harrington. Sorry to disappoint but I definitely ain’t Wheeler.”

“You’re nic’r than h’r anyway,” Steve concludes with a limp nod and downs the cup of water in one go. Coughs. There’s a warm hand on his back, patting him as he wheezes.

“I don’t think sober you would agree, all things considered, but thanks. I guess.”

The water does help, Steve begrudgingly admits. The sitting, too, probably. It takes him longer than he’ll ever admit but he does sober up a little bit – enough to recognize that the person who helped him is still by his side, watchful. Enough to recognize who it is.

And when Steve says “Thanks, Eddie,” he gets to fully enjoy the surprise and a shy smile on Munson’s face, no matter how hard he tries to hide it behind his wild hair. Too bad; it suits him.

-&-

Eddie would like to personally file a complaint letter to whoever invented grocery shopping. 

The lines are exhausting, the people sweaty and irritable to a dangerous degree, the food overpriced. Eddie hates it, the whole ordeal of it, but at the end of the day he’s a good nephew – he’s committed to trying to be one at any rate. So whenever Wayne has a string of night shifts at the plant, the grand blessing of doing grocery shopping befalls on his bony shoulders. A responsibility he takes upon with great care.

“Sir, are you going to buy all that Honey Comb?” a woman in her forties points to the three boxes of cereal in his cart. There’s a snotty eight-year old linked to her with a death grip that gives off the energy of a haunted Victorian child. The Kid doesn’t blink once. 

“My Kenny needs it,” she adds in lieu of an explanation. Eddie personally thinks Kenny might need an exorcist but he has enough tact to not actually say that out loud. His uncle raised a proper gentleman after all. He also did not raise a monster so, in the end, a pack of cereal lands in Kenny’s cold and stiff hands. There’s no payoff to this act of kindness, not even a ‘thank you, I shall not haunt you in your dreams’. Ungrateful, really - the youth these days. 

The line is long but so is the list of ingredients on the ranch dressing bottle in his hand. It’s no Lord of the Rings but he needs to entertain himself somehow and he’s down all the way to disodium guanylate, whatever that may be, by the time the family behind him unsubtly makes it known he’s supposed to put out his own groceries on the conveyor belt.

“Fifty-four dollars, seventy cents, sir.”

That’s…more than he thought it’d be. Shit. Wayne’s going to kill him.

He’s distracted while driving his cart back towards the van, nearly misses a couple heading to the store on his way over, but from the corner of his eye he notes a group of young boys – middle school, if he had to guess. From his position he can’t see much but something about it all sends alarm bells clustering inside his skull. Maybe he’s overreacting – maybe he’s not – but he’d rather do without a guilty conscience. If the years of slurs and punches thrown his way have gifted him with anything besides aching joints and tough skin it’s a sixth sense of when the bullseye target stitched onto his very being is shared with another.

And there’s nothing friendly in the way those two boys crowd the third.

“Shit,” Eddie makes his way towards the alley behind the store. The cart makes a loud swerve against the rough asphalt. He isn’t sure whether gaining the boys’ attention with that move was part of the plan or not, but the deed is done. Might as well commit to the bit. “Whatcha doin’ there, kiddos?”

“None of your business,” one of the boys snarks back with a terribly confident ‘fuck-you’ attitude for someone who hasn’t grown past five feet yet and seems to have body strength of a struggling chihuahua. Not to mention being a literal child. Eddie would respect the hustle if not for the context they found themselves in. 

His bully-presenting pal doesn’t seem to share the sentiment, wide eyes darting back and forth between his friend and Eddie. At this point it’s hard to say who looks more apprehensive - the bully or the bullied. 

“Oh, is it?” Eddie leans in close, very close. Too close. The tiny douchebag-in-the-making steps back but the defensive stature remains, eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed up almost all the way to his red ears. Eddie points his head in the direction of the parking lot. “Scram, kiddos.”

“Or what?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Eddie grins, all teeth, white and sharp. Goes cross-eyed for a split moment but it’s enough to make the impression he wants. Something eerily satisfying seeps into his bones the moment the two bullies scramble away from him, followed by a weak attempt at nonchalance a second later as they exit the parking lot, necks aching from how often they turn to look if he’s following them out. He does, with his eyes only, before turning towards the remaining kid, the self-satisfied smirk slipping from Eddie’s face the second he notices him trembling. 

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt ya. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am,” the kid says after a moment of silence and a muffled sniffle. “Thank you.”

The boy stays hunched over, bangs falling over his eyes, the unfortunate bowl cut residing on his head getting a tad too long. There are no bruises or blood that Eddie can see and while that does help relieve some of the anxiety, it doesn’t necessarily mean the kid is actually okay .

“Whatever they were saying, don’t listen to them, yeah?” He thinks about bumping his shoulder against the kid’s but decides against it. No need to spook him any further. “They’re just being little assholes.”

The bowl cut moves and suddenly Eddie is staring into a pair of earnest brown eyes, glassy from where tears threaten to fall. It’s only then that he recognizes the boy at all. 

“I’m a freak ,” Will Byers tells him, voice hoarse. Spits out the last word like a curse of eternal damnation. In middle school it sure must feel like it, Eddie knows that all too well.

“Hey, that’s not so- um,” his hand goes to pat one of the kid’s shoulders. “So am I. And I’m doing fine.”

Liar.

Whatever. Byers Junior doesn’t know that.

“I’m Zombie Boy,” the kid adds and, ah, Eddie isn’t equipped for this. His own father’s words ring in his head, over and over, like a haunting lullaby. Fuck them. Grow some balls. Stop whining . For better or for worse, whether he likes it or not, this is what has shaped him to be the way he is. Or who he would like to be, in another life, maybe, except not at all because it built him as much as destroyed him. He doesn’t want to destroy the boy in front of him. 

“That’s actually awesome.”

“How?” There is a sprinkle of curiosity wedged somewhere between disbelief and indignation. 

“Well, uh. So I had this campaign, I mean - in a story I know, it’s actually an army of zombies that save the day,” is what Eddie ends up with, wincing at his less than perfect delivery. 

“You know Dungeons and Dragons?” The kid’s eyes light up immediately. It’s kind of adorable. Oh, he’s one of the good ones. 

“Duh,” Eddie says, not unkindly. Leans in closer and whispers. “Wanna know a secret?”

Will Byers nods, then, with more energy and enthusiasm Eddie thought the terrified kid from a few minutes ago would ever be capable of. It sparks something warm in his chest, that he’s the one that is able to do that, make someone’s otherwise shitty day just a little less so. 

“I run the D&D club at school.”

“You’re the DM,” Byers deduces, bouncing forward. Something tells him he just accidentally met a kindred spirit, maybe in more ways than one. 

“That I am, Mini Byers,” Eddie grins. “And let me tell you - once you’re in high school? You’ve got yourself an honorary spot.”

It’s almost jarring to see the difference in the boy in front of him but in the best possible way. He, Eddie Munson, made that happen - isn’t that incredible? Maybe this god-forsaken town has long since signed him off as the single most devious being to roam its streets but - look at him; he can build, not destroy. He can bring out a smile, not instill fear. Look at him, ma’. Look at him, pa’. He turned out to be at least half-decent despite their best efforts, ey?

And that has to count for something.

-&-

It’s pouring.

Steve is by no means a slow runner but even his quick sprint to reach the bleachers does nothing to prevent the rain from completely soaking his clothes. He sits himself on the concrete, uncomfortable but satisfied, jeans and shirt clinging to his skin. The air is damp and heavy but as he closes his eyes for a moment, he feels at peace. Raindrops fall onto the railing and plastic chairs around him. It’s music to his ears.

“Shit. Fuck.”

Steve’s eyes snap open when a wet mass pushes itself into his lap. The smell of cigarettes instantly catches up in his nose and lungs and he coughs, surprised. The weight pressing onto him shifts away, leaving cold, wet stains everywhere they touched.

“What the fuck?”

The mass next to him freezes, long hair obscuring the face.

“Harrington?” it asks before a ring-clad hand pushes the hair to the side, revealing none other than Eddie Munson. Steve doesn’t know whether it’s luck or utter lack of it.

“Hi,” he says, wincing at how stupid it sounds. Munson’s owlish eyes lock onto him. Blink once; twice. And then, as if by a magic touch, a wide grin spreads across his face, dimples on full-display. Steve gets another involuntary whiff of the cigarettes when Munson leans forward, hands on his knees.

“Fancy seeing you here, your majesty.”

“In my spot?” which seems like a bad thing to say when the other teen yells in indignation all too loudly for how close they’re sitting. 

“Your spot? You mean my spot.”

“Pretty sure I don’t,” Steve quirks an eyebrow and juts his chin out. Eddie falls silent and observes him with an unreadable look on his face.

He can’t name it but Munson’s close proximity makes him feel an itch under his skin he cannot quite scratch. They’re too close, he isn’t used to the way he can feel the other’s puffs of warm air as he breathes, every shift and movement, wet curly hair tickling his neck. Munson is radiating warmth; it all feels like too much at once. Steve doesn’t move a muscle.

“Guess we can share,” he concludes. Munson makes an overexaggerated fanning motion in response, dimples out and teeth showing, and Steve’s stomach does a tiny somersault, the way it sometimes does when he eats too much too fast despite his mother’s disapproving looks. 

“Well if the King insists,” Munson sighs. He then smiles wide and unabashed and for the first time Steve doesn’t feel like it’s mocking him, like it’s genuine. He doesn’t really understand what has changed as of late to warrant that. If it’s pity, he doesn’t want it. But it doesn’t feel like it is. Munson thumps Steve lightly on the shoulder, successfully leaving another wet mark on his sweater. “Roomie.”

Steve lets out a loud snort, quickly clamping a hand over his mouth.

“Ha! So the mighty Harrington can laugh,” Munson shoves a finger in Steve’s face, one he tries to swat away.

“I laugh!”

“Never at any good jokes,” Munson corrects with a sad shake of his head as though it were a real and personal travesty.

“What? Like your little speeches in the cafeteria?”

It feels meaner than he intends to but Munson seems to pick up on that and simply leans closer.

“Stevie, those are completely serious, I’m offended.” Again with the nicknames. Seems as though Munson can never do things halfway. It’s intense, he’s intense, but somehow Steve doesn’t mind as much as he’d expect himself to. 

“I’m going to make you laugh, roomie,” Munson says, almost like a challenge.

Something warm pools over Steve then. He allows himself to grin, just a little – there’s no need to make Munson’s ego any unproportionally bigger than it already is.

Munson wants to play? Then so be it.

-&-

“Hey, Harrington!”

“What?”

“I couldn’t figure out why the basketball kept getting larger and larger.”

…

“Then it hit me.”

-&-

So. They’re friends now - him and Harrington. Sort of. 

Eddie is wearing him down slowly, he can tell. 

It feels that way under the bleachers, at least, where Steve Harrington has proven himself to be a surprisingly tolerable company, with a quick wit and a certain flavor of bitchiness that matches Eddie’s. Pot, meet kettle, but in the most bizarre of ways. Hellfire checking if he hasn’t been replaced by an evil doppelganger of ways. 

“It makes sense,” says Jeff one day, a spoon of something gooey and relatively warm shoved into his mouth. The table stares at him in silence in return, Eddie leaning forward on his elbows because, well, that’s definitely a new approach. 

Grant is the one to finally break and say the quiet thing out loud, “ How ?” 

“It’s simple, Peterson,” Jeff shrugs. Points to Eddie. “This one has no impulse control in adopting outsiders. And, like it or not, Eddie’s newest sheepie fits the bill right now.”

It feels wrong to call Steve Eddie’s ‘sheepie’, a term usually reserved for the shy and nervous freshmen that have no place to call their own, who want to fit in but have been banished to the ungrateful Realm of The Freaks and Outcasts. It feels entirely too underwhelming to describe Steve this way. 

“But it’s Steve Harrington ,” Grant - arguably reasonably - points out. 

“Acute observation, honey-pie,” Eddie jumps in, gleeful when Grant pretends to gag. “He’s Steve Harrington. But,” and, ah, he lives for moments like these - one finger pointed upwards, a moment of silence that is held just a little bit too long, their bated breath- “he’s no King Steve anymore.”

“Fair,” Gareth finally says and Eddie drums his fingers on the table excitedly. Can’t help the grin. He doesn’t know why he cares so much but he’s come to like the depressed, hair-sprayed son of a bitch. Maybe even care about him the tiniest of bits. Just itty-bitty. Blink and you miss it. 

He doesn’t like the way Gareth is looking at him, a smarmy all-knowing smirk plastered on his face and a piercing gaze peering right into his soul. 

Whatever Gareth is not -seeing, since it definitely is not there as it does not exist, Eddie doesn’t care to entertain it. 

When Steve joins the Hellfire Club lunch table the next day, Eddie’s heart beats a tad bit faster for normal, unrelated reasons. The new seating arrangement catches an eye or two, enough to make his spine tingle but Steve seems unbothered by the attention. Maybe it’s lack of it that would set any warning bells to people like him.

And it’s so distractingly easy to forget where they are and with whom when Steve leans in close, whispers for only Eddie to hear, a warm breath tickling his cheeks, “Have you heard about Natasha?”

See, gossip has never really been Eddie’s thing - it lost its appeal the fourth or fifth time he himself fell victim to it - but there is something undeniably magnetic about the way Harrington experiences them. Lives through them. Takes them in and out like a breath of air, without anything inherently malicious about it. And Eddie - well, Eddie feels the pull, he’s hooked on every word, he needs to know why Brad and Sarah broke up, why Mr. Novak is acting weird, why Josephine is not talking to Madelaine. And he hates himself afterwards, just a little, but then Steve sits next to him - in the cafeteria, under the bleachers, at a table in the nearby woods - and his mind goes dangerously blank, it quiets down.

He’s playing with fire. He’s going to burn, too close, too fast, but he doesn’t mind. 

Whatever. He has it under control. 

Flowers bloom with spring pushing itself well into Hawkins. Like clockwork, Grant complains about his allergies, Jeff gets into cycling everywhere he possibly can and sometimes can’t, Gareth pushes for Hellfire meetings out in the wild. Eddie’s not a big fan of Spring but it beats Summer, so he tries to enjoy himself while he’s not yet sweating through every item of clothing he owns.

“You could just, like, not wear black, for once,” Steve once told him after a long-winded speech about the oppressing heat that’s about to come. Eddie reconsiders their friendship, as new and tentative as it may be, right in that moment. 

“Wh- no . Black is my thing , man. What would I do without my notable reputation, Stevie?”

He notices the pink dusting Steve’s cheeks, then, and thinks, well, it’s already begun; Summer hasn’t even started yet and his friend seems to be the first victim of the sun. Hopefully it doesn’t sting. 

“I have a pool,” Steve says, and a decision is made. 

Steve’s parents are not home the first time Eddie Munson invites himself, nor are they the second or third, or, well, never, really. Steve doesn’t say that last part out loud but Eddie knows what lack of a parent looks like. 

On his fourth visit, they build a pillow fort. First one ever to rise up on the grounds of the Harrington estate. On his fifth the Hellfire Club decides to take advantage of the ‘big house, no parents’ side of things, much to Steve’s amusement, while they throw the smallest and most passive of house parties that have more flavors of chips than glasses of alcohol. It’s fun. 

Most of the time, though, they lounge by the pool, just the two of them. 

For two people so vastly different they never seem to run out of topics to talk about. Maybe because they are nothing alike, on paper at least, their conversation can last hours even when nothing is really discussed. They just are. Maybe because their sources of joy couldn’t be further from each other but things that feel too painful, too wistful, are one and the same.

Even the best weed can’t really fill that hole but it’s good enough for a couple of hours.

“I’m so jealous of you, man,” Steve props himself at the edge of the pool, shirt and shorts still on, and a pair of sunglasses perched on his forehead. He gingerly accepts the joint in-between two fingers. 

Eddie can’t help but snort. “And why is that, pray tell?”

“You don’t have to deal with all this high school bullshit anymore.” Steve takes a hit but hogs the joint, like an asshole . “Meanwhile I have to, like, en-edure, endure another year.”

Somewhere, a pin drops, Eddie can almost hear it. 

“That’s a big word there, Stevie,” he tries to laugh but it comes out strangled. For all the teasing he’s gotten over the years, he’s glad he let his hair grow out, if only to be able to hide just a little right now. “But, ah, seems like I’ll be joining you on that particular quest.”

He hopes they can move past this quickly and painlessly but the moment he sees a familiar frown tugging on Steve’s face, he knows that’s not going to be the case. 

“Eddie-”

“Hey, don’t sweat it, man,” he shoves at Steve’s shoulder. “Just more opportunities to annoy your perfect ass.”

Before Harrington can spurt out a reply of any sorts, Eddie dives into the pool, clothes still on.

He lets himself sink, just a little. 

-&-

“Steven?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“I’m glad you listened to my advice.” Pause. “Are you working at the pool this year?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Good. You need to learn some discipline.”

“Yes, Dad.”

Chapter Text

Part II: Senior Year (1984/1985)

Eddie never knew the public pool could be so fun . 

Jeff looks aptly worried when he says so out loud but Jeff is also convinced Eddie is somehow heartbroken about hanging around for Senior Year Round Two and has consequently lost his mind but Eddie is not and he hasn’t. He’s actually very much doing extremely fine about it. He’s cool. So cool. Cucumber cool. 

“Use the sunscreen,” comes a familiar voice followed by a bottle being promptly thrown his way. Eddie, because he has the eye-hand coordination of a toddler, almost catches it; meaning it bounces off his fingers and onto the tiles almost a foot in front of him. 

“Thanks, sweetheart, will do,” Eddie winks and finger guns like the ultimately lame person that he is. It puts a smile on Steve’s face, though, and as pathetic and un-metal that makes him, that’s really all that counts.

“You’re so whipped, dude. It’s embarrassing,” Grant cackles. Which is mean and completely undeserved.

Eddie Munson may appear childish sometimes but he’s grown enough to admit – to himself only – when he likes someone. He also has long since accepted that he’s not very good at following rules. Don’t run with scissors, listen to the grownups, date nice girls - he’s broken them all time and time again. Why should now be the time to start obeying them?

So. The ever-present elephant in the room. He likes Steve.

Which could – potentially – be a problem. But, see, Eddie is very experienced in the art of liking people who are completely and utterly unattainable. Gareth insists Eddie simply has a terrible taste in men, and maybe there’s a ring of truth in it; not that he would ever sign off on anything Gareth says about his romantic prospects. The heart tends to want what it cannot get. Case and point, the American Golden Boy, Ladies’ Man, drumrolls, please - Steve Fucking Harrington.

But good God does he look good.

A gaggle of giggling teenage girls settle down close to Hellfire, not batting an eye over the boys’ futile attempts at garnering their attention. But who could blame them when Steve is walking around in nothing but skimpy red shorts, chest on full display and a pair of designer sunglasses perches onto his carefully-curated mane.

Eddie is royally fucked. And not even in a fun way.

Still, he can’t help a spark of self-satisfaction when Steve doesn’t spare a glance at the group of girls and instead smiles at Eddie. 

Take that, Tiffany from English. 

-&-

Eddie Munson is going to be the death of him. 

He, for whatever reason, insists on coming to the pool every single time Steve has a shift and though he appreciates a familiar face, or a few what with the Hellfire crew often joining in, Eddie’s presence is wildly distracting. 

He refuses to wear a hat. Forgets sunscreen. Runs on the wet tiles. 

He’s migraine-inducing and yet Steve doesn’t have the heart to tell him to quit it. Can’t help but look for the wild mess of curls and tattoos on pale skin in the crowds that spill into the Public Hawkins Pool every morning of the summer. This work, though he enjoys it a fair bit, is a handful on a good day - screaming and disobedient children, overconfident parents, unaware elderly. You need to have eyes on your ass, as his manager once stated. 

“Hey, no running, or you get time-out,” he’s whistling at some curly-haired middle-schooler who, of all things, chose a dark Weird Al shirt to wear in the scorching heat, when a tall redhead approaches him.

“Hi there,” she says, fingers intertwined behind her back, warm body leaning in just close enough to give him a flattering look of her cleavage. Hailey Buckley, he thinks. Recognizes vaguely from school.

“Hi,” he starts but then immediately rushes towards the pool, curses muttered under his breath, because Eddie was just finishing his disgusting mayo and turkey sandwich combo-

“Thirty to sixty minutes, Munson, how many times do I have to tell you?” 

“Aw, man, you’re no fun,” he tips his head back from where he sits at the edge of the biggest pool, long pale neck for all the world to see. Steve looks away. “I was just going to dip my toes in.”

“Just-don’t drown yourself,” it comes off more snappy than he intends but his hands are sweaty and Eddie is being particularly infuriating. 

He also never seems to know when to stop. “You’d save me, wouldn’t you, big guy?”

Steve needs to take a break. He picks up his pace on the way to the bathrooms, growing more uneasy by the second. 

This – all of this - is ridiculous.

His reflection in the dirty mirror above the bathroom sinks is pitiful at best. He’s having a heat stroke. He must be. He has all the symptoms, too, as far as he can tell – the fast heartbeat, the warm splotches he feels all over his face and body, the thoughts that are not new, exactly, but the intensity- No, stop it, Steven, you’re not- You’re not . 

Serves him right for not wearing a hat that one time.

A loud noise from one of the stalls behind him startles Steve back into the present. His fingers, stark white from the pressure, slip from where they were gripping at the marble counter. His cheeks look flushed even in the singular light hung over the sinks. He doesn’t get to dwell on it, though, with another unsubtle crash, followed by a quiet ‘shit’. The doors of one of the stalls fall open, revealing Hailey Buckley’s younger sister.  

“Uhm. This is the men’s bathroom,” Steve starts, unsure of how to proceed. Robin rolls her eyes slightly and pulls her long legs from where they were folded on the toilet and stretches them out. She chews on her lip for a moment, peering up at him from beneath her uneven bangs.

“It’s the only place I know my sister wouldn’t dare to look for me,” she tells him like it’s obvious and he doesn’t know where that confident attitude is coming from but it’s kind of refreshing to see her like this compared to how tense she always looks by the pool.

“Right. She’s, um-”

“Insane?” Robin supplies and a surprised laugh escapes him before he stops himself. The loose smile stays stuck on his face but he can’t help it.

“I was going to say ‘interesting’,” he shrugs.

“Of course you were,” she sighs with a healthy dose of dramatism. “You’re such a people pleaser, God .”

“No, I’m not,” Steve immediately protests. “At least your sister is nice .”

“Yeah, well, she’s genuinely, like, obsessed with you,” Robin widens her eyes, hands moving in rapid motions. Steve can’t help but wince. Say what you will about his scholarly achievements, Steve knows he’s good at reading people. Emotionally intelligent, Eddie once called him. Point is, he usually can read the signs well enough to know when someone is interested. Hailey Buckley, he can tell, is interested. She’s also exactly the type of girl Steve would’ve asked out a few months ago. Now, when he thinks about going on a date with her, it feels…wrong. That kind of scares him.

“Pretty sure she already chose the venue and flowers for your wedding,” Robin deadpans before listing off. “Hawkins Wedding Lodge. Orange dahlias.”

Steve humphs, beginning to grow uncomfortable. “Well, I’m not interested.”

“Would you mind telling her that then?” Robin slumps against the toilet. “All I hear is ‘Steve this, Steve that’. You’re really annoying, you know?”

It should sting but something about Robin makes him confident that she’s not saying it out of malice at all. That it’s a joke hidden underneath all those layers.

“No, I’m not !”

“By proxy, you are.”

He can’t help it, he giggles. And God does it feel good. 

“You know,” Robin says after a moment, pulling herself into a standing position. “You’re not what I thought you’d be.”

“Is that good?” Steve finds himself asking but the girl has already slipped out of the bathroom. “Robin! Is that good?”

It doesn’t seem to be bad, he concludes, because the next time Robin Buckley sees him manning the fort by the pool, she sends him a subtle smile, another - she fake-gags at him and Hailey talking. He can’t help but snort, attention only snapping back to Robin’s sister when she makes an offended noise. 

Apparently it is not polite to start laughing when a person is talking about The Limited’s Summer Collection. Go figure. 

Somehow the bathroom talks sort of become their thing. And it’s a blessing, too, because in all the overwhelming chaos that are his recent thoughts about Eddie, his blooming friendship with Robin feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s unlike any other relationship he’s ever had and he sometimes wishes they could be more, for Robin to be the Forever, capital F, that he’s been looking for, but it just doesn’t feel right, not exactly. 

And Eddie-

“Relax, big boy, I actually used sunscreen this time,” the metalhead says while he does a little twirl in the men’s bathroom, showcasing the reddened skin from yesterday. There’s nothing special about it, nothing particularly pleasing to the eye, and yet Steve can’t look away. 

“Yeah,” he agrees without any thought behind it. Tries to swallow through the lump in his throat. “Okay.”

“You alright? You look kinda flushed,” the teasing tone long-forgotten, Eddie is suddenly very close, just a breath away, and Steve can’t help but let his eyes fall to those lips that never seem to shut up-

A warm hand pushes onto his forehead.

“I’m fine ,” Steve takes a step back, wincing when the sink slams into his back. He tries a smile, maybe even a smirk, but he knows it’s nowhere near as convincing as he’d like it to be. “Seriously, I’m good.”

“If you say so,” Eddie frowns. “Should we-?”

“Oh, I’ll, uh- actually I need to use the toilet, so.” Another poor attempt at a smile. “But you go on, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Eddie’s warm hand slides to his wrist, lingers there for a moment too long. “Yeah, okay.”

Steve turns on the sink the second Eddie leaves the bathroom, grasping at cold water to wash his face. Looking into the smudged mirror above the sink, his hair a mess and red still glued to his cheeks, he looks deranged. Kind of feels like it, too. 

A squeak from one of the stalls almost sends him flying and it’s then that he realizes begrudgingly someone might have watched and get the wrong idea. A right idea that is wrong. He feels sick but part of him still mulls over the aftermath of Eddie’s presence so close.

Robin Buckley peeks out of one of the stalls, a guilty look on her face. “Hi.”

Steve’s eyes dart to the side and he rolls back and forth on his heels before leaning onto the wall behind him, cold tiles like a sharpened knife against his back. Going for nonchalant. Good. 

“So, uh. Hiding from your sister again, huh?”

Robin blinks owlishly from her spot in one of the stalls. Tough crowd. 

“Listen. Whatever you think you saw- I’m not,” Steve heaves a sharp breath, fingers flexing. “I’m not .”

“It would,” Robin swallows and Steve is stricken with the thought that she’s never looked so small, not even when Hailey would try to squash her sister’s existence with her mere presence. “It would be okay. If you were.”

The bathroom turns eerily quiet then. Some sort of electric tension buzzes heavily in the air between them. Seconds stretch into minutes into what feels like hours. Steve doesn’t lift his eyes from where they glue themselves to the grimy floor. He hears more than he sees Robin sliding down to the ground and he can’t help it, his legs give out and he finds himself next to her. Her head on his shoulder feels like it belongs there even though they’ve never actually sat that close. A whiff of Robin’s shampoo, something flowery, feels oddly familiar, too. 

“I used to hate you.”

This feels so out of left field, even for Robin, he, for a brief moment, forgets the peril he’s found himself in. “Um.”

“In Mrs. Click’s class,” she continues. “You used to get bagel crumbs all over the floor. It was… disgusting. And-and you would ask these dumb questions all the time.”

“Okay, I don’t-”

“But it didn’t matter, Steve ,” Robin cuts him off. He can see her fiddling with the hair tie around her wrist, nails short from biting - a nervous habit he’s picked up on - and all he can do is listen.  “Because she was obsessed with you.”

A shaky exhale next to him. He wonders if it all comes down to Hailey Buckley in the end, to a huge misunderstanding, but the timeline in his head doesn’t add up. 

“I wanted her to look at me , to notice me ,” she admits in a whisper, only for his ears to hear, only for him to know.

“Her?”

Robin feels like a leaf on a windy autumn day, ready to disintegrate at the lightest of touches. Her entire body tenses for a second when he takes her hand into his, and she lets herself nod. “Tammy Thompson.”

Something warm starts to bloom in his chest but then he frowns and-

“That girl who totally botched Bonnie Tyler at the talent show last year?”

Their little bubble bursts as Robin lifts her head, slaps Steve’s face with her hair with how fast she whips around to look at him. “She did not !”

“Robin, she literally cannot hold a tune!”

“She has dreams.”

“She sounds like a muppet.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Robin flicks his ear. “And look who’s talking - have you ever heard Eddie Munson singing? He has the vocal range of a broken kazoo.”

He almost laughs but it gets stuck in his throat. It’s scary, this new, foreign part of him that he seeks out and wants to reject at the same time. It’s not how he pictured himself a year ago, sitting on a dirty floor of a public bathroom with a crisis in tow, but as Robin sneaks in an arm to link with hers, it doesn’t feel quite so earth-shattering.

“So. So if you were. Like that ,” and it’s the first time she really looks at him since they sat themselves on the dirty tiles; it’s the first time he lets himself look at her. “You wouldn’t be alone.”

“What if I’m just broken?” he lets himself ask the question. Robin furrows her brow. “I still like boobs. I mean, girls are hot, you know? But Eddie-”

“I don’t know, babe,” Robin tells him softly and it’s a testament of how serious the situation is because she doesn’t make a face at his choice of words. “But I don’t think there are rules to follow here. If you like him, that’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Steve lets his head fall onto Robin’s shoulder. Closes his eyes. “Okay."

-&-

Apparently they are ending Summer with a new member to their little silly group of friends. 

Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington seem attached at the hip by the end of August and Eddie is not jealous. At all. It actually doesn’t bother him one bit, the way this witty redhead sprouted out of nowhere and is invading his designated Steve Time. They can share, it’s whatever. And if they decide to cut the bullshit and start smooching faces - well, good for them, honestly. 

“You gonna glare at the girl’s head any harder and you’ll burn a hole right through.”

“I don’t appreciate your attitude, Jeff,” Eddie tells him through clenched teeth.

It’s going to be fun, Steve told him. A nice way to end the Summer before going back to school. Eddie doesn’t know if he agrees, not when his eyes are stuck on Steve and Robin hunched by the other side of the pool, very engaged in whatever hushed-whispered conversation they’re having. 

Eddie needs a smoke. Like, yesterday. 

“You okay, man?” Steve’s voice startles him the moment he reaches the side of the house. Enough to make him drop the whole pack of cigarettes.

“Shit. Warn a guy.” 

“Sorry,” Steve doesn’t look particularly apologetic, a conflicted look crossing his face when Eddie offers him a floor cigarette. “I shouldn’t.”

Eddie can only raise his eyebrow and wordlessly offer it again. From time to time Steve would get weirdly obsessed with breaking a, notably not the healthiest, habit of smoking once in a while. It never lasts long and Eddie quite enjoys his role as the tempter to the Golden Boy.

“Robin doesn’t like it when I smoke.”

Ah, and so the proverbial cat is out of the bag. Maybe it shouldn’t feel so surprising; Eddie has seen the way Buckley would ostentatiously turn her nose up whenever he brought his lighter to life or grabbed a pack from one of the pockets. Still, Gareth himself has never been a big fan of smoking, pretty vocally, too, and that never stopped Steve.

Something churning and sticky and yellow grabs hungrily at his organs, pulls his lips down. Makes the cigarette taste like vomit.

“So,” the jock in question breaks the silence. Eddie can’t help but notice he’s standing further away than normal. Probably not to get the scent of smoke on his clothes. Golly gee, what would Miss Robin say if he were to come back smelling like that ? Steve seems blissfully unaware. “Are you?”

“Am I what? Use your words, big boy.”

“Okay,” Steve frowns and, yeah, Eddie should probably cut down on the nicknames and sweet talking if he doesn’t want this friendship to crash and burn horribly. “Are you okay?”

“Never better.”

Eddie feels needles of irritation stab at his arms and legs and back - unprompted and unfair. He's also a bad liar, always has been when it comes to these kinds of things, and if he stays here any longer, he's going to get burned. 

“Actually, I should probably head out. Promised Wayne I’d help out with something,” Eddie knows it’s weak as far as excuses go but the overwhelming need to run - run now, run fast - takes over. He doesn’t dare to look at Steve. “But I’m all peachy, good, no need to worry about little ol’ me, cool as a cucumber over here.”

The cigarette drops from his mouth and gets squashed by the heel of his boot.

He probably didn’t overdo it. Yeah.

-&-

Eddie’s van bites the dust one week into the new school year.

Steve, because he’s a good friend and all, insists on picking up and dropping off Eddie every morning. He doesn’t mind at all, especially when it gives him more time with his friend, something that he feels as though has been scarce lately. Besides, it’s going to get much colder soon and neither really knows what’s going to happen with the van. The only problem is Eddie being unnecessarily pissy about it.

“Dude. It’s no big deal. I do that with Robin already,” Steve points out with a shrug but that only seems to sour Eddie’s mood even further for some reason. 

“Well, in that case,” he grumbles under his breath before he slides into the beemer - the backseat, because Robin has long since claimed her spot on the passenger seat. 

They drive in silence - partly because all the tapes left in the car are of music Eddie calls ‘heinous’, whatever that means, and partly because Steve feels like he’s sitting on a ticking bomb; one wrong move and bam, it blows them both up in the air. He hates that Eddie doesn’t want to tell him what’s wrong, insists nothing is wrong at all in fact, when it’s so obvious to everyone. 

“It’s because he’s repeating Senior Year, Steve,” Robin told him a couple of days ago, assisted by a light but poignant smack to the back of his head. 

And - right, well, that makes sense. 

Eddie’s piss-poor attitude started to show itself the closer they got to the end of the Summer. By the end of August he stopped coming to harass Steve at his job altogether, insisting he’s busy - with what, no one could figure out, including the guys from Hellfire. But now that Steve knows what the most likely issue is, they can help Eddie. He doesn’t know how - yet - but he’ll figure something out, or Robin will. She’s smart like that. 

Speaking of. 

“Hello, dingus,” she says too loudly before getting in and slamming the doors of the beemer. Turns back and nods at Eddie. “Dingus Two.” 

“How many times do I have to tell you not to slam the doors, Rob,” Steve grumbles as he pulls out of the Buckley driveway. 

“Whoops. One more time, I guess?”

He sighs but they both know it’s part of a bit between them and he can’t help but smile, just a little. As silly as it sounds, part of him feels warm all over with pride; he’s Dingus One . 

Some of the previous tension lifts, if only by a small bit, as Robin and Eddie get into a banter about one nerd thing or another. Band stuff, Steve , Robin always chastises him but, in all honesty, he doesn’t really know the difference that well. All he knows is that there is nothing in this world Eddie cares for more than his guitar. His Sweetheart, he calls it. 

The school parking lot is filled to the brim by the time they get there and Steve has to pull the brakes when a black Camaro shoves itself in the last empty space close to the entrance. 

“Son of a-” he honks almost on instinct, flipping the guy off when he gets out of the car. Whoever the asshole is, he doesn’t look impressed, reciprocating with a middle finger of his own before kicking one of the beemer’s front wheels.

“Asshole,” Eddie yells out of the rolled-down window.

It’s going to be a good day. 

-&-

In retrospect, Steve probably should have thought this through. 

Driving out to the trailer park mid-Saturday hasn’t seemed like a bad idea when he was getting into the car but now that he’s here, he realizes there is one crucial piece of information he’s missing. 

Which trailer is Eddie’s.

For all the times Steve has picked Eddie up or driven him back home recently, he’s never seen where his friend actually goes afterwards. Eddie waits outside or hangs around until the beemer is gone, a cigarette plucked loosely between his fingers. He’s protective of the trailer park, Steve noticed, treats it like an extension of himself. 

Used to the so-called grandeur of his own house and neighborhood, the trailer park feels very simple but idyllic, in a way. The birds are chirping in the distance, the breeze feels light but crisp, some people are bustling around and paying him no mind. It possesses a sort of charm the Loch Nora could only wish for. He wants to stay, just a little bit, just to see what it tastes like.

Most of all, he'd like to see this part of Eddie - how he lives and breathes this place.

“Steve?” Eddie, rightfully so, looks perplexed to see him there. “Did I forget we’re hanging out, or-?”

“No, no-! I, uh,” it’s not often that Steve gets tongue-tied but he wants to handle it with the appropriate gentleness and tact. Something he, according to Robin, notoriously lacks. “Just wanted to see you, man. Talk.”

"Uh-huh," Eddie hums, a bit stiff, before a switch of sorts flips and he's leaning in close, a too-wide grin spreading across his face. "And, pray tell, what matters of the King require the meager presence of thy Jester?"

He says it all with an atrocious British accent. Steve, regrettably, still finds it endearing.

"You seemed a little… off, lately. I just wanted to-"

But just as Eddie's forehead begins to crease in a way Steve isn't liking at all, something light and warm touches his exposed ankle. He can't help it; he screams. It's not a dignified sound either, far from it. The thunderstorm on Eddie’s face clears, turns amused, when he squats to pet the little terror - a white cat with muddy patches all over its lithe body. He points to it with his free hand as a way of introduction.

 “Oh, that’s Dog,” like it’s obvious. Steve blinks.

“Eddie, that’s a cat.”

He hates that he says it out loud because of course it’s a cat, of course Eddie knows that; it’s his stupid brain not catching up to what he should say instead, easily confused in a way it often gets around the other boy but he’s not thinking about this right now-

“No. Well, I mean, yes, but his name’s Dog,” Eddie tells him with a grin before pulling himself up. He hooks his foot on the edge of an old plastic container and brings it closer, uncapping a small bottle of water in his hands. The cat eyes Steve the whole way towards the make-shift bowl, only purring when Eddie scratches it behind the ears.

It’s very cute.

The cat. The cat is cute.

“I don’t think I will ever understand you, Munson,” Steve says instead and winces because even though he doesn’t mean to make it sound like an insult, it still does, a little. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind, hand stroking the fur with gentleness no one would accuse a Munson of. What fools they are.

“Nah, you’re on a good track, Stevie,” and the way Eddie says it, softened so much Steve can barely wrap his mind around it – it means something. He doesn’t need to see Eddie’s face to know he feels as though he has revealed ‘too much’, hand frozen between Dog’s shoulder blades.

In this way the two of them are matched. Diving head first into deep waters, intense and unpredictable – but let the waves take them wherever they deem appropriate.

That is how Steve wants to feel, he wants to let the current take him where he needs to go – to Eddie – and then, at the last minute, grab at the edge, hold on, because what if-

It dawns on him that Eddie – maybe, probably – likes him, like that , the way Steve maybe, probably, likes him. And what follows is as exhilarating as it is gut-wrenching because this thing between them could be wonderful or it could end a friendship he holds so dear. It’s still new, all of these confusing and raw feelings and he just, he needs to be sure before he dives head first into something he won’t be able to swim back out of.

He feels very muddled, is the thing. Not a good prognosis for starting a new relationship, a new type of relationship. Something that Steve wants to last.

They’re cowards, the both of them. In different ways. In ways that matter.

So Steve doesn’t say anything. Eddie keeps himself turned away. They’ll ignore it for now. They’ll wait and hope the other waits, too. And when Eddie finally faces him and asks him if he wants to share a joint – somewhere that isn’t Eddie’s home, regretfully – Steve can’t help but say yes.

They talk for hours, cocooned in a blanket under the clear sky. It feels like summer never happened.

-&-

The arcade is, in a word, loud.

Eddie is louder, still.

“Welcome to the world of nerds and freaks alike,” he announces with the accompaniment of wobbly jazz hands. Steve snorts, clearly holding back a laugh when an exasperated mother clears her throat at Eddie’s melodramatic entrance. He has the decency to look sheepish, cheeks tinted slightly red when he meets Steve’s eyes.

“And kids,” Steve nods his head towards the group of preteens overcrowding the Pac-Man machine.

“Maybe so but don’t be deterred, Harrington,” Eddie says as he hooks his fingers underneath the sleeve of Steve’s sweater. The cold metal rings that adorn his fingers momentarily meet Steve’s warm skin and Eddie pulls them away quickly. “The land of the wondrous Arcus Maximus is vast and wide. You’ll find something you like.”

Eddie leans by a machine and taps it off-handedly. “In fact, I can bet on it.”

“Oh, really? You’re awfully confident about this, Munson. But let’s see-” Steve scans the games around them. Most stations are occupied, predominantly with kids much younger than them. A basketball-based game catches his eye briefly before he settles on Dig Dug. “I’ll try that.”

“Excellent choice, my liege. Perfect fit for a king if I say so myself,” Eddie bows, feeling a certain satisfaction of being the only one, except for, ugh, Buckley, to be able to call Steve king and not be an unsuspecting victim of the patented Harrington Bitch Stare. “Lead the way.”

Now, Eddie had a good idea that Steve would enjoy the arcade. What he probably did not take into account is that Steve’s been a competitive sports player since a very young age. Be it swimming, basketball or, surprisingly, a game of Go Fish– he’s in it to win it.

“How’s it going?” Eddie leans closer to see the screen a moment later, a pack of Caramel Creams in his hand.

“I beat the record.”

“What? Are you serious?” he playfully shoves Steve away. “Let me see.”

True to his word, the username STEVE pops up right at the top, just barely surpassing someone by the nickname MADMAX. Still – shit – very impressive, indeed.

“STEVE?” Eddie pops a candy into his mouth. “You beat a record first-try and you call yourself ‘Steve’? That’s - that’s so lame .”

“ You’re lame,” Steve bites back with no heat in his voice. He does, though, shove his hand in the bag Eddie’s holding. “Gimme one.”

Over the course of the next few months, except for a spotty period in late November, the fight for the top spot between STEVE and MADMAX continues and Eddie is subsequently subjected to Steve’s impressive levels of bitching whenever the latter would beat him. 

Not once do they cross paths. 

-&-

Sometimes Steve catches Tommy staring at him. At lunch, in the corridor, in the parking lot. 

It’s unnerving.

Sometimes he looks back, and there’s a small pang in his chest; a sort of longing, he thinks. But then Tommy Hagan says something nasty about Eddie and the bubble bursts. Or someone from the team tries to hit on Robin again and again, pushes until it’s Steve that has to push back. Billy Hargrove trips someone from Hellfire, glares at Jeff from across the room, and nearly swerves into Steve and Robin while they gossip on their way to the Beemer in the parking lot. 

Tommy keeps looking. Maybe that’s the root of the issue. Because he doesn’t do anything but. 

Steve isn’t looking anymore. 

-&-

The popcorn is burned.

Eddie laments about it for a solid fifteen minutes. Steve, because he's a good friend, a tired friend, but a good one, is ready to grab the keys to his car and get them a new packet to make on the stove but then Eddie, ever the child, tugs on the sleeve of Steve’s sweater and doesn’t let go.

“I’m joking, I’m joking, Harrington, don’t fret your pretty head over it,” he accentuates his speech with a handful of the god-awful popcorn, wincing at the taste. Because he’s an asshole, he adds, mouth full, “It tastes great, Stevie.”

“You’re a menace,” Stevie tells him. Eddie grins. Robin fake-gags from the couch.

It goes like this: the last remnants of summer break into fall which then turns into winter in a blink of an eye, almost. Somewhere between the arcade-scapades, as Eddie likes to call them, and the well-known whirlwind of high school classes, one of them, at this point no one knows which one it was, brings this chaos to a halt with a request; no - a demand. Movie nights, once a week, I beg you -

Surprisingly they have been consistent so far, missing only one week in early December. Equally surprising - Robin and Eddie have not torn each other’s heads off just yet. Steve thinks it’s a great step forward in their current frenemy status. Like, tonight, Robin has mentioned the time Eddie stepped on her sandwich only once.

“It was twice , Steve, God .”

Which, in turn, prompts Eddie to squash his forehead against the back of the vomit-colored Harrington sofa. “I already said I’m sorry, okay?”

All in all, it’s a good tradition to have - something to take your mind off the ‘load of horseshit that is the high school experience’, as Eddie once acutely put it. Sometimes the rest of Eddie’s friends join in but the core group consists of him, Eddie and Robin, the latter two using any excuse to at least partially trash the Harrington Mansion. Steve doesn’t mind, really; it makes the house feel less like an inadequately expensive museum. 

Today they’re watching Two Of a Kind, something they unanimously saw at the local Family Video and decided it looked like enough of a disaster to be entertaining. They weren’t wrong.

“You gotta admit, John Travolta’s pretty hot,” Eddie says around yet another mouthful of the popcorn only he dares to eat. Another batch of the burned atrocities stops half-way when he realizes what he just said. A strangled noise leaves his throat.

“I mean,” Steve butts in quickly, jittery all over. “He’s no Martin Hewitt.”

In response Eddie’s eyes get comically wide and it would be very easy to just get lost in them-

“You think so?”

“Well, duh, have you seen him in Endless Love? Total babe.”

He’s proud of Robin who, for once, doesn’t make it abundantly clear how much she detests the word ‘babe’ when it comes out of Steve’s mouth. She’s perfectly still next to him but not in a way that feels on the verge of panic. His pinkie reaches for hers anyway; it’s exciting, it’s terrifying, and, though Steve has done it only twice now, it never feels quite the same.

Eddie, locked in his spot on the couch, seems pretty overwhelmed, eyes darting back and forth, fingers twitchier than usually. 

“Y-yeah, totally,” he says absently before snapping his head back to look at Steve. “Wait, no. I wouldn’t know that because I’ve never seen Endless Love. Because it’s super lame. And I’m not. So-”

Steve chokes a surprised laugh around his beer. “ Wow , okay, I see how it is, Mr. Cool Guy.”

“Actually, you’re both wrong,” Robin pipes in quietly before straightening in her seat. “Clearly Olivia Newton-John is the babe.”

The tension in the room dispels just like that. Steve thinks that maybe for the first time he has found people that he can be completely himself with.

He just hopes that the warmth he feels inside right now never goes cold.

-&-

“Three queers walk into a bar-

“Eddie - no .”

-&-

Though he would never admit it out loud for the fear of sounding corny, Eddie has always loved the New Year’s celebrations. Life may have not been so kind to the Munson family, in more ways than one, but he tries to remain an optimist against the odds. It’s worth it, he thinks, for moments like these – surrounded by people he deems closest to him, all huddled together in the junkyard. In the dark, it almost doesn’t resemble a barely reformed battleground against a beast of some sort.

“This year is gonna be my year, Stevie,” Eddie swings his arm around his friend’s shoulders, the pleasant buzz making them both sway a bit.

“It’s gonna be your year, Eddie!” Steve chimes and clink their little plastic cups together. The champagne, the cheapest they could find this side of bumfuck nowhere, sloshes inside, falls on their clothes in little drops.

Eddie straightens up then, pulling away from Steve, much to his chagrin. He raises his cup. “‘85, baby!”

As tradition goes, the fireworks start up too soon and too loud, pulling everyone away from their muffled chatter. Soon they all huddle together under the cloudless sky. 

“Five,” says Jeff.

“Four,” slurs Gareth.

“Three,” Robin puts her arms up. 

“Two,” Eddie’s fingers do a little drum-roll on the soft fabric of Steve’s sweater.

“One,” laughs Grant.

And when they holler ‘Happy New Year’ all together, for a split moment, a blink-and-you-miss-it, Steve leans closer, looks at Eddie as though he wants to touch him, kiss him.

But it’s gone in a second.

Maybe it never really happened. 

Who’s to say?

Iron Maiden continues to play loudly from the speakers of Steve’s BMW.

-&-

By mid-April it seems apparent that Eddie is skewing towards the same mistakes he’s made the year before, namely skipping classes, and the creeping danger of not graduating hangs shamefully over his head yet again. 

“This is ridiculous,” Robin concludes with a frown etched on her face. 

“Thank you, Buckley, for the very necessary and painfully accurate commentary,” Eddie bites back, harsher than he probably should have said it, and Steve feels himself turn protective. Since December the relationship between these two seemed less strained, more genuine. Sometimes, though, both of them seem insistent on poking the other just to test their limits. 

Robin’s chemistry notebook - Steve recognizes the ridiculous Human Bean design from the other side of the table - plops on Eddie’s head, much to his dismay. “No, dingus. I mean that this is an easy fix.”

“How so?”

“You start going to classes,” Robin rolls her eyes. Eddie is quick to turn in his chair, too loudly given they are in the library, and lets his dismay be known.

“That’s not-”

“ And ,” she continues. “We’re going to help you study.”

“We are?” Steve asks at the same time as Eddie. The idea seems ridiculous - Steve Harrington helping anyone graduate is truly laughable - but maybe ridiculous enough for it to work, just barely scrape by. It’s going to be difficult to squeeze in joint study sessions with the swimming season that is about to start but he’s willing to try and make it work. It won’t hurt him to focus more on his studies either. 

Maybe he can make his father proud of him along the way.

There’s nothing to lose but there might be something to gain after all. 

-&-

Steve looks ridiculous. 

The gown feels a little bit too tight, snagging uncomfortably around his neck and shoulders. Staring back from the mirror is a clueless kid playing dress-up. 

“Steven, we are leaving in ten minutes,” Angela Harrington calls out from the other side of the door, rapping her knuckles against the painted mahogany. Her tone is quieter, softer than usual– almost mother-like, which can only mean her husband is in a mood of his own. Steve didn’t expect them to come to his graduation, in a way wished for it. Still, seeing them home, seeing them care - it felt nice, for a moment. 

“Steven, I’ve heard you’re not working at the pool this summer.”

The little bubble he’s made around himself bursts, pierced straight through by his father’s even voice once he leaves the bathroom. 

“Only part-time. Budget reasons.”

Which is, by slight technicality, not a lie. It’s not the truth either but he’s not about to admit to his father that by the time he applied for the job his spot had already been taken. That some asshole from California smiled his way through all the formalities before Steve even remembered he had to show up to be as much as considered. That his son’s mind is so preoccupied by someone - another boy - he simply forgot. 

He’s not going to admit that ‘part-time’ is an embellishment of its own. Once in a while, Kenny has said. Not often then, is Steve’s guess. 

Richard hums dismissively, attention already on something else. Steve lets out a soft breath of relief; his first mistake. 

“And colleges?” Mr. Harrington continues, verting through a stack of mail Steve has carefully set aside for the last few months. “I haven’t seen any acceptance letters, son.”

Steve tries to swallow through the lump in his throat. Fails. “I didn’t get in.”

Bony fingers that hold an envelope twitch just barely. No other muscle moves. “And Tech?”

“No.”

Steve hates silence. He hates how empty the house feels, with or without his parents in it. He hates musicless car rides that make him space out. He hates nights battling insomnia and anxiety with not even a ticking clock to break the quiet. Most of all, he hates - fears - the type of silence that grows between them right now. It’s the sudden and rushed darkening of the sky right before the storm strikes, wind rushing through, electricity in the air. 

His cheek still stings a little as he’s getting out of his parents’ car in front of Hawkins High not even half an hour later. It’s pretty silly to think that a few hours ago he felt giddy at the prospect of graduating, of his parents seeing him reach for his diploma; in his mind, they wouldn’t stand up, no, but they would clap and smile, just a little. Enough. 

His father is right when he said Steve is still behaving like a child. Those dreams, they are dreams of a lost kid, not of a respected adult. 

Still, he-

Whatever. 

The school is bustling with graduating students and family members in a way that maybe would feel exhilarating if Steve didn’t feel a noose closing around his neck, more and more with each passing moment. It’s hard to swallow. He doesn’t know where he’s going anymore. 

“Woah, hey there, dingus. Are you alright?” Robin catches him by the shoulders, eyebrows creased in worry. She looks around. “Come on.” 

She leads him out the back, into an alley that he knows all too well as a spot for a smoke or two in-between classes. 

He can’t help but ask. “What are you doing here?” 

“Seeing you graduate. Obviously,” Robin peers at him from under her fringe. She really needs to cut it, it’s so uneven- “What’s going on? Spill.”

And he does. A year ago he would never indulge in what’s happening in his heart and mind, what hurts and burns until he can’t breathe. But Robin, she’s like a balm that makes it all bearable. And, for once, he knows it’s mutual, this unique type of understanding between them. Steve has never had something so delicate and honest at the palm of his hand to treasure. 

They stay huddled together for a moment or two. Steve kisses the side of Robin’s head, a little thing just between the two of them. “Thank you, Bobbie. I’m going to take a walk, okay? But I’ll be there. Promise.”

Steve has never been good with walks that had no decisive finish line or check-points along the way. Wandering aimlessly has always made him more anxious than anything else, he doesn’t know why. It’s no wonder, then, that he ends up behind the bleachers almost immediately, a destination already set in his mind before he realizes it himself. Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising; it’s a place him and Eddie have slowly carved themselves into. 

Speaking of which.

Knuckles ring against a metal railing as Eddie does a little music arrangement. Anything to prevent a normal attempt at knocking. Not that it’s necessary at all; bleachers don’t have a door, so, overall - pretty stupid.

“This seat taken?” Eddie asks before, without waiting for a reply, plops himself next to Steve. There’s not much space between them at all, never has been, but now Steve is so acutely aware of Eddie’s every movement, feels on fire in all the spots their bodies make contact. 

“Nervous?” There’s a joking note in Eddie’s voice as he bumps their shoulders together - he’s so close, the air smells like pines and smoke, every touch lingers of roughened leather and soft hands - but Steve by now can recognize the sincerity, genuine worry that hides itself underneath. 

And, because Steve would like to believe he has changed, has grown past his high-school induced view of the world and people, he allows himself to feel, to be. He nods, head turned the other way as some of that same unfounded pride filters through. “Yeah.”

“You did good,” and it feels like a very out of the left field thing to say but, then again, when has Eddie ever followed any social norms or cues? It’s one of the many things Steve likes about him so much, so instead of letting what he really feels be pushed up his throat, the words that are already curled around his tongue - well, my dad seems to disagree - all he does is reach for his friend’s hand. It’s meant to be a silent ‘thank you’, something that doesn’t feel so heavy with meaning and says too much. 

All Steve can focus on is the imprint of Eddie’s fingers against his, the tentative warmth the miniscule contact spreads up and down his body. 

Friends hold hands, he needs to remind himself; Robin and him have held hands plenty of times before and yet it never felt this way. But friends don’t, also, look at each other the way he and Eddie do; soul-deep and with unspoken desire. Friends don’t lean into each other’s spaces as though pulled together by an invisible rope, closer and closer, until Steve can almost taste the ash on Eddie’s tongue. He really, really wants to.

He shouldn’t.

But who says that ? Maybe he should, actually, maybe it’s exactly what he needs. 

“Steve? Munson?”

Robin’s voice springs them apart quicker than anything else ever could. 

“We should-”

“Guess we got busted-”

They do their own version of a walk of shame - a walk of missed opportunities, of almost ruined friendships, of what-happens-nows - and grasp at their crumpled diplomas. 

They - Hellfire and Steve and Robin - celebrate the newest high school graduates at the local diner, one that sprouted soon after Benny’s tragic death that no one in Hawkins really likes to acknowledge. It’s a quaint little place that they fill with cheap jokes and sugary sodas. Eddie seems withdrawn at first, and Steve doesn’t feel like stepping too much out of his little self-made comfort zone either, but the tension between them loosens up in time. 

It goes like this: Steve Harrington likes Eddie Munson.

Eddie Munson likes Steve Harrington.

One day, maybe, they will do something about it. 

-&-

“I can apply, too.”

“To Scoops?” Steve lifts up his head, miffed when Eddie snickers.

“No way, sweetheart,” he shakes his head and takes a drag from his cigarette. “I have seen the employee costumes. My legs were not made for shorts like those. Yours though-”

“Asshole,” Steve says with an easy grin that grows shyer when his friend bumps their shoulders together. 

“I saw they’re looking for someone to help out in the bookstore,” Eddie informs. “In the mall but in a different part.”

“A bookstore? That doesn’t sound very…you.”

“I take offense to that - I read!”            

“I know, you read enough for the both of us,” Steve shoves him playfully but there’s a tension in the line of his shoulders that tends to make an appearance whenever he gets self-conscious – reading was one of the more prominent causes, no matter how many times Eddie has reassured him it’s nothing to be ashamed about. But he gets it, he does, because even after years of a seemingly uncaring attitude, there’s still some parts left of the burning shame whenever someone calls him a ‘Freak’, belittles his interests or his appearance.

“It’s too…boring there, though. For you,” Steve continues with a half-hearted shrug. “I mean – it doesn’t sound like your kind of job.”

“Well, Stevie, I appreciate the great resume but I do have to find work somewhere,” Eddie concludes with an over-exaggerated grimace. Some may even say – a pout. “At least then I could see you on breaks. And not-breaks-”

“Eddie-”

“Fine, fine, I yield,” he flops back onto the mattress, savoring how soft it is. Say what you want about the Harrington prison of a mansion but at least they know how to get their dutiful eight hours of sleep on these. “I am going to be an exemplary worker. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Really?”

“I resent this unfounded judgment, mister!” Eddie pulls himself up, enough to wrap his arms around Steve’s middle and tackle him down with him.

“I’ll be the employee of the month, just you wait and see.”

“Yeah, I would like to see that, actually.”

“Soon, sweetheart. Soon.”

Chapter Text

Part III: Summer of 1985

It turns out slinging ice cream to people is only slightly more humiliating than running after kids at the swimming pool. The outfit is, no doubt, the singularly most hideous thing Steve has ever seen in his life and Eddie seems to have a field day every time he visits. Steve would like it to be noted that the Waldenbooks worker’s vest is not a sight to behold either, and so he doesn’t really know what Eddie finds so amusing. 

“It’s the hat, Stevie,” Eddie always says. “I really do love the hat.”

At least he has Robin with him to suffer through the pain of minimum-wage customer service. 

It could be worse.

Starcourt Mall is a vibrant mash of colors and people. It is so unlike Hawkins that Steve can’t help but appreciate it at least a little bit. Their little town wasn’t prepared for these boastful bouts of good ol’ American capitalism, that much can be said, but Steve honestly doesn’t think it’s so bad at all. It’s become a constant point of contention between him and Eddie as of late. 

The sporadic power outages are, though, one of the more frustrating elements of working at the mall. 

“It’s because they built it with sticks and duct tape, literally - I’m amazed this building is still standing,” Robin insists every time, swatting at Steve every time he starts flipping the switch on and off. “It’s never gonna work, dingus.”

“One of those days, just you see.”

The power always comes back eventually. And so the workday resumes. 

-&-

“I just think that-”

“Just- shut up !”

A group of middle schoolers appear from around the corner and stop in their tracks seeing Steve. Three boys, including Will Byers, and a girl, no older than fourteen, caught red-handed. They’re now stuck in some twisted staring contest, a grown man in a sailor’s costume and a bunch of kids, and none of them are winning.

“Who are you?” Steve decides to bite the bullet because he’s on limited time before Robin bursts in here and drags him back by the ear to man the fort like he promised. 

“I don’t know,” says a red-haired girl acquiring a defensive stance. “Who are you ?” 

“Wh- I’m Steve,” he doesn’t appreciate how one of the kids, a gangly one with a strange similarity to Nancy Wheeler of all people, slaps a hand to his face. He puts his hands on his hips, hoping to achieve some sort of control over the situation. “You’re not supposed to be here. This is for employees only.”

“How do you know we’re not employees?” the red-head shoots back. A boy next to her whispers a cautionary ‘Max’, which he guesses must be her name, but the girl kicks him in the shin lightly before molding her face back into a glare Steve’s way. 

Steve, for the record, is way too underpaid for…whatever this is. He sighs.

“The movie theater is that way,” he points in the direction opposite of where they were going. “which is where I assume you were going. Just…go. And don’t tell anyone you saw me, yeah? I don’t want to get fired.”

Immediately as he says it, the bunch moves, like a bizarre unit, towards the movie theater. Max is the only one to acknowledge him with a lazy salute. “Thanks, Steve .”

He hefts up the boxes into the backroom. Miraculously the counter is empty, which in Robin’s eyes justifies her sliding through the little make-shift window into the other room. 

“What took you so long, dingus?”

“Don’t even ask.”

-&-

The Ents are full-on raging chaos on Isengard, merciless and daunting, strong currents of water pushing through the city walls when the chair next to Eddie clears its throat.

“Do you work here?”

Eddie tugs a faded receipt from Scoops Ahoy to mark the page and sets the book on the table by his side. The chair is, in fact, not a chair at all, but a kid with a mop of curly hair that a yellow-green baseball cap is trying and failing to contain – camp know where-something? He gives Eddie a poignant raise of his eyebrow which, in his personal opinion, is quite courageous for a little shrimp like him and Eddie would be annoyed if there wasn’t a slight urgency and tension in the line of the boy’s shoulders.

“Yeah, what do you need, kid?”

“I need an English-Russian dictionary,” the child informs him before pausing. “Or a Russian-English one? With grammar.”

It will be an easy job, Steve said, at least Eddie doesn’t have to sling ice-cream to snotty nine-year olds all day long. And it has been, for the most part, with the senior residents of Hawkins and the populous young families being the dominant parties in his clientele – groups that would rather search through the books themselves than interact with one Eddie Munson. Sentiment very much reciprocated on that one, no doubts about it. This kid, though, looks to be much more interesting. 

“I’d have to check?” Eddie slides from his chair to move towards the right aisle, the kid stubbornly trailing behind him. “What do you need it for, anyway? Can’t have changed the foreign language courses in middle school that much since I went there.”

Hawkins Middle School teaching their young and impressionable students Russian sounds appropriately laughable and though he expects at least a shadow of an amused smile on the kid’s face, or an annoyed uptick of the lips, there’s nothing but slightly wide eyes and teeth worrying his lower lip.

“Uh, it’s for-” The kid looks anywhere but at Eddie, eyes sliding over various self-help books they’re passing. “Just something for a fantasy game.”

“Oh yeah? You play Dnd maybe?” That seems to be the right thing to say because curly-hair relaxes and grins excitedly for the first time, revealing two front teeth missing. The cap on his hair wobbles unsteadily when the kid bounces forward.

“You know Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Do I-? I’m the Dungeon Master, kiddo,” Eddie tells him with a wink as they enter the foreign language aisle. He wonders if the unusual request is somehow connected to a campaign the kid is playing and, if so, that does indeed piques his interest. Unusual but intriguing. Write that down somewhere, Munson.

“That’s awesome !” The kid’s wide eyes shine bright with wonder before he shoves his hand out for Eddie to shake. “I’m Dustin, Dustin Henderson.”

“Well, Dustin Henderson, it’s an honor to meet you,” Eddie bows and presents the book to the kid who grabs it enthusiastically. “If there is anything else Eddie the Bard can help you with, speak now,” straightens up and shoves a finger in Dustin’s face, “or forever hold your peace.”

A rushed giggle follows before Dustin sombers up, fingers trailing over the front page of the behemoth of a book in his hands.

“Actually,” he starts, clamps his mouth shut. Shifts his weight. Nods to himself. It’s a fascinating exchange with oneself, Eddie thinks. “Are you any good with languages?”

He can’t help but snort because the kid is hopeless but slowly warming his place in Eddie’s otherwise stone-cold heart (Steve doesn’t count, Steve is…Steve, and he’ll leave it at that).

“Me? No. Terrible. Horrendous,” Eddie shakes his head solemnly and Dustin visibly deflates, “- but ! Do not fret, young one, I know someone who is.”

 -&-

Steve is late but, in his defense, the mall parking lot is packed with cars and it takes him over ten minutes before a spot opens up. The walk of shame from his beemer to Scoops Ahoy is no better, aisles between the shops filled with sweaty people stopping to stare at the ridiculous sailor uniform. By the time he gets to the food court, he has his excuse speech ready to launch the moment Robin opens her big mouth because he knows she will . What he finds instead is Eddie, clad in his usual ugly blue vest from the bookstore, manning the fort.

“Eddie?”

“Steve!” he exclaims, almost dropping the steadily melting triple-scoop cone in his hand. The mother at the cash register does not look happy about it, her narrowed eyes follow the trickle of Raspberry Ripple that lands on his wrist. “Ah, shit, sorry, ma’am. Here you go.”

“You don’t work here,” Steve states and quickly apologizes to the woman as he pushes Eddie out of the way.

“Acute observation, sweetheart,” he grins in return and pushes an ice cream scooper into Steve’s chest. “I believe this is yours.”

“What.”

The window doors leading into the staff room slam open and Robin peers out, eyes filled with mirth when they settle on Steve.

“You’re late, dingus. Again .”

“I know, sorry,” Steve sighs, the carefully curated speech evaporating from his mind now that he’s here. He does get a tiny ounce of satisfaction making Robin yelp when he pushes at her elbow to throw his bag into the backroom. That is when he spots some curly-haired kid at the table, veering through ten different pieces of paper with hastily written notes. “Who’s that?”

Robin’s face contorts into a smirk immediately.

“ This is-”

“-classified information!” the kid jumps in, arms flying up frantically. He eyes Steve for a prolonged moment – narrows his eyes – before slowly, as if not to startle him, starts gathering up the loose sheets of paper off the table. Rolling his eyes, he makes sure it’s extra poignant (bitchy, Eddie would call it), Steve veers inside. He finds his and Robin’s wonderful scoreboard, now all but a memory, marked with angular symbols he feels he’s seen before but can’t place where. 

“What is- Eddie, is that your fantasy language again?”

“-honestly I’m offended, Harrington, it’s called Quenya and you know this-”

“You know I’m not good with these names, man.”

Robin pipes in with “Actually, that’s Cyrillic-”

“Now that is definitely made up-”

“Oh my God ,” moans the kid, which Steve finds very rude considering no one asked . Especially since everyone present is so hell-bent on explaining exactly nothing.

“We’re decoding a secret Russian message,” Robin tells him out of the blue and Steve can’t even begin to comprehend what that can possibly mean because the kid shrieks like one of those Teddy Bear things from Star Wars. 

“This is top-secret information! You can’t just reveal it to– to whoever !” the kid shouts-whispers, clutching the mountain of paper sheets to his chest. Robin snorts, unbothered.

“It’s Ste- ve ,” she rolls her eyes as though it’s supposed to explain anything at all. Which it doesn’t, clearly, not by the way the kid slams his forehead on the table with a clearly overdone sigh.

Robin mans the fort first. She owes him that much after she bailed on him last week and no pre-pubescent child claiming to have intercepted a secret Russian communication is going to change that.

“So,” Steve grabs a banana from the fruit bowl and settles by the table, “how did you even find this thing?”

The kid looks deeply offended, pausing writing a weird alphabet on Robin’s board to glare at Steve.

“You don’t find a secret transmission,” he snorts. “I intercepted it with my cerebro.”

“With your what now?”

Another long-suffering sigh. “It’s a ham radio but better. It works over large distances,” the child explains as though it’s self-explanatory. Writes down another letter and adds, “I built it.”

“How come a kid goes around building radios and shit?” Steve asks, more to himself than anything else. Tiny needles prod at his chest. Here, in front of him, stands a boy who can’t be more than fourteen, and who’s already smarter than Steve will ever be. It’s a humbling experience – add that to a pile somewhere.

“I built it at a science camp. Obviously,” the kid points to his cap – Camp Know Where? – and steps back from the board. A nervous look settles on his face. It feels very out of place. “It’s to talk to Suzie. My, uh. A friend.”

Steve’s not an idiot, he knows that tone and that look very well, too well, in fact. He probably bears it every time he whines to Robin about Eddie.

“Look, kid-“

“Dustin,” he supplies, shrugging. “Might as well give you my name. You’re basically a collaborator at this point anyway.”

“Right,” Steve rolls his eyes. “Look, Dustin -”

Exactly then, Robin slams open the window into the break room. “Enough girl talk, you’re up, Steve!”

“We’re in the middle of something?” Steve tries to protest but a stubborn Robin is a force to be reckoned with. She pushes into the break room and throws him the scooper. 

“Tough luck, Don Juan,” she shoos him out of the seat. “I’m the one with  language skills. Don’t worry, we’ll update you. In the meantime…”

Steve is still deeply unsatisfied with their little arrangement when Max and another girl with much shorter hair approach Scoops Ahoy.

“Hi, Steve ,” the red-head grins mischievously while her friend giggles, trying to hide it behind a hand clamped against her mouth. He hates this job. Truly.

“No free samples,” he tells them even though the sign right behind him says otherwise. He knows they know but he believes it’s his fundamental right as a minimum-wage employee to protect what little is left of his dignity.

He gives them extra whipped cream free of charge anyway, not that they will ever know.

The doors behind him open with a loud thud just as they leave and he pulls a hand to his rabbit-beating heart.

“Jesus, Robin, a warning would be nice.”

“We have our first sentence,” she tells him proudly. Steve can only raise his eyebrow in question, as skeptical as he is intrigued. 

Robin leans in close, eyes darting back and forth, and says, with an atrocious Russian accent that Eddie would be proud of. “Ze week iz long.”

That’s. Disappointingly underwhelming. 

Still, Robin looks so excited and he doesn’t want to take that away from her. He knows how much it hurts. So he smiles instead, hopes he looks appropriately amazed and impressed. And as she slinks back to decoding the message, he helps her the only way he knows how and slings ice-cream to snotty children. 

-&-

“Sooo,” Eddie is bouncing on his heels once they catch up to him in the Starcourt parking lot later that night. “Tell me everything .”

“We cracked the code and-”

“-something about silver cat feeding, which, so weird-”

“-that horse ride in the mall, apparently-”

Each piece of information makes less sense than the previous one and though Eddie is usually a fan of convoluted and confusing, he’s calling time-out. “Maybe not all at once? Please?”

In the end it’s Dustin that updates him on everything that they discovered today. How Robin translated the whole message. How strange are its contents. And that the Russians are possibly not as far away as one might have assumed.

“So, it must be some sensitive information then, right?” Eddie concludes. “It’s a code.”

“Precisely,” Dustin nods, excited. Robin looks no less affected by the possible meaning of their discovery. Which leaves…

“You don’t look convinced, Stevie-boy.”

“It just sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it?” Steve shrugs.

“Now, where’s the fun in that, eh?” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Well, in that case.”

Eddie remains optimistic.

-&-

“Okay, so it’s settled,” Eddie leans over the table the next day and grins. “Today  we’ll do some field work.”

“You’re going to stand in one spot,” Robin snarks back as she bites off a piece of her ice cream like a lunatic . “Hardly can call that field work. Or work.”

The pure disrespect of this woman-

“You can’t just stand-!”

“Lady Buckley, your skepticism is very discouraging-”

“-like you’ve never been on a stake-out before-”

“-you of little faith!”

“Okay, okay – I get it, you’re super spies,” she puts up her hands in defeat. “Ugh, I wish Steve was manning the fort today. I need someone to keep me sane.”

“Actually, where is Steve?” It’s clear Dustin is doing his best to feign nonchalance but Eddie knows the little rascal managed to get attached to Harrington already, knows personally that it’s impossible not to; better not try and run away from the inevitable. “Aren’t you all living in some weird symbiosis?”

“Little Stevie has a shift at the pool today.” Which Eddie – well, not hates, but dislikes at the very least. Not the premise itself, mind you, because he knows Steve does like his work as a lifeguard but Eddie knows the lore that surrounds these decisions now, has seen the price Steve pays for it. He doesn’t know if Steve sees it as well and that may be where the shoe pinches.

Dustin frowns. “In this weather?”

A middle-aged woman’s Sundae slides across the counter and Robin shrugs. “Two fifty,” she tells her and slams the cash register after throwing in the money.

“It’s not like the pool closes just because it rains. Meanwhile I have to suffer through Diane joining me in the afternoon. She always splatters ice cream all over the floor.” Her nails dig into Eddie’s shoulders. “She makes Cookie Monster impressions while handing over USS Butterscotch.”

“Jesus Christ, Buckley, relax,” he tries to pry away from her grip. “We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

He’s starting to sound like Steve goddamn Harrington, bless his hair-sprayed soul.  

“You better,” Robin sighs and puts on her headphones, notepad on hand. Eddie elbows the kid softly.

It’s go time.

-&-

When Kenny Anderson from Hawkins Public Pool called to help out, this is not what Steve had envisioned. He’s spent three consecutive years keeping an eye on the pool and citizens of Hawkins of various ages and, to this day, he remains an excellent swimmer still. He feels as though he’s earned the right to feel a little bit bitter about the desk duty he’s been assigned with. And if he sees Billy flirting with Mrs. Wheeler again today, he’s going to gouge his eyes out with his ice cream scooper.

He would much rather sling ice cream to disgruntled mothers and spoiled brats with Robin. And isn’t that surprising.

“Excuse me- wait, Steve ?”

“Oh, hi little stalker,” he waves his hand half-heartedly, lips quirking up at the corners. The girl’s face turns red as she leans back, then forward, one accusatory finger shoved his way. She’s tense, he can tell by the rigid line of her shoulders and clenched fist hanging limply by her side. Her short-haired friend from the Mall is here, too, hiding off at the side, eyes darting back and forth between them. “Sorry but can’t let you in. No one gets in the water until thirty minutes after the last strike.” 

“I’m not a stalker! It’s not my fault you’re literally everywhere!”

“Max,” the friend admonishes softly and the girl shuts her mouth, lips pursed, before taking a long breath out.

“Look, we’re not here to swim,” she says while her friend pulls out a familiar red fanny pack. “Does that belong to anybody here?”

“Oh, I guess it’s Heather’s,” Steve leans in and, yep, there it is, her name clumsily stitched on at the back. “I can give it back to her.”

“We could do it,” the friend jumps in.

“I mean, yeah, but she’s not here today,” he shrugs. “I’m filling in for her. Desk duty, y’know?”

Neither Max nor her friend look like they ‘know’ at all, not that he can blame them. They’re just kids, probably Dustin’s age, though something in the set of their shoulders and focused gaze looks much older. 

“So, are you gonna leave that here, or-?”

The girl next to Max, unprompted, starts to walk away towards the announcement board, Heather’s fanny pack still in her hand, and the redhead is quick to follow, not sparing Steve half a glance. It’s hard to pinpoint what caught their attention at first but then he notes how they linger over the ‘Meet Your ‘85 Swim Season Lifeguards’ section - which, in Steve’s opinion, is a personal offense against sweated-through summers he spent at this place. All this to say, they removed his photo from the line-up. And it was a good one, too, good hair day, tanned skin, nice smile. What a waste. 

“What’s with The Shining twins,” Kenny walks into the booth, a bite of sandwich ripped between his teeth. He points off-handedly to the two girls by the board.

“They found Heather’s fanny pack.”

Kenny snorts, swallowing another mouthful. “Let me know if they find her .”

Alone at his desk once again a minute later, Steve turns back in his chair, promptly clocking in that the girls are not the only thing missing. A single pin rests on the board where, a second ago, hung a photo of Heather Holloway. 

-&-

“Okay, status update - we have not yet located the Russian spy.”

“Um, not to, like, steal your thunder, or whatever, but I literally cracked the code.”

Steve shoves the rest of his pizza slice into his mouth. “Wait, you did?”

“First of all, Steve, that’s disgusting,” Robin scrunches up her nose from her spot at the Scoops Ahoy counter. “But, yes, I am, as we established, a genius-”

“Staying classy as always, Buckley.”

“- and I cracked the code, so there’s that.”

She tells him about Lynx Transportation ( the silver cat feeds ), about the clock that hangs over the foodcourt ( when yellow meets blue in the west ), and Imperial Panda ( a trip to China sounds nice ) and Kaufman Shoes ( if you tread lightly ); it’s a mess of information. 

“And all that means - what, exactly?” 

Dustin slams his head on the table like the overdramatic baby that he is. Robin, though, sweet Robin, stays patient with him. “It means we can do a little investigation.”

Her eyes crinkle at the edges conspicuously and he doesn’t like that one bit, and bears similar sentiment towards the smirk spreading over Eddie’s face. As they haul him up, barely giving him time to grab another slice of his Pepperoni, he still doesn’t know what they have in mind and it’s only when he’s back in the pouring rain, a pair of binoculars shoved into his hand, he realizes they meant ‘investigation’ quite literally. 

“Look for Imperial Panda or Kauffman Shoes.”

Among the many boxes wheeled in and out they do eventually find ones for Imperial Panda. Surrounded by men armed to the teeth, blank faced and immune to the heavy rainfall. 

“Holy shit,” Eddie mumbles under his breath before Dustin tries to grab at the second pair of binoculars, throwing himself and Eddie into a relentless tug-of-war. Until it slams noisily against the railing, that is, catching the attention of the guards below them. 

“Whoops,” is the only thing Eddie manages to say before Steve pulls them down. It’s Eddie who realizes, after an awkward second or two, that they’re still holding hands, and slowly disentangles them. Right. 

“Well, I think we found the Russians,” Eddie pants once they’re back inside Starcourt. Steve really needs to convince him to join a gym or something if that’s what a short sprint does to him. 

“You’re a genius,” Steve tells Robin instead and she smiles at him faintly. 

“Yeah,” she tightens the grip on his hand, cheeks pale. “I know.”

-&-

Eddie spends his break the next day opposite a mountain of ice cream belonging to the sassiest child he’s ever had the displeasure of meeting. Still, he can’t help the giddiness he’s been feeling ever since Robin shoved a map of Starcourt in his face, a proud smirk etched on her lips. More confusing was finding Steve trying to push Dustin into an air vent - not because they have had enough of each other, Robin quickly assured him. Apparently Dustin can - what did Steve say - bend his bones? Like Gumbo?

“Gumby,” Robin quickly corrects.

Whatever. It’s still not enough for Dustin to fit through the vent. Which is how they have found themselves in their current predicament. 

“Nu-uh, everything comes at a price,” Erica, Dustin’s friend’s little sister, or whatever their relation actually is, slurps her strawberry milkshake with set-in-stone determination. 

“Which is?” Eddie dares to ask, earning himself a kick to his shin from Steve. 

Erica considers it, mixing the remnants of her drink with her straw. Her eyes catch the vest he’s wearing. “I want the newest My Little Pony Magazines. Fresh off the shelf. Still warm from the printing machine.”

Dustin snorts next to her.

“ And ,” she continues, sending him a pointed look before turning towards the two sailors in front of her. “This USS Butterscotch better be the first of many. By which I mean - ice. Cream. For. Life .”

“No way,” Eddie cuts in. He’s mentally crunching the numbers, not that there’s any point to it because he knows already he cannot afford a deal like this. Wayne would have his head. 

Doesn’t matter because at the exact same time both Steve and Robin, traitors that they are, agree to the deal. 

“Steve, you can’t be serious,” Eddie catches up to his friend a moment later. “She’s asking for way too much.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Steve’s hands land on Eddie’s shoulders, thumbs absently rubbing comforting circles into his bookstore vest. “Promise.”

All the fight leaves his body, drifts away into the Land of Forgotten with Captain Steve at the rudder. He’s glad they’re not out in the open, hidden in the familiar four walls of the break room, that he’s allowed this little show of affection from the one person he needs it from, even if it won’t ever turn into more. 

“Steve,” he says, quiet not to disturb the moment. Hazel eyes meet his and it takes all Eddie’s willpower to remember what he was meant to say. 

There’s something in those eyes. Steve’s fingers feel like fire burning through the fabric. “Yeah?”

“I, uh, I actually need to get back home for a sec after work. I promised Wayne,” Eddie admits. “But I’ll be back later. Obviously. Can’t have you and Buckley steal all the glory, y’know?”

Steve laughs, short but sweet, though there is something else lingering there, too. He leans away and Eddie instantly misses the warmth of their bodies pressed so close together. It’s so stupid, so beneath him and what he stands for - technically, at least. In reality, he’s just as human as anyone else, yearning for the attention and affection of a man who used to breathe and live conformity and how disappointing is that?

“I think Dustin and Erica will take care of that,” Steve rolls his eyes, though affection shines through the annoyance. “But, sure, we’ll wait for you. Can’t be saving our great country from the evil Russians without you.”

“You better not.”

He can’t help but worry - unreasonably so since he’ll be seeing all of them in a few hours anyways. 

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

-&-

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Eddie always knew his forgetfulness would be his demise but he didn’t anticipate for it to happen quite so soon. He’s been jittery since he woke up, that much is true, and now, right before he has to leave to get back to Starcourt, way past that time actually – he’s so late, Buckley is going to murder him – his mind feels so loud and full of everything . And, of course, his car keys are missing, his shoes are scattered around the trailer, unwashed dishes are still in the sink, something Wayne hates coming back home to, and-

A glint of something bright red catches his eyes.

When Steve brought him the little furball to attach to his keys, Eddie was surprised. Mildly offended, even. What self-respecting metalhead would ever use something like this to-

“It’s so you can find them quicker,” Steve had said, handing it to Eddie and, well, his fingers lingered maybe a little too long and the smile he gave Eddie was so very earnest-

Fine. Whatever. It could stay.

Eddie will never admit the thing actually works. Steve can never know.

It’s cold outside but there is no time to run back inside and grab a coat. He runs to his van, his shoes soaked within seconds from yesterday’s rainfall, rubbing his hands together once inside his car. The key is already locked in the ignition, red fuzzball dangling freely, when a familiar figure catches his eye through the front windshield.

“Dog?”

A decision is made on impulse, consequences be damned. He stumbles out of the van.

“Dog!”

The cat sways from side to side, tripping into one mud pile after another, all this accompanied by heart-shattering pained mewls. Eddie leans down and props one knee in the mud, beckons the cat closer slowly but surely. A loud thud from the trailer closest to his and Wayne’s causes his heart to stutter and head to whip back up. 

“Mr. Campbell? Mrs. Campbell?” he calls out.

“Shit,” his fingers graze Dog’s matted fur. “Stay here, Dog. I’ll be right back.”

Steve and, more specifically, Robin and Dustin are going to kill him. Murder him in cold blood. Lock him in the Scoops Ahoy freezer and flush the key. He’s so late, he knows, fuck, he knows , but he can’t, in good conscience, leave right now. The Campbells may not be the most agreeable neighbors, loud and severely allergic to personal space, but he’s known them since he was a little boy himself, dropped on Wayne’s doorstep with nothing more than a ratty Muppet Show backpack. Rachel Campbell makes a mean omelet that heals scraped knees. Her husband, Rick, fixed his bike tire more than once. 

So he goes in. Knocks his knuckles on the door first, dread pooling deep in his guts when it turns out to have been left ajar. No one replies when he calls out either and Eddie gets a feeling that he shouldn’t be here at all. 

He almost steps up on a rat.

A bunch of them actually. 

A column of soggy rats wedges itself between the open door and him. Eddie yelps, almost falling off the little self-made porch. He can feel the rodents brushing up against his ankles and he hates - he hates it so much. It makes him want to peel off his skin. 

“What the shit- Get off !”

He jumps from the pedestal and makes a run for it back to Dog, cursing under his breath when it looks like the rats had the same direction in mind. He’s cold and wet and so overstimulated, and Dog is still standing, tilted, in the same spot, and-

A rat explodes. 

A rat. Explodes . 

A. Rat . Explo-

Then another one. Poof. Gone. 

There’s a gooey part of a rat stuck to the bottom of Eddie’s shoe. 

What in the motherfu-

There is a sea of rats running around. That sea explodes, turns red and pink, and Eddie vomits before running up to Dog and throwing him into the van, following suit soon afterwards.

“Jesus H. Christ. What the fuck. What the ever-loving fuck.”

He doesn’t know how he managed to put the keys into the ignition but the second he hears the sweet, sweet sound of Bloodstains blasting from the speakers, his shoe is already slamming onto the gas pedal. 

He’s not looking at what he leaves behind as he high-tails out of the trailer park, tires screeching against the uneven asphalt and loose gravel. 

“Hold tight,” he tells the cat in the passenger’s seat. The leather is smeared with mud.

Eddie really hopes Steve and the rest are okay.

-&-

So. Things? Not good. 

It started off well enough, Steve supposes. Erica got them in pretty easily - surprisingly easily, actually. No guards, no booby traps. A lot of boxes. 

There is a green liquid stored in vials in the Imperial Panda boxes. Weird. Interesting? 

Then the room moves. Then it drops .

They should have waited for Eddie like he insisted they do, is Steve’s first thought, followed closely by - it’s good Eddie isn’t here with them, about to die, actually. 

Doesn’t matter, does it? They’re going down. 

He’s screaming his lungs off but internally, somehow, he’s eerily calm about it all and he thinks that he’s always meant to end up here – in a Russian elevator underneath a shopping mall, dressed in a sailor costume, with his coworker and two strange kids. It’s strange how not-strange it feels.

“We’re gonna die,” he hears Robin mumble to herself over and over again, and he grips her flailing hand in his own. Squeezes tight.

Dustin and Erica are both slammed against the opposite wall of the elevator, too far for him to try and reach. He supposes the time it’s going to take them to slam to the bottom, wherever that may be, is actually seconds. It feels like hours. Robin keeps her mantra going and Steve would like to, love to, tell her that’s not true, that they’re going to be just fine, but his entire life flashes before his eyes and it’s only then his heart thunders, yells ‘ I’m not ready to die ’, and it makes the inevitability of it sink in.

There’s a handful of unfinished thoughts swirling through his mind but the loudest one that is stuck at the forefront is that he won’t be able to say goodbye to Eddie. He’s going to die in this freefalling metal box and he’s never going to tell Eddie how he feels. Kiss him. 

At least one of them gets out of this alive.

But then – the elevator stops. They live.

They live?

“Everyone okay?” Robin’s shaky voice asks somewhere next to him but through the ringing in his ears he can hardly hear anything at all. Erica goes on a rant about something - Uncle Jack? Tuna Party? - while Dustin slowly moves the boxes that fell onto Steve’s head and groin. 

Getting out by pushing various buttons seems out of question and so does climbing up out of the elevator. Steve doesn’t know how much time they spend there. It all blurs together, with Henderson’s voice echoing around the empty tunnel they fell down through however many hours ago. 

“Code Red. I repeat this is a Code Red,” he goes on into the walkie he’s holding. “Four people are trapped under Starcourt Mall.”

“Dude, it’s not going to work,” Steve grumbles, pulling himself up through the opening onto the elevator’s roof. Dustin bristles slightly. 

“The mall just opened,” he argues. “And Eddie has a walkie somewhere. He’s probably looking for us.”

“I mean, I’m sure he is ,” Steve sits up. Dangles his legs in the air. “But also he never remembers to actually check his batteries, sooo-”

Dustin slumps. “Great.”

“Guys,” Robin peeks out of the opening, sharp nails digging into Steve’s calf. “I think we’ve got company.”

“Shit,” he mumbles before pulling Robin up and leaning a hand to Erica to climb up as well. He doesn’t know why on Earth does the little girl insist to hang onto the metal tube with the green goo but, in the end, it turns out to be their saving grace because there is nothing more durable in that elevator. It works perfectly well shoved between the floor and the closing doors once the Evil Russians do their Evil Russian stuff with the Imperial Panda boxes inside the shaft. 

They do, eventually, hear the walkie come to life. Not with Eddie’s voice but with the familiar code. Not in the elevator shaft anymore either but in a long corridor leading to nowhere. Steve doesn’t know if this is any better. 

It goes like this. The place is overrun by Russians but they somehow survive, sneak into the room with the radio. Steve knocks out a guard. How? He honestly can’t tell among the rush of rigid movements, turns and twists, but he manages, pretty well, if he does say so himself. His body only aches a little bit.

They’re safe and alive for a moment longer, that’s all that counts. But as he waits for well-deserved applause, he finds the room empty. Fear grips his body anew - he thought they were doing so well - and he looks around frantically, from the consoles, to the unconscious soldier on the floor. Blood pumps in his ears but, vaguely, as though through a wall of water, he hears someone calling his name.

He finds the kids and Robin - thank God -  standing by a window up the stairs, faces plastered to the glass.

“Hey, what are you-” and then he sees it. What, he can’t say – he has no idea, no concept of what it can be. But it’s there. It’s definitely…there. 

“Holy shit,” Robin’s voice startles him from behind and he nearly slams his forehead into the window.

“Do you think it’s-” Erica starts to say but then Dustin is making a zipping motion across his mouth and she backs down, if not a little miffed at the interruption.

“Hold on, you’ve seen something like this before?”

There’s a dash of panic in the incredulous note of Robin’s voice that Steve can’t argue with. Looking at the machine in front of him, only a pane of thick glass between them and it, it’s hard to visualize – those tiny, defenseless kids against whatever it may be, whatever it may do. At the same time, though, he knows that those few shifts at Scoops Ahoy, decoding a Russian secret message of all things, is only scratching the surface of what’s wrong in Hawkins. It’s been in the background all this time, he’s just been too blind to see it. Happy to not see it.

The soldiers at the various stations in the room look oblivious to the group peering in but Steve knows they are here on borrowed time. The glowing hole, though – and he’ll need a better name, it sounds disgusting – is mesmerizing in its own way. Pink mixed with orange and pure white, moving and dancing – alive, his brain supplies and he finds himself agreeing subconsciously. It’s just like the little split in the ceiling in his father’s office. A window into another dimension - alive, real.

There are safety warning bells ringing at full volume at the back of his head, however much he wants to ignore them, and he pulls down Dustin and Erica by the hems of their T-shirts, Robin following immediately.

“No,” Dustin tells them in a hushed tone and shakes his head, seemingly unaware of the death glare Erica is sending his way. “Not like this. But-”

“Oh, so you’re allowed to talk, huh?”

“I changed my mind. They’ve already seen it and they’re here-”

“You just wanted to sound smart.”

“What-no!”

“Can we postpone this, whatever this is?” Steve mutters loud enough for the three of them to hear. “I think we should get a move on.”

“Probably a good idea,” Dustin admits.

It would be a good idea if they were faster, if Steve were a little more cautious and forward-thinking. In a blink of an eye the Russian guard is gone, followed by blaring alarms and blinding red light. 

It all goes to shit pretty soon after that.

-&-

“Steve, are you there? Answer me. Over.”

Silence. 

“Dustin? Robin? Erica?” Nothing, still. Only the unnerving crackling of static. “Shit. Shit. Shit .”

Eddie shakes the walkie, slaps it a few times for good measure. 

“For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you wait?” His voice cracks, hands shaking as he switches the batteries again. They’re working, he knows they are, but if that’s the case- “Come on ! Hello? Harrington? Buckley? I’m on the roof. Where-where we, uh. The deliveries? Fuck !”

He tries different frequencies. Different spots. It’s been over twelve hours, maybe more, at this point. The mall opened a while ago, crowds of people flooding in. As if everything was just fine, as if four people weren’t somewhere out there-

He tried to call the cops. They laughed at him. Bad trip, Munson , they asked.  

Between hour four and eight he prepares himself to go in himself. He doesn’t know how, though, and his mind and nerves are frayed enough, so, in the end, he stands there, paralyzed.  Getting killed immediately will help no one, he needs to be smart about this.

Eddie Munson is not smart. He’s not resourceful like that. Eddie Munson is a coward. 

He drives around Hawkins, checks each house doing his very best to avoid having to actually talk to any of the potentially concerned parents. His driving is frantic but it’s not so out of ordinary to raise any suspicion. In the end he drives back to the mall and makes another round through all the stores, all the bathrooms, the movie theater, the restaurants in the food court. Scoops Ahoy remains vacant. 

Eddie slumps against the wall, walkie still gripped in his hand. “Fuck, Stevie, why didn’t you wait?”

-&-

Steve is on a cloud. 

He moves through the motions, swims through realities. He can touch but doesn’t feel, he can look but doesn’t see; his ears are ringing. His teeth taste like iron, all sweet like. 

He giggles. 

“Shhhh,” someone spits into his hair from behind and the room feels cold all of a sudden, thrumming with nerves and something else, numbing. Someone is behind him, someone who is going to harm him, harm-

“You shhh yourself,” Robin giggles next to him and he calms his breathing a little bit, steps back on that cloud, rests his head. Robin is fine, she’s next to him, flinging popcorn into her mouth - how, he doesn’t know, when his hands feel like an alien extension to his own body.

Images of some sort flash on the screen. A movie. Theater?

He tries to remember how he got here but comes short. They were in a box. Metal. It went down - his stomach jumped up like it does on a rollercoaster but it wasn’t fun, it was- Terrified, he was terrified. Why?

When he was younger, much younger - six, maybe seven - he used to try and reach the cookie jar his mother always put on one of the higher shelves. Delicacies like these were reserved for guests only but that never stopped Steve from wanting. They remained - always - just out of reach for his grabby hands. Trying to remember now feels just like that, relentless, frustrating to the core. 

“What’s happening?” Robin asks and Steve leans into his seat, satisfied, because, yes, that’s why he and Robin are plast- plats - platonic soulmates, capital P and all. Their brains are, like, connected. 

“I have no idea,” he tells her truthfully and she nods. They sit and bask in their mutual understanding a bit longer, until someone, Robin, taps him on the shoulder. Lightly, because she’s a gentleman. Gentlewoman. 

“You wanna get out of here?”

And, again, it’s like they’re connected to some otherworldly degree that simply cannot be matched. Him and Robin. Robin and Steve. 

So they leave.

Standing up is surprisingly easy. It’s walking, moving, one foot after another, that turns out to be an issue. His legs are cotton candy. But they manage, somehow, and when he finds himself leaned against a wall of some sort – it’s cold, so soothing – it feels like a great feat has been accomplished.

A water fountain standing idly a foot or so away catches his attention and he suddenly remembers how dry his throat feels. His body floats towards it. The first droplets of freshwater are a godsend and he allows himself to close his eyes. Things spin even with his eyes closed, floor tiles moving and changing their combinations all the damn time - so annoying. 

Robin keeps talking. Something about a movie where the mother is trying to bang her son but it’s the past but he needs to get back to the future? Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and then he’s suddenly pushed to the floor - huh ?

“Steve? Oh, my fucking- Robin?”

That voice, Steve would recognise it anywhere. 

“Eddie!”

Steve really hopes this one is actually his boyfriend- no, not boyfriend. Yet. A friend. Nice friend. Pretty eyes. Hair.

What was he talking about?

“Jesus Christ, Harrington, what the fuck happened?” And, yeah, that’s definitely his Eddie. Sweaty hands touch Steve’s forehead (he tries to pull back – sticky bad) and cup his bruised cheeks (he tries to pull back again – hurts).

“-to wait but noooo, you had to be a goddamn hero, and for what?”

“-uh?”

“Jesus fucking-”

“Eddieeee,” Robin swoops in, arm swung over Eddie’s neck and that doesn’t sit well with Steve. Not at all. That’s where his arm should be.

“Not both of you…”

Steve thinks he should feel offended by that. Somehow. For some reason. He would like to be, anyway, but the ceiling is spinning and there are stars up there going right and left and up and down-

“Pretty,” he hears Robin say from the left. Or right. Does it matter? What matters is that she's right . He tries to nod and the ceiling is spinning, the spin is ceiling, spin, spin, spin-

“Oh God-” they all say at the same time but it’s only Robin and Steve who dive for the bathroom at light-speed. He doesn’t know how he manages to track the toilet when everything is a giant shapeless blob and he can’t find one on a good day but he does and he doesn’t remember ever feeling more relieved than when he spills his guts, Robin doing the same one stall over.

-&-

Eddie doesn’t know what to do. This is… Nothing prepared him for this.

His hand caresses Steve’s sweaty hair and back, he tries to be gentle while anger sets his blood to boil. Steve, hunched over the toilet bowl, has never looked more vulnerable, and Eddie wants to drag those who did this to him and Robin and make them hurt just as much. He wants to shield this boy that took his heart hostage a long time ago and never let go, never let anyone else ever lay a finger on him.

“’m sorry,” Steve mumbles from the toilet, leaning back to sit beside Eddie. He wants to look away but, instead, he makes himself look – at every bruise, every speck of dried blood, every place they dared to touch – and vows to make them pay, no matter what. He can’t make the pain go away but he can at least do that, if it counts for anything at all.

What he really wants to do – what he almost does – is to shake that boy, scream, because what the hell are you sorry for ? Instead, he takes Steve’s hand into his, squeezes feather-light. “We’re gonna get you home, sweetheart.”

A bang sounds in the stall next to them. “And you, too, Buckley.”

“Screw you, Munson.”

Ever the pleasant company.

Eddie never thought he’d be so happy to see Dustin Henderson and Erica Sinclair. Hell, a week or so ago he didn’t even know they existed beyond a vague mention from an aunt of a neighbor who has a friend.

“What the hell,” states Dustin just as Eddie breathes, “Oh, thank God.”

The plan is this: they blend in. It’s not overly nuanced or unnecessarily convoluted and Eddie appreciates that. So – people start leaving the theater. Good. Great. It’s just the matter of reaching the van and-

“Abort,” Henderson says. Grips at Eddie’s jacket and pulls them further into the crowd, backwards. “Abort, abort .”

“Wh-”

They run. They run like hell.

At first Eddie isn’t sure what they’re running from but then he sees one, two, three men hot on their tail.

His hand hooks into Steve’s and Robin’s by muscle memory alone but he’s glad it does, that it remembers things for him. A sting of panic courses through his spine because the kids, God he forgot about the kids-

“Oh my God , what the f-” Dustin’s familiar lisp joins him on his left. Erica is there, too, the colorful beads in her hair jumping up and down as they run. 

The best hiding place they find is not a very good one at all. Cramped under a counter at one of the food court’s many restaurants, they must stick out like a sore thumb, breathing hard and shuffling around the squeaky floor. Heavy footsteps surround them in no time at all. 

They’re dead, is what they are. 

Until an alarm starts to blare.

Until a car flies through the fucking air.

-&-

Everyone is so loud . 

Apparently Dustin has friends who can flip cars up in the air with their mind. Yeah, whatever, he should’ve expected that - that’s on him, apparently.

“Keep up, Steve,” Dustin claps him on the back as though that’s not a completely insane thing to be able to do. At least Robin seems to agree, muttering to him and herself ‘what the fuck’ ever so often. 

“And you are-?” Erica’s brother, Lucas - Steve found out when Erica asks him what the hell he’s doing here - squints at him. Dustin is quick to jump in, strangely giddy since the group turned up. 

“Oh! This is Robin, Eddie and-”

“Steve?!” Nancy Wheeler rounds up and, wow, his response time is utter shit because he hasn’t noticed her, or Jonathan and Barb, until now. 

“Didn’t my sister dump you?” Mike Wheeler asks because, well, he’s a little shit, at least that’s what Steve was able to deduce about the kid so far. Not because he’s, like, upset by something a child said, or anything. 

“Okay, first of all - you can’t dump someone you’re not even dating. And second of all-”

“Can you let go, Mike?” Nancy sounds just as exasperated as he remembers. It’s kind of bittersweet. 

The left side of Steve’s face feels on fire, eye pulsating so much he fears it’s going to simply pop out of his skull at any second. Voices start to blur together, as much as shapes, but through it all, something grabs and sticks to the side of his brain that’s still working. 

“Wait, I know you,” he points to a familiar redhead. “Little stalker!”

“What’s wrong with him?” Max points to him with an accusatory finger. Rude - him is right here. 

“Hello, Steve,” the other girl, El - who can apparently move objects with her mind, wild -  greets him. He waves back. 

“We’ve fought Russians,” Dustin tells them, just like that.

“Excuse me, I fought the Russians,” Steve corrects quickly, the throbbing pain all over a painful reminder. 

An uncomfortable silence falls between the group. 

“What Russians?”

“ The Russians.”

“Underground,” Robin adds faintly from behind him. 

“They have a base there and all.”

“Excuse me, and who are you?” Nancy leans closer. 

“They all work at the mall. They helped me decode the Secret Russian message.”

What Dustin says seems to only raise more questions and it’s the first reasonable reaction Steve has seen from the group so far. 

“Guys?” Barbara Holland tries to cut in but through the chaos it’s almost impossible to do so. Steve hears her through his good ear only, thankful she’s standing so close. Following her line of sight he notices El has moved away from the group. 

“Super Girl?” he asks and takes a step forward, still not fast enough when the girl suddenly falls to the ground. 

“Shit!”

“El!”

“My leg,” El breathes out, trying to reach bloodied bandages covering her shin. One of the kids quickly unwraps it and, well, Steve has seen his share of injuries. It comes with the territory - territory being the basketball court, the swimming pool, the school corridor on a day you feel like even more of an asshole. He is well-versed with blood and bruises. Hell, his face is a prime example of it. But this-

He jumps when something inside the leg moves. Robin screams. Eddie digs his fingers into Steve’s shoulder. “What the shit -!”

“Keep her talking, keep her awake,” is all Jonathan says before he’s sprinting away, coming back a second later with a knife and a wooden spoon. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Steve grabs at his hair. “What are you doing with that? Hey-!”

Eddie is the one to pull him aside, while Robin keeps rambling about one thing or another, Steve doesn’t know. All he knows is that-

“-this is insane. Jesus fucking Christ,” he closes his eyes when El’s cut-throat screams fill the air. “Fuck! This is-”

“Steve, hey, baby, look at me,” Eddie cups his cheeks gently. “It’s going to be alright. We’re going to get out of here, okay?”

Not okay. So not okay. 

The screams intensify, reaching a crescendo that causes the glass in the windows around them to shatter into pieces. A ball of goop is flinged away by El’s mind. It lands exactly by the feet of Chief of Hawkins Police, Will and Jonathan’s mom and some bald guy. 

Apparently they are more in the know than Steve could ever anticipate. Steve should not be surprised by anything at this point. He still is. Call him naive, whatever. 

“Hey,” Nancy pulls on the hem of Steve’s sailor shirt at one point, once they spread around in smaller groups. She tries to smile but it looks more like a grimace. “Maybe you should go.”

“What? No. No way we’re leaving you alone to deal with,” his shoulders slump. “Whatever it is you’re dealing with.”

“There's a gigantic monster from another dimension made out of melted flesh of different people,” Mike says in perfect monotone.

“Metal,” Eddie sighs wistfully somewhere to his right.

“Eddie!” Dustin runs up to them with a grin spreading too wide given the situation. He throws the metalhead a pair of keys. “You have a license, right?”

“Oh, no way,” Steve takes the keys immediately. “You’re not driving anywhere with him behind the wheel.”

“You’re literally concussed?” Eddie quirks an eyebrow. “Also, I don’t need these. I came with my van. Y’know - for getaway driving?”

“Actually, if I may?” Robin pipes in, a pack of chips in her hand. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with the idea of you driving, Eddie.”

“Okay, that’s so incredibly rude.”

“Guys, just- make up your mind? Please?” Dustin cuts in. “We need to go .”

Steve shoves the keys from the mysterious vehicle into the front pocket of his shorts, stealing the ones in Eddie’s the second he’s not looking.He may be a little banged up but at least he’ll get them to wherever they need to go in one piece. He hopes so, at least. 

Dustin shrieks high-voiced when he slides in the back of the van. “Is that a cat?”

“That’s Dog, actually,” Eddie says, only now realizing he doesn’t have the keys anymore. “Hey!”

Steve promptly jumps into the driver’s seat and turns on the ignition. “You snooze, you lose, Munson.”

“Flirt later, now go .”

-&-

They’re all well and settled around Dustin’s cerebro when they notice the lights flickering in the mall. 

“Shit,” Erica and Dustin say at the same time. Steve whips his head towards them.

“What? What’s going on?”

“It’s here,” Dustin tells them and runs back to the radio. 

Eddie looks at Steve and Robin before catching up to Henderson, blood pumping in his ears. Feeling his breath quickening. “Whoa, hey. What’s ‘here’? Like, uh, the monster? It’s here ?”

But Dustin doesn’t reply, instead calling over to the ones left at Starcourt. To no avail. All they hear is muffled sounds, broken glass. A hand touches Eddie’s shoulder and he muffles a scream. It’s only Steve. Of course it is. They’re safe here. “I have to go help them.”

“You don’t have to do shit , Steve,” Eddie grabs at his arm. The cold deep fear that comes and goes is rampant now. He can’t let Steve go and do something stupid. He won’t allow that. 

“Eddie,” is the only thing Steve says in response but it’s enough for Eddie to realize he’s lost. That Steve has made up his mind and nothing is going to change it.

“Fine. But I’m going with you.”

“Someone should stay with Dustin and Erica.”

“Okay, then Robin can stay.”

“No way,” she tugs herself further into Steve’s side. “Where he goes, I go.”

Eddie feels a bit blindsided. 

What am I, chopped liver, he almost says but has the decency to bite his tongue. It isn’t fair because Steve’s attention is not a prize to be won. It isn’t fair because he and Robin just came out of an experience that Eddie knows must have been horrifying even though he’s aware of only bits and pieces he’s learned on the way. It isn’t fair because it’s not a fucking competition. 

It isn’t fair because Eddie still feels like a second choice. Maybe even a third. Because waiting for Steve at Starcourt Mall is Nancy Wheeler and Eddie may have an inkling of a hope that Steve feels some attraction to him but he sure as hell isn’t any competition to Miss Perfect over there. 

But he swallows those thoughts down, or does his best to. By a string of luck he remembers to throw Robin a walkie and by a miracle she catches it, however ungracefully. 

“Stay in contact,” he yells after her.

It’s tense. They sit huddled around the cerebro, glancing back towards the mall every so often, with every minute of silence growing more weary. From time to time Hopper or the man - Murray - speaks with Dustin or Erica but Eddie pays it no mind. He only needs to know about Steve and Robin. That they’re safe. His brain is a blurry mash otherwise.

A hand smacks him on the arm, grounding him in the unwelcome reality. Erica Sinclair. Of course. “You know something called the Planck’s constant?”

“Uhh, six-something?” He furrows his brow, trying to reach within the depths of his memory. “Six point seven? Or – no. Six. And, uh. Shit. I needed it for a campaign once, you know? I mean, only for, like, one plot line, but-”

But Erica isn’t listening. Neither is Dustin who starts turning different knobs on the radio. Static fills the air for a terrifying moment.

“Woah, wait, what about-”

“Suzie, do you copy?”

Suzie. Dustin’s…friend? Eddie recalls the kid gushing about her once or twice, probably more, but it seems so out of left field to call her now of all times. Not when the radio is the only bridge between them and the rest of the group. Steve. And Robin, of course.

There’s a pause and- “This is Suzie. I copy.”

There’s a back-and-forth, sweet and marked with childish innocence of a new relationship held between two people so young, and Eddie, for a split moment, feels a bit, dare he say it, jealous. He’s never had that, never was given the privilege to be able to stumble his way through puppy love with big wide eyes and pink cheeks.

Dustin is so full of shit if he’s insisting Suzie-poo and Dusty-buns are only friends. Eddie may have been held back in high school but he’s not dumb.

“I want to hear it,” Suzie giggles into the microphone on her end. Dustin’s paling face would be amusing otherwise but after everything they have been through the last day or so, it instills a new wave of anxiety within Eddie.

What now? Emotional blackmail? Death threats?

Worse. Pop music.

All this to get a number. Eddie would never.

(Except he would. If Steve wanted that, Eddie would in a heartbeat. That’s how low the mighty have fallen.)

Dustin keeps hogging the radio, on the line with Suzie, and, yeah, Eddie understands – young love and shit, but on the topic of that, not that he is in love – he’d like to check on Steve. And the rest of the group, too, of course. The lights around Starcourt Mall keep flickering and Eddie sits, helpless, munching on loose strands of hair.

“Dusty-bun-“

“Suzie-poo-“

“Alright, that’s enough,” Eddie says before turning the dial on the radio.

“Hey, what are you doing?!”

“Flirting time over, nerd,” Erica pipes in and shoos away Eddie to set the correct frequency. She grabs the intercom from a stunned Dustin. “Hey, sailors. How’s the situation looking over there?”

Static crinkles for a moment.

“We’re turning around,” Steve’s muffled voice responds.

“Oh, thank God,” Eddie breathes into his hands. Pauses. “Wait-what? Why?”

“The monster’s going back to Starcourt,” comes a belated reply. “We gotta go. We’ll radio you as soon as we can.”

Silence.

“He forgot to say ‘over’,” Dustin mumbles to no one in particular and sighs. Now comes the hardest part. Waiting. It feels like years pass before they hear and see a sea of helicopters flying into Hawkins, blue and red lights out in the sky.

“What, what’s going on?”

“The government,” Dustin says with a hint of wonder.

“They know?” Eddie pauses. “Of course they fucking know.”

“They’re the cause most of the time, actually.”

“ Most of the time?”

By the time they get back to the mall, the army has taken over the place. Firetrucks and ambulances spread over the parking lot and Eddie finds the members of the group, one by one. He tries to take a peek into the mall but a wall of soldiers is quick to dissuade him.

“Eddie!” He has never been so happy to hear Robin’s voice. She sits by one of the ambulances, covered in a blanket, a trail of upcoming bruises on her cheek.

“Buckley! Thank God, where’s-”

He sees him. Steve looks even worse than when they were leaving Weathertop. And laying here, he looks so small, vulnerable. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes and he quickly grabs a cold hand into his own.

“He’s okay. They gave him some strong shit,” Robin tells him. “My parents are coming soon. I can talk to them-”

“No,” Eddie quickly cuts in, heat rushing to his face immediately. “I can, I will figure it out. It’s fine.”

Robin smiles softly, a knowing look in her eyes. “Okay. But I better hear from him tomorrow, Munson, or I swear to God-”

“Promise.”

-&-

Steve wakes up to a dimmed light and the omnipresent smell of dust. The blanket that covers his bruised and aching body is rough to the touch, the mattress is hard but comfortable enough for his eyes to drop low again. 

“Welcome to the land of the living,” a rough voice sounds from somewhere his eyes don’t reach and immediately panic sets in his veins because, God, how could he have let himself be so comfortable and foolish after the last however many hours? His body, now propped up by his elbows, is unbelievably heavy. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you, kid,” an older man comes into the narrowed frame of his vision, soft but worn features set into his face. His eyebrows travel low. “I’m Wayne. Eddie’s uncle.”

“Wh-”

It’s then that Eddie flies into the room in a flurry of motions that only he can achieve, a plate balanced in one of his hands. 

“Wayne, I told you not to hover like that,” he quickly chastises and makes a shooing motion with his free hand. “Go, go. Before you scare him even more.”

Wayne sighs and puts up his hands in mock-surrender. “Alright, alright. You kids behave.”

Steve questions his taste in people sometimes – often – but never more than when Eddie behaves like a complete child, coupled with sticking out his tongue at Wayne’s retreating figure. It’s still adorable, just a little. Maybe. 

“Here,” Eddie sits himself by the bed and offers Steve the plate he’s been holding. “Plain toast, no fancy shit on top. Should be fine for you to eat.”

Warmth spreads in Steve’s chest at a gesture so small but so sweet and mindful. Then, like lightning, a thought grabs at his mind, pushing out anything else, fear gripping at his entire being.

“Robin? Dustin? Erica?” he breathes out, throat itching and rough. “Are they safe? Are they-”

“They’re all alright. Promise,” Eddie clasps his hands around Steve’s, rubs his thumbs over the roughened skin. “But you can call if you want?”

He does. He really, really does. But he needs to know one more thing. “And you?”

Eddie softens, lips curling into a smile. “I’m all good, sweetheart,” he stands up, setting the plate on the table. “Now, let’s get these calls rolling.”

Steve remembers the Buckleys number by heart. Cries when he hears Robin’s voice over the other end, rough but there and alive. She promises to visit him soon, that her mom will drive her to Eddie’s and that everything is going to be okay, and he wants to believe her, he really does. Dustin and Erica are trickier to get ahold of but Wayne and Eddie flip through a dusty phonebook while Steve talks with Robin and they do, in the end, find their family’s numbers. 

They’re all okay. For now. 

Eddie keeps staring at him. It’s unnerving where usually it fills Steve’s body with giddy excitement at holding this precious kind of attention. He can see Eddie wants to say something but doesn’t let himself do that and it’s frustrating, it must be on both ends. 

“Out with it,” Steve finally says, munching on his second piece of plain toast of the day. Eddie startles visibly. “I can tell you want to say something. So, do it.” 

He realizes belatedly his words come out sharp like cutting glass and he feels anger, that hid so well for so long, bubbling closer to the surface than ever before, cursing at what happened to him, to people he cares about, things that he has no control over. Eddie - it’s not his fault, of course it’s not, and Steve never wants to hurt that man but this poisonous bile keeps latching onto his throat. And Eddie’s there and maybe it’s just - easy. 

“I’m sorry,” is the only thing he manages to say before the dam breaks and he can’t stop the tears from falling, his voice from cracking, any longer. All that pain gathers up and nestles itself in Eddie’s warm embrace, the storm calms with his gentle words and Steve feels safer than he has for a while, he realizes. 

Eddie’s here, he’s not going anywhere - that’s what he tells Steve with gentle touch and whispered words - and he will be right here when they figure out what’s next. Not that Steve wants to wonder about the future right now, not when half of the time he’s stuck in that basement still. 

Later, when they both feel much calmer, Eddie leans his head on Steve’s shoulder. Gently because though it’s one of the few spots not sporting bruises, the body is still aching all over. “I was scared. For you. I mean, for all of you. But, Steve-”

Steve waits. He’s learned by now that it’s when Eddie is silent that Steve needs to listen most. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

It’s the closest thing to an ‘I love you’ Steve has ever gotten. It’s coincidentally also the most sincere one. Eddie seems to realize it, too, because he tries to shrink away, make himself smaller than a speck of dust. 

“Can I kiss you?” Steve never claimed to be very tactful. In fact, many of his past dates would describe him as anything but. 

“Do I-uh?” Eddie looks stunned, frozen in his spot as if moving even an inch would burst the bubble they found themselves in. “Are you sure?”

Steve knows Eddie isn’t questioning his feelings for him or men as a whole, they both have grown past that. He knows, also, it’s reasonable to have doubts. He feels unbearably raw, and knows Eddie must not be far off either. Among all those circling phantoms of nightmares that happened, Steve hopes for something that feels and tastes real. There’s a lot he isn’t sure about but Eddie being an important part of his life, however that may be, is not one of them. 

“I’m sure. Promise.”

Eddie leans away, enough for Steve to miss his warmth and presence. Not enough to miss the heavy look on his face. 

“In a month,” Eddie finally says. “If you, if you’re  still sure in a month, it’d be my honor.”

It stings, a little, but Steve knows it’s what they need. 

-&-

Turns out it only takes almost losing your closest friends in a secret Russian underground base and almost dying to a gigantic monster made out of human flesh to join a super elite and strangely co-dependent group of people that call themselves ‘The Party’.

“For Dnd,” Will Byers explains enthusiastically. Eddie takes it in stride. 

This new group of friends - are they really friends? - come with a weekly tradition of meetings involving food and movies and games which sounds normal enough when you are only familiar with the theory. In practice, though, it’s pure chaos, loud and persistent. 

Eddie kind of likes it. 

Steve and Robin seem more apprehensive and withdrawn at first but they quickly find their own little niches within the group. As amusing as it is to see Buckley absolutely starstruck every time she sees or tries to talk to Barbara Holland, Eddie wishes them well. And from the looks Barb keeps sending Robin, he thinks the odds are in their favor. 

Steve, well, becomes an impromptu glorified babysitter of sorts, by which Eddie means that a group of middle schoolers find themselves glued to his side, especially Dustin, Lucas, Max and El, especially once they rediscover the world of arcade gaming. 

“As if you don’t have a loyal brood of your own,” Steve is quick to say and Eddie can’t really argue with that, not when Friday evenings, reserved for Hellfire Club sessions, have expanded twice in size in Dnd players since Starcourt. 

They’re sitting on the stairs leading out to the Byers backyard, him and Steve, enjoying their hidden-in-plain-sight contraband beer and a plate of grilled goods between them. The barbeque is slowly coming to an end, The Party gathered up in little groups deep in conversation. It’s been a nice evening, all in all, though Hopper’s absence seems to be weighing in on the others. Maybe barbeques were his thing, Eddie doesn’t know, but it’s kind of hard to imagine the Chief of Police here with them, as part of this bizarre group, clinking his beer can with Jonathan’s, or, God forbid, Eddie’s.

“So,” Steve says, leaning closer. His hair smells of ash and burned wood. 

“So.”

“It’s been a month,” he continues, as if Eddie doesn’t know it’s been thirty-one days on the dot, as if he hasn’t been counting them down with feverish impatience and tingling anxiety. 

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “And you-?”

A warm hand cups Eddie’s. “I’m still sure. Are you?”

He hopes his answer comes through loud and clear with how intentionally he brushes up his lips against Steve’s, gentle but decisive. At that moment nothing else matters, not the other people in the backyard or the roughened wood with rusty nails under his hand, not the plate with burned sausage in his lap. The second kiss is still sweet and chaste but promises so much more, everything Eddie can’t wait for. 

“Finally,” Robin says somewhere from the distance and Steve breathes a laugh that Eddie can feel, can taste, with their foreheads pressed together. 

“Wait, they weren’t together before?” Someone - Dustin? - asks and Eddie joins in the laughter, feeling feather-light. Safe. It feels like decades ago that he could confidently say so. 

Whatever may come next, Eddie doesn’t feel scared anymore. Not with those people by his side, hopefully. And not with Steve holding onto his hand, the way he is now.