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Eddie is leaving.
Scratch that, Eddie’s already gone. He’s got all his shit packed up in his van, whatever meager belongings of his that Wayne had managed to salvage following the trailer being ripped quite literally in two. He’s got his guitars, the electric and the acoustic, both of which somehow survived the innumerable horrors of the Upside-Down. His room at their temporary place is bare. Has been since he’d more or less died, but it’s even emptier now because all of his boxes are gone, packed tightly in the back of the van.
All of the things that made Eddie himself are coming with him.
Wayne might join up with him later. He says he has some loose ends to tie up in Hawkins, whatever the hell that means. Eddie’s not gonna question him about it. He gets it.
He doesn’t even really have a concrete plan or where he’s going, anyway, torn between heading down to Tennessee to locate his mother’s remaining family and going out west just for the hell of it. He doesn’t really know a lot at this point, hasn’t since March—since dying and being brought back to life as a demon-vampire-hybrid creature under Vecna’s control, and then being made human again by Eleven’s gentle hands.
What he does know is that he won’t stay. Hawkins can kiss his ass; he won’t be looking back at all when he leaves it in the rearview. He’s starting over. Starting fresh. Becoming a new person. He’s taken a knife to his hair and chopped it just above his shoulders, and he’s abandoned the jewelry and chains and the torn-up t-shirts in favor of more practical and less flashy clothing. He looks a little more like Wayne this way but that’s for the better. People love Wayne. Or they tolerate him if they don’t. Nobody has ever loved Eddie, here. Not really.
Except maybe the kids.
And that’s really the only thing holding him back, the last little thing left to check off his list—not that he wants to break the news to any of them of his incoming departure, necessarily, but he thinks it would be gentler that way. Less hurtful if he were to brace the pain of leaving them so suddenly with a proper goodbye and all.
So it’s a Saturday in early June just a week or so after the end of the end of the world, and Eddie decides he’s just gonna go for it. He’s gonna leave today and nothing’s gonna stop him. He drives himself over to the Hendersons’: he figures Dustin’s goodbye will be the most painful, so he might as well get it over with first.
He’s never had the best luck, according to tradition and also his general track record, so Claudia’s the one who answers the door. She fusses over him on the doorstep for a little bit, as is customary of their interactions ever since Eddie came back and was officially cleared of all murder charges and she found out that he’d more or less saved Dustin’s life back in March. He has to admit that he doesn’t mind. He hasn’t exactly had a mother or a mother-adjacent figure since he was six.
When Eddie eventually brings himself to ask about Dustin, Claudia tells him that she’d dropped him off at the Wheeler’s place not too long ago. Which, sure, that works. Not ideal since they’re likely to team up against him, but nothing they say can or will convince him to stay. He’ll say goodbye to Dustin and Mike at the same time then move on to the rest. Two birds, one stone. And then he’ll be off. Easy peasy.
Except it isn’t, because when has Eddie’s life ever been easy? He drives over to the Wheeler’s place down Maple Street, parks at the curb in front of the house. Stumbles up the front steps and raps on the door a bit. Is so lost in preparing his last-minute improvised goodbye speech that he doesn’t register the fact that Mike Wheeler isn’t the one answering the door until, well—
“Eddie?” Steve asks, eyebrows furrowing.
Eddie gapes at him stupidly.
Steve is wearing a fun little striped yellow-blue-red colorblock shirt and blue jeans, as is customary of him. What is unusual about his getup today, however, is the tiara lying crooked in the glorious bed of his artfully styled hair, as well as the pink faux-feather boa around his neck. It also looks like there’s glitter on his face and like, okay. Sure. Of course there is. This is just Eddie’s life, in all honesty. Just his fucking luck that he’s trying to get the hell out of dodge and he manages to stumble upon the one person he truly didn’t want to see, looking like he’d been plucked right out of every single one of Eddie’s most shameful domestic fantasies.
He’s even got a little sparkly wand in his hand, for fuck’s sake.
“Hey,” Eddie says, belated and off-kilter. Steve usually has that effect on him. “What’s—uh, am I maybe interrupting something?”
He has the thought that maybe Steve is here for Nancy. Which would be unfortunate, but also is undoubtedly another reason for Eddie’s need to leave. Because the man of his dreams is in love with the most perfect girl in Indiana and Eddie will never really get to be with him in the way that he so desperately needs. It’s better to go. Better to forget about it so he doesn’t have to feel that particularly profound and deep ache in his chest whenever Steve looks at Nancy for longer than a single second.
“Oh,” Steve says, looking down at himself as if he’s only now realizing what he must look like. He hides the wand behind his back as if Eddie hasn’t already seen it. “Oh, I’m just here to babysit Holly.”
“Holly?”
“Nancy and Mike’s younger sister.”
“I didn’t know they had a younger sister,” Eddie says, admittedly a little troubled about the realization. There’s still so much that he doesn’t know about the people he cares about, and he’ll probably never get to know it, either. Feels the loss lance right through his chest, too. Christ. It’s undoubtedly better that way, though. Better to know less. Less to dwell on as he settles into a new place, away from here.
Steve says, “Yeah. She’s six, so, you know, never really got involved in the whole—“ he casts a furtive glance behind him as if to make sure the six-year-old in question is not listening, “Upside-Down thing.”
“Ah,” Eddie says. “Makes sense.”
“Yeah.”
“And… I’m assuming that since you’re here babysitting, Mike isn’t here.”
“Yeah, no. Just left, actually.”
“What about Dustin?”
Steve tilts his head. “How’d you know Dustin was here?”
“I swung by his place and he wasn’t there. Claudia told me she dropped him off here.”
“Ah, yeah. All the kids were here. Carpooled to the hospital to visit Will while he’s recovering from everything. Nancy drove them, and the Wheelers are out for the day, so they didn’t have anyone to watch Holly. I volunteered. I can just visit Will on my own.”
“Right,” Eddie says, looking down at his shoes.
He feels all kinds of off. Beyond the fact that Steve is an actual honest-to-God babysitter which makes his chest hurt, the kids aren’t fucking here. It was one thing with Dustin, and then Dustin and Mike. But he can’t just barge into Will’s hospital room and tell everyone gathered there that he’s blowing town. And he already feels like such a huge asshole, there’s no way in hell he’s just leaving now without telling them. He’s done running away like that, without clinging to whatever remaining scraps of dignity he’s got left and doing everything he can the right way.
“What’s going on?” Steve asks suspiciously, squinting at him as the silence lengthens between them. “You’re being all weird and quiet.”
“I’m always weird,” Eddie retorts.
Steve shrugs. “Well, yeah, but not quiet.”
“It’s nothing. I…I should go.” He gestures to his van.
He only makes it a couple of steps down the walkway before Steve is asking, “Where are you headed?”
God dammit.
Eddie turns back around. “Home,” he lies through gritted teeth.
Steve isn’t buying it. “You should come inside,” he says.
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got places to be.”
“You just said you were going home.”
“Well, yeah. I am.”
“Why don’t you go visit Will with the kids? He likes you a lot. I’m sure you could play your Dungeons and Dumbasses game with him. Make up a small campaign or whatever.”
“I’m not doing that, either.”
“Why not?”
“Jesus, Steve, what the hell are you on my ass for?” Eddie snaps.
“You’re leaving,” he accuses, pointing the fucking glittery fairy wand right at Eddie’s chest and when Eddie doesn’t deny it, he puffs up all self-righteously. “I knew it. You’re looking for the kids to say goodbye.”
“Maybe,” Eddie allows, and he hates himself for it. For how he cannot help but eventually submit to being honest with Steve Harrington.
Steve’s eyes are wide and bright and fiery and he looks ready to call Eddie a bunch of things, maybe smack him around a bit to try to knock some sense into him, and Eddie steels himself for what is undoubtedly about to be one hell of an argument.
But then Steve deflates, suddenly, and just looks really tired.
“You were gonna say goodbye to the kids,” he says, the words dragging out of his throat slowly, like it hurts. “But what about the rest of us?”
Eddie felt off before, sure. But it’s nothing compared to this. To the way he suddenly and violently feels entirely wrong-footed. “What?”
“Robin and Nancy and me. What, you were just gonna leave us like that? Even though we spent a week together in March, and then these past few weeks with the whole end of the world—you were gonna leave without telling me—without telling us?”
Eddie stares at him. He looks sad. Worn out. Beaten down.
Yes, I was going to leave without telling you, Eddie thinks. Because you’re probably the only person who could get me to stay.
Eddie opens his mouth, unsure of what’s going to come out, when a tiny girl suddenly materializes in the doorway and attaches herself to Steve’s pant leg.
She’s cute. She has blonde hair pulled into matching pigtails and she’s wearing a monstrously poofy pink dress. Her eyes are big and blue, just like her older sister’s. She’s got a crown of her own on her head, a little bit fancier than Steve’s, and glitter all over her face, and little pink butterfly wings strapped onto her back.
“Evie,” she says, her face falling into an unfairly adorable pout. “We were playing fairies, you know.”
Steve’s face transforms in an instant, suddenly warm and open and soft as he looks down at her, and Eddie’s traitorous heart squeezes in his chest. This is the last thing he needs—Steve getting mad at him for wanting to leave and then going and looking like this, a plastic crown on his head and a toy wand held in his hand, gazing down at a kid so gently that Eddie almost feels violent with the love that surges in his chest at the mere sight of it.
“Yeah, Holly, we were,” Steve agrees. “But I had to talk to my friend real quick. This is Eddie.”
Holly looks at Eddie. Considers him for a moment before suddenly getting shy and tucking herself behind Steve’s legs.
“Hi,” she says quietly. “I’m Holly.”
Eddie feels his inhibitions falling away. The sourness from the conversation he’d been having with Steve, his plans falling apart and the loathing he has for himself for almost running away—it disappears for long enough. He feels, for the briefest moment, like his old self again.
It allows him to go all goofy and earnest and say, in an extremely exaggerated accent, “Why hello, Your Royal Highness, Princess Holly Wheeler of the Fae. Eddie Munson, at your service.” He bows with a flourish. “Might I say your crown is looking particularly shiny today.”
Holly giggles at him, eyes suddenly bright, her shyness forgotten. Eddie back grins at her and his gaze darts over to Steve, just for a moment.
Steve is looking at him in a way Eddie’s never seen before, really: his eyes are a little bit wide, mouth slightly open and he’s got the prettiest rosy blush on his cheeks. The glitter only makes it stand out more. Jesus H Christ, he’s a knockout. Eddie’s perpetually out of his depth with him, but he feels like he’s drowning right now.
Steve looks like he might say something, but then Holly is stepping out from behind Steve’s legs. She looks up at Eddie again for a moment, before deciding to grab ahold of his hand with her own tiny one and attempt to drag him inside.
He stutters, “Oh—apologies, Princess Holly, I do have prior engagements, I don’t believe I’ll be able to partake in any of the activities that your Evie here has planned for you, unfortunately—“
She turns to him with the same fire in her eyes that Eddie has seen in both of her siblings. Must run in the family.
“You have to play with me,” she tells him very seriously. Like if he doesn’t sit down and pretend to be some kind of mythical creature with her then she’ll kick him in the shin or do something else to make him regret it. Eddie sees a lot of Nancy in her, admittedly. The same fire and drive. Same no-nonsense attitude.
“You should stay for a while,” Steve cuts in. Eddie looks at him and he’s looking away, down at the floor. “You can wait for the kids to come back and tell them what you need to tell them then.”
“I shouldn’t crash your babysitting gig, Steve,” Eddie protests. “The Wheelers don’t like me as is. Can you imagine them coming home to see me sitting on the couch with their youngest?”
“They can deal with it,” Steve decides, and then he grabs Eddie’s other hand and yanks. Eddie stumbles inside and Holly cheers before tearing off into the house.
Eddie ultimately gives in. He’s weak like that.
He kicks off his shoes and asks, “So… Evie?”
Steve huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, his cheeks still glowing a bit. “That is what Holly calls me, yes. You’ll get a nickname too. Just wait.”
They both follow her into the house.
Holly promptly ignores Eddie’s name in favor of calling him Teddy. He also gets a crown, although it’s definitely the least fancy one out of the bunch. She digs into a cheap little makeup kit clearly meant for kids to put glitter on his cheeks, too. She tells him he has pretty hair like Nancy’s, that she wants hair like that. Eddie resolutely does not look at Steve after she says so, afraid of what he’ll find.
They play as fairies for a little while. Steve is surprisingly dedicated to it, as evidenced by the little furrow between his brows and the way he gives Holly his full undivided attention. The premise of their little game is that Holly is a fairy princess, and Steve is a prince? And Eddie isn’t but he has a crown and glitter anyway. She pushes them around the Wheeler living room, becomes more bossy as the minutes tick away. Forces them to sit at a tiny table and sip nothing out of tiny little purple teacups. The image of Steve Harrington clutching a miniature teacup in his large hand while wearing a tiara is almost comical. Almost.
In reality, it just makes Eddie weak in the knees.
And then Holly suddenly decides that Eddie is a monster and that he has to chase her and Steve around the house, which, like, sure, why not? He’s still got the fucking tiara on but Holly clearly doesn’t care. Apparently, Steve Harrington is not the only one Eddie’s weak to; when Holly tells him that he’s a werewolf (he’s no expert in childcare, but he’s pretty sure that a six-year-old shouldn’t know what a werewolf is—what the hell are the Wheelers exposing her to?) he howls at an invisible moon just to see her giggle.
Even though the whole thing is ridiculous, Eddie thinks it’s the most fun he’s had in a while, purely because of how human the whole experience makes him feel. He hasn’t had that in a while. Not since March, and not since the Upside-Down.
Holly’s clearly used to scars. She doesn’t blink twice at the one wound around Steve’s neck. She doesn’t really stare all that much at the one that takes up a large part of Eddie’s face, either. She either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the fact that everyone in town thinks Eddie’s a cultist with an affinity for murder. Doesn’t let his ripped jeans or dark clothing deter her from knighting him with the fairy wand she’d stolen back from Steve. So now he’s a knight, he guesses? Jesus, this game has more plot twists than any of the campaigns he’s written. He feels like a fucking amateur now. He makes a mental note to include a lycanthropic paladin NPC in his next campaign before remembering that there won’t be one, because he’s leaving.
It kind of kills his good mood a little. And then he’s just thinking about how he’ll never really get to have this, not in the way most people do, and not in the way he wants.
He’ll take it right now as it is, even if it’s not real, and even if it’s just for the afternoon. He’ll pretend to be a not-princess and then a werewolf and then a strapping knight. He’ll lift Holly up when she asks him to, throw her around, affect whatever silly accents and personas he can, laugh whenever she does. He’ll do whatever she asks.
Whatever Steve asks, too.
Holly eventually gets bored and decides it’s time to switch things up again. She takes Eddie by the hand and looks up at him with her serious blue eyes.
“You have to marry Princess Evie,” she declares shamelessly, and Eddie feels himself momentarily just stop working. He fucking short circuits, or something, all of his bodily functions and brain signals and shit ceasing in favor of just staring down at Holly stupidly. He wonders if this tiny child has the ability to peer into his soul and see all of his deepest darkest desires. He wouldn't put it past her; she is, in fact, a Wheeler.
He opens his mouth with the goal of saying something clever and ultimately non-incriminating. Closes it when nothing comes to mind and he winds up saying nothing at all. Which, like, yeah. Way to go, Eddie. Super non-incriminating.
Steve saves him by complaining, “Hang on a minute, Holly, when did I become a princess? I thought I was a prince.” Like that’s the part of the sentence that he should be having a problem with. Steve Harrington is an enigma. He literally never fails to surprise Eddie with how entirely unpredictable he can be.
“You were a prince but now you’re a princess because you have to marry knight Teddy,” she explains patiently, like Steve’s an idiot. Her tone is remarkably similar to Mike’s deadpan one, go figure.
Eddie decides to just go with it. He frowns. “Why can’t I be a princess? Or a prince?”
“You’re not as pretty,” she tells him simply.
“Ouch.”
Steve snorts, the traitor. “Try not to take it personally.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say, Princess Evie.”
“Evie’s pretty,” Holly continues. “His hair is pretty.”
“C’mon, Holly, I thought you liked my hair?” Eddie protests, throwing his hands up in defeat, utterly confused at the arbitrary rules this child is establishing in her make-believe game of fairies and princesses.
“I don’t,” she decides, like she wasn’t just telling him how much she liked it. “It’s not pretty enough.”
“I can’t take much more of this,” Eddie warns her, and Steve stifles a laugh into his hand.
“You have to get married now,” Holly repeats. Again, with the no-nonsense tone.
Eddie sighs and looks at Steve. “So, like, are we going to explain homophobia to a six-year-old, or are we just gonna go with this?”
“What’s homophobia?” Holly asks.
“Nothing,” Steve and Eddie say at the same time.
“Technically, I’m a princess now, so it cancels out,” Steve says all nonchalantly, like marrying another man is a math problem for him and it can be solved easily, just like that. “Let’s just go with it. How involved could this pretend fairy wedding be?”
Pretty fucking involved, as it turns out. Holly makes them go outside and pick tiny little wildflowers to gather into shoddy bouquets. She forces a blooming yellow dandelion behind Steve’s ear. Neither of them has the heart to tell her it's a weed—why should they, anyway? It looks like a flower so it is, at least to this little girl.
And then they go back inside and she makes them rearrange all of the furniture, the couches and tables and TV, to make room for an aisle. After that Holly’s contemplating possibly changing into a different princess dress for the wedding, despite the fact that she’s not even the one getting pretend-married. Steve, of course, goes along with everything and takes it all in stride. He sweats enough while moving the couch that he has to remove the feather boa. Eddie mourns the loss. Then he debates the virtues of Holly’s pink dress versus her yellow one. He is very vocal in his support of the yellow dress.
Holly is mid-dress-contemplation when she yawns, flops down on the couch, and promptly falls asleep, eyes screwed shut and mouth wide open, drooling into a throw pillow. So the pretend fairy wedding never even ends up happening, and isn't that just Eddie's shit luck? Like, there is no reality where he marries Steve Harrington, and the one shot he had at pretending to do it just went right down the drain.
Not that it matters, in the long run, because he’s leaving anyway.
Steve laughs at the sight of Holly curling herself up into a ball on the couch like it doesn’t matter to him that they did all of that manual labor for nothing. He carefully removes the little crushed wildflower bouquet from Holly’s grip and sets it on the coffee table. Then he reaches over and pulls a loose throw blanket over her body.
The sight of it is so domestic that Eddie wants to kind of keel over about it. Not that everything else they did today wasn’t also just as domestic. It’s just the simplicity of the action. Like there was no other option for Steve except to reach over and tuck her in.
“We were running around outside a lot before you swung by, so it must have tuckered her out,” Steve explains.
“Ah. Makes sense,” Eddie says. Then, before he can think better of it, “You’re good at this.”
Eddie settles down on the ground and leans up against the couch, and then goes to take off his crown but it gets miserably caught in his hair. He yanks it harder which only gets it even more tangled and pulls at his scalp painfully. Steve tuts and kneels on the ground next to him to help him get it out, carefully rearranging the strands from where they’re wrapped around the plastic. He’s too close. He smells nice, like the outdoors and summertime, sunshine and the sea breeze. He’s laser-focused. His breaths are even and relaxed, his chest expanding with each one, all wide and soft-looking.
Eddie wants to put his arms around him and hold him close.
He doesn’t. Just clears his throat and waits until Steve sits back, holding the crown aloft triumphantly. “Got it,” he says.
“Nice. Thanks.”
“No problem.” He sets the crown down. “What’d you say? Earlier?”
“Oh.” Eddie licks his lips. He feels stupid saying it now. “Just that you’re good at this.”
Steve’s eyebrow quirks. “At what?”
“At the whole kids thing. Looking after them. Taking care of them. You’re good at it.”
Steve hums. His cheeks go all rosy. “Thanks, I guess. I’ve had a lot of practice though. We both have.”
“Yeah,” Eddie chuckles. “I guess evil alternate dimension doomsdays aren’t the only thing those pipsqueaks prepped us for, huh?”
“Yeah. You’re good at this too, you know.”
Eddie kind of freezes. “I am?” he croaks.
“Yeah,” Steve confirms softly. “Just thought you should know. In case nobody told you. I think…” he trails off a little, laughs all self-deprecatingly, like maybe he’s telling himself some kind of sad joke. “I think you’d make a great dad, one day.”
Eddie can’t help the way he bursts into immediate and too-loud laughter. He clamps a hand over his mouth and looks over at Holly but she is still blissfully entrenched in the beginnings of sleep, thank God. He’d feel horrible if he woke her up from her impromptu nap.
Steve frowns at him. “Why’re you laughing?”
“Because the words ‘great dad’ and ‘Eddie Munson’ don’t belong in the same sentence together in any way, shape, or form,” Eddie says. “Look, I told you about this a little, back in March, but my dad’s kind of a piece of shit, you know? And I really did swear to myself that I’d never wind up like him, whatever that may mean. I’ve already failed horrifically at that in so many respects, so I couldn’t handle it if I turned out to be a deadbeat dad, too. Collecting little lost sheepies in the dragon’s den that is the Hawkins High School cafeteria is one thing. But actual kids? Like babies and toddlers and shit? I can’t. I don’t think it’ll ever be in the cards for me. So it feels kinda weird to hear.”
It’s true in a lot of ways. Eddie loves kids, sure. Would love to have some in a theoretical, abstract kind of way, without thinking about his father and repeating patterns, and what people in general would think of him. He would love to raise kids, love to hold them, go to all of their peewee soccer games and recitals and what have you, roadtrip with them across the US as one big happy family unit. But there’s no reality where that happens, even without considering the fact that Eddie is hugely queer and it’ll be a long time before the law favors people like him, if ever.
It’s just easier to not even consider it. Think of it as a non-option. It hurts too much, otherwise.
“Oh,” Steve says. His face is doing something strange, his expression all twisted up. He looks, bizarrely, like his heart has just been broken. “Well, that’s fine, I guess. Not everyone has to have kids. You shouldn’t feel like you have to. I just wanted to tell you that. You deserved to know.”
“That’s kind of you,” Eddie says, sounding probably way too sincere about it. “I mean it. Even though it’ll never happen—well, I guess it is nice to hear. At least I made one kid’s afternoon a little more memorable. Even though I didn’t get to be a princess.”
Steve laughs and reaches up to take off his own crown. Of course it doesn’t catch in his hair, it just smoothly glides right off of his head, his golden brown strands falling right back into place. He holds it in his lap and looks down at it. “I don’t know, being a princess is kind of overrated, I think.”
“That’s easy to say that when you’re the only one deemed pretty enough by little miss Holly Wheeler to be a princess,” Eddie says, smirking. “Princess Evie.”
Steve sighs. “You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”
“Absolutely not. Does Robin know about this? Because she should.”
“No, she absolutely should not, are you kidding me? Like she doesn’t torment me enough.”
“I’m gonna tell her.”
“No, you’re not.”
“She has to know that you’re the prettiest princess in all of Hawkins in the eyes of one very impressionable six-year-old,” Eddie tells him. And because he has shit impulse control and a very poor mind-to-mouth filter, he can’t help what slips out next: “And one werewolf-knight-fairy hybrid, of course. I agree with her, is what I’m saying. You are very pretty. No one else could compare.”
Steve stares at him for a minute, his mouth opening and closing several times before it eventually settles into the shape of a sigh.
“I don’t get you,” he says, his voice quiet and a little pitchy, and the mood suddenly shifts and Steve looks all anguished and shit and Eddie knows right then and there that he’s fucked up in a majorly irrevocable way. “I… I don’t get you, because you’ll say stuff like that, and you’ll flirt with me and touch me and look at me like—like you actually like me. And then you decide you’re going to leave Hawkins without even telling me. How was I even supposed to find out? From the kids? Were you just gonna disappear and send a fucking postcard from Europe or something and expect us—expect me to be okay with that?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Eddie blurts. It’s yet another wrong thing to say. Eddie’s got no shortage of those, apparently.
Steve’s face screws up. “What the hell does that even mean? Why—no, you know what, I tried to talk to you and this is what I get.”
Steve stands up and stalks out into the hall and Eddie scrambles up from his spot on the floor to follow him. His blood has gone cold in his veins and all of the warmth from the afternoon is gone. God fucking dammit. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised at the sudden turn of events. This is just what Eddie does. Sucks the joy and life out of things. Curses everything else.
Steve is rambling, “I honestly don’t know what I expected. You were just gonna leave us without saying a fucking thing, why should I expect a straight answer from you? It’s always fucking—self-pity, and you convincing yourself to make stupid decisions just because you think it’s the right thing to do.”
“Yeah, well, what am I supposed to do here, Steve?” Eddie cuts in, keeping his voice low and trying not to sound as lost as he is. He’s desperate. Frenetic. Frenzied. Feels his fate balancing acutely between two possibilities.
He grabs Steve’s shoulder to turn him around and now they’re both standing in the front hallway, staring at each other and breathing heavily. Steve’s eyes are wild. Unpredictable. He looks like he’s hurting. Eddie hates that he caused that.
He continues speaking regardless. “You want me to stay? You want me to settle down in the town that started a Kill the Freak campaign? All my life everyone’s told me that I’ll never amount to anything. That I’ll be another high school dropout, a fuck-up just like my dad, and that I’ll probably wind up dying here without having made anything of myself. And I’ve already done all of that. I’ve got no fucking diploma. I’ve stolen and I’ve lied. And I died. Am I just supposed to stay and let this fucking—this fucking place take everything else from me, too?”
“That’s not fair,” Steve says tightly. “I never said you couldn’t leave, alright? I understand that part, I get it, I swear. I’d probably want to leave too, if I were you. It’s just—you were going to do it without telling anyone other than the kids, though. That’s what I have a problem with.”
“Yeah, I absolutely was going to leave without saying jack shit, because you would’ve tried to get me to stay!”
“Yeah, you dumbass, I would have! You know why? Because we all fucking love you!” Steve bursts. In the following silence he shakes himself out of his rage and lowers his voice to a much safer volume. “You don’t think the kids wouldn’t have done the same? You don’t think Lucas, or Max, or Mike, or fuck, Dustin wouldn’t have begged you to stay? You don’t think they want you here in our lives?”
“That’s different,” Eddie says, feeling all hollowed out on the inside.
“How? Help me understand how.” There’s this desperation in Steve’s voice that Eddie’s never heard before. Strained with things he doesn’t dare put a name to and Eddie’s a fucking idiot. He’s a coward. He’s weak. He’s stupid and scared and weak and he’s in love.
“I love the kids, too,” Eddie admits. “More than they’ll ever know. I fucking—I died for Dustin. Agonizing pain, literally being eaten alive and then lying there in the aftermath, waiting for death to take me, and it was incomprehensibly horrible, the worst thing I’ve ever felt and will ever feel, and I’d do it all over again if it means he gets to live. I’d do anything. I’d die for Dustin again and again and again. For the rest of the kids, too.” He pauses. “But… I’d stay for you, Steve.”
A beat. No noise other than Steve’s breathing, a little bit heavy, noticeably so in the quiet of the Wheeler’s house, Holly’s little snores echoing in from the living room.
Eddie looks at him: his cute colorblock shirt still tucked neatly into his jeans and his yellow socks on the hardwood flooring. There’s some stray glitter smeared in his perfect messy hair. The dandelion is still tucked behind his ear. He looks so real. Realer than he’s ever looked in the halls of Hawkins High or all over town when Eddie had glimpsed him in passing. He looks attainable like this. It does dangerous things to Eddie’s mind and heart and soul. Poisons him against leaving. Pleads with him to stay, if only to see Steve like this every now and then, like it would sustain him in this hell, keep him happy and satisfied despite everyone else actively hating everything that Eddie is.
Maybe it would. Hell if Eddie knows. He doesn’t know a lot.
What he knows is this: Steve Harrington is perfect and he’ll never be Eddie’s and Eddie has to leave before he loses this impression of Steve forever, too.
“What?” Steve asks, voice gone so light it’s wispy.
“I’d stay for you,” Eddie repeats, letting his head tilt backward until he’s staring up at the Wheeler’s ugly popcorn ceiling. God. “Hawkins has taken everything from me, and the only hope I’ll have to ever live a normal life where people don’t think I’m a murderer is if I leave. And—and the same goes for you all. If you continue to see me, hang out with me, associate with me in any capacity, then the rest of town will begin to hate you all, too. So I should want to leave. Not just for myself, but for all of you. Part of me wants to leave more than anything and it’s wanted that my whole fucking life. But there’s another part of me, and it’s bigger, and it’s irrational, nonsensical, selfish in every way. And that part of me is just waiting for you to ask me to stay. Because if you did, then I would.”
“Why?” Steve asks, his gaze so bright and intense it feels like it’s burning a hole through Eddie's face or something.
Eddie sighs. His shoulders fall. He’s so fucking weak. “You know why, Steve.”
“I don’t,” Steve says. “I don’t know. I’m not—I’m stupid, Eddie, and I need people to spell things out for me.”
“You’re not stupid,” Eddie says softly. “Don’t say that. You’re not.”
“Do you love me?” Steve asks, bold only in his words and not in his tone. He sounds so small now. “I knew, maybe—you liked me, but I didn’t know that you—”
“Yeah,” Eddie answers, because what the hell else is he gonna say? He’s done lying. Done cheating and done being anything other than this. “Yeah, of course I do. Course I love you.”
They sit with that for a moment. The confession. Steve’s processing it. His eyes flit all over Eddie’s face and he’s chewing on his bottom lip. Eddie wants to swipe his finger there, make sure he doesn’t bleed. Then maybe over the glitter on his cheekbone, too. Princess Evie. Gorgeous. Perfect.
Not Eddie’s.
He’ll make a great dad. Maybe to Wheeler’s kids. Maybe to another girl’s. Not to Eddie’s. Eddie won’t have kids. Not ever. Eddie can’t. Eddie won’t get a happily ever after. This isn’t Holly’s make-pretend game where they can get almost-married and be together and nobody bats an eye. This isn’t a fairytale.
It’s irrational, to expect Steve to ask him to stay. For what, for them to just be friends? And then Steve will go and find some girl and Eddie will have to watch as they fall in love and get married and have a million little perfect babies and either way, it’s a world of pain for Eddie. No matter what he does, what choice he makes.
There’s the pain of leaving this behind, and then there’s the pain of staying and being left behind, too. Being left in the dust. Like a sucker, a fool, an idiot; like the coward he always knew he was.
He’s so tired of it all. Tired of being faced with impossible decisions. Tired of being shown everything he could have just out of his reach. Tired of never getting what he wants.
“I should go,” Eddie says, and he turns to leave, taking a few steps over to the door.
Except Steve grabs onto the hem of his shirt and pulls him right back. “You’re not leaving,” he says.
Indignation rises up in Eddie’s chest. “I am. I will. I’m leaving now. You can tell the kids. They’ll get over it. They’ll forget about me, you all will, and it’ll be better that way, okay? So just let me go.”
“Will you shut up for two seconds?” Steve snaps, brown eyes flaring like little supernovas. God, he’s a little galaxy in and of himself, with beauty marks for constellations and space dust in his scars. He’s incomprehensibly beautiful, is what Eddie’s trying to say—the expanse of him, so luminous and lovely.
He says, “You’re not leaving because I’m going to ask you to stay.”
Eddie stares at him.
Steve plows on, “Because—because we only just got you back, and you have to make it up to Dustin and the rest of the kids. There’s so many campaigns for you to play, and places for us to hang out, and your band is here, and so is your uncle. Robin and Nancy love you and they want you to be in their lives. And—and—”
“And?”
“And we just got almost-married for Holly, so you can’t leave. You’re—you’re my pretend fairy husband knight or whatever, so you need to stay and be that for me, okay?”
Eddie blinks at him. “You—you—what?”
“You heard me, Munson, I’m not gonna repeat myself. I’m asking you to stay. Please,” he hesitates. Then asks, all vulnerable, “Will you please stay?”
Eddie rakes a hand through his hair. “As just a friend? As your pretend fairy husband knight? Or as something else? Because I’ve gotta be honest here, Steve, and lay all my cards on the table, bare my soul and all of the other embarrassing shit, too, but—I’m pretty fucking obsessed with you, alright? And any version of a future where I stay and you go meet some girl and marry her and have a flock of perfect little babies is actually my own personal hell. Not that I don’t want you to be happy, but I’m also extremely jealous, and possessive, probably to a degree that’s just the tiniest bit unhealthy, and I want—I want—”
“You want?”
“I want you,” Eddie finishes. “In every way I can have you.”
Steve’s face screws up. “You’re such a fucking dumbass.”
“I know,” Eddie admits, but before he can say anything else, Steve is grabbing the collar of his denim jacket and using his jock barbarian muscles to haul him in and bring their lips together.
A kiss. It’s a kiss.
He’s kissing Eddie.
Eddie says something entirely unintelligible and incoherent in response, because, well, Steve’s got his mouth on Eddie’s, and also—what?
What?
“What?” Eddie mumbles into his lips, entirely shell-shocked.
“I said you’re a fucking dumbass,” Steve grits out.
“No—no, I got that, I just—I don’t really know what’s happening, right now.”
Steve pulls back just the slightest. “I’m kissing you.”
“You sure are,” Eddie croaks. “It’s just—I kind of never thought this would happen.”
“It will. It is.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool. Yeah. That’s—this is—”
“Just kiss me, maybe?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Eddie kisses him.
He pulls away later. He doesn’t know how much later: the sun is shining outside, just as bright as it was before and a quick glance into the living room shows Holly still conked out on the couch, but their shadows have shifted on the floor and Steve has settled into his arms as easy as breathing. Like there was no other option and really, what the hell is Eddie supposed to do?
Is there any reality where Eddie leaves now while knowing what Steve tastes like?
Steve’s wide pretty hands are in Eddie’s hair. He tugs on the ends a little bit.
“You cut your hair,” he says, and sounds a little bit upset about it, which makes Eddie feel like an asshole for some reason.
“Yeah,” he replies. “A little.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s not that much shorter.”
“But it’s still shorter.” Steve leans in again, his breath hot on Eddie’s cheek. “You shouldn’t have to change yourself.”
“I guess not. I… I think I know that now.”
“Good. I like long curly hair.”
“It’ll grow back.”
“Yeah. It will.”
Eddie takes a deep breath. “So are you—do you—”
“I am,” Steve says. “I do.”
“Oh,” Eddie breathes. “Like, with me? To me? Like, romantically?”
Steve has the nerve to roll his eyes. Eddie sometimes forgets that he used to be the King of Hawkins High, grand high bitch supreme right up there with Carol Perkins and Tommy Hagan, because he’s just so unflinchingly kind now. And then he’ll do something like huff while crossing his arms over his chest or bitch quietly under his breath about something totally inconsequential, and there it is. Eddie can’t say he hates it, though. He likes it when Steve gets mean. Likes Steve in any way he can, in all honesty.
“I just kissed you,” Steve tells him. “Of course it’s romantically.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean—or, well, it doesn’t have to, if you don’t—”
“I already said I do,” Steve cuts him off. He gets this complicated look on his face. “It’s not—I like men. And women. But men, too. Men, also. Like, in addition.”
“Oh. Cool. Yeah. Me too.”
“Yeah, no shit, Eddie,” Steve says, sounding entirely exasperated. “I could tell. You know, given the way you confessed to me and all.”
“Oh my God, you’re such an asshole, I can’t believe I like you.”
Steve raises an eyebrow. “I think you said love earlier.”
Eddie wants to say any number of immediate retorts that come to mind. What he says instead is, “Yeah. I did. I do.”
“I know,” Steve says, his face going soft. "I know that now."
“Cool.”
“Cool.” Steve pauses. Plays with Eddie’s hair some more, although now it seems a bit more like a nervous little tick than anything. He asks, tentatively, “And the whole kids situation—like, would you change your mind about that, possibly?”
Eddie stares at him.
“Because I don’t know if you know this about me, but I kind of want, like, at least six of them, so…”
“You already fucking have six of them, Steve,” Eddie says, because it’s the only thing he can think to say.
“Seven,” Steve corrects. “Including Erica. You have to include Erica.”
“Jesus H. Christ, seven including Erica, fine. You have seven. And you want six more?”
“The seven kids we have now don’t count. They’re a practice round.” He stops. “You know, I wasn’t lying. What I said, earlier—I get the fear of not wanting to be like your old man. I have the same one. Like, if I woke up one day and realized I’d become my father, I’d have to jump headfirst into the quarry or something.”
“That’ll never happen, but please don’t jump into the quarry,” Eddie murmurs, which Steve pointedly ignores.
“But we can’t let those fears hold us back from what we really want, you know? I feel like we all kinda learned that this past year. With the end of the world and multiple almost-apocalypses and all of the near-death situations and all. I’m not gonna let anything stop me from getting what I want and being who I am. Not the law, not the fucking Upside-Down, and definitely not myself.”
It's shocking how Steve can just put all of Eddie's worries to rest. All of his insecurities and doubts and second-guesses, they all just disappear in an instant. Steve is looking at him like he's worth the trouble. Eddie doesn't know if anyone's ever looked at him like that before, besides maybe Wayne and the kids and those are givens. Steve's love was never a given. Eddie was just going to up and leave and he'd have never known and maybe he'd have died not knowing how much Steve cares and how much he doesn't give a shit about anything or anyone else.
Eddie considers this. Looks at Steve. Gives in. Nods, eventually, and says, “So. Babies.”
“Babies,” Steve confirms. “But, like, in the distant future. We don’t have to worry about that right now. We have time.”
“Yeah, I guess we do.” Eddie shakes his head. “Are we kind of already considering settling down together and having babies and shit? Because we only just got together, like,” he checks his watch, “Three minutes ago, give or take.”
“Who said we’re together?” Steve asks, but he’s suppressing a smile.
Eddie huffs. “I don’t know, I guess I just kind of assumed. You know, considering you were shoving your tongue down my throat and all and then asking me to have your babies.”
Steve laughs. “I guess,” he allows, and then his smile fades. “So… that means you’ll stay, right? At least for now. If you confessed your undying love to me and kissed me and then left I don’t think I would ever forgive you.”
“Yeah,” Eddie gives in easily, readily, and the rest of the dam gives way. He lets out a shuddery sigh. “Yeah, course I’ll stay. You did ask, after all.
“Course,” Steve repeats. He nods. “Good. I would’ve been so pissed if you left.”
“I know.”
“Especially without saying goodbye.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re staying.”
“I’m glad you’re glad.”
“I can’t believe you were gonna leave. After everything. I mean, I said I get it and I do, but—we need each other. All of us. That includes you. It will never not include you.”
Eddie nods. “Yeah. I would’ve been pretty useless by myself, probably. Would’ve done a lot of staring up at the moon. Pining while looking out the window, probably. Like a damsel in distress.”
“Or a princess?” Steve asks.
“Sure, yeah,” Eddie laughs, and he gently grabs Steve by the chin to guide his face back to his own. “A princess,” he murmurs into his lips.
Mike busts down the front door just an hour or so later, the rest of the kids shuffling in behind him. “Why is Eddie’s car in the driveway?” he calls.
Eddie calls back, “Because Eddie decided to pop in and visit the Wheelers, only to find all of the Wheelers, save for one Princess Holly, decidedly not here.”
The kids make their way into the living room, shuffling in together in a clump. They peer at Eddie and Steve and Holly where they’re currently sitting on the ground just in front of the coffee table. All of the furniture has been put back in place. The amount of manual labor Eddie has done today should be considered criminal, but, well. Whatever pleases her Royal Highness, Princess Holly of the Fae, right?
“What’re you doing here?” Mike asks, his narrowed eyes flitting from Eddie to Steve and then back to Eddie.
“What’d I just say, Wheeler?” Eddie sighs, shakes his head, and goes back to coloring with Holly. She’s outlining a very lopsided pony with crayons. Eddie’s drawing a lizard. Steve, who’s currently reading a spare Cosmopolitan magazine, agreed to judge their little drawing competition to determine a winner. It will obviously be Holly.
“What color should I use for the tongue, Holly?” Eddie asks.
“Orange,” she says decisively.
“Orange is a good color. I like orange,” Steve says with a nod of approval.
“Sick,” Eddie agrees and grabs for the orange crayon.
“This is weird,” Mike says after a moment. He turns to the others. “This is weird, right, guys?”
Lucas shrugs. “Not really.”
“Steve babysits all the time,” Eleven adds.
“Yeah, but not with Eddie,” Mike protests. “And why is Eddie so good at it?”
Eddie says, “Uh, excuse you, Michael, I happen to be excellent with children. Exhibit A,” he gestures vaguely in their general direction.
“We are fifteen years old,” Mike says.
“I think it’s nice,” Max decides. Then, “Steve, since Mike and Nancy are here and you don’t have to babysit anymore, do you think you can give me a ride home?”
“Sure,” Steve says easily, and then the rest of them are asking him for a ride, too, those leeches.
“I have a car too, you know,” Eddie says. “And a valid driver’s license. Just, you know. Throwing that out there.”
“You drive like a maniac, nobody’s gonna wanna ride with you,” Steve tells him, and he says it all imperiously and holier-than-thou like he wasn’t just swapping spit with Eddie in the front hallway of a home that isn’t even theirs.
“Also,” Dustin says, maybe the first thing he’s said since they all arrived, and his tone is completely unreadable which is generally not good. “I just checked, and you have a shit ton of boxes in the back of your van, so it’s not like we’d all fit. Speaking of said boxes, is there something you wanna tell us, Eddie?”
They all stall and turn their gazes onto Eddie. Five pairs of eyes just drilling into Eddie’s skull and Jesus, he forgot how intense these kids can get. He’s glad he’s ultimately decided to give up his plan to blow town. Realistically there was no way he could’ve looked any of them in the eye and told them that he was leaving and then stuck to his guns afterward.
“Nah, just, you know. Reorganizing all of my stuff,” Eddie lies kind of pathetically. Usually he’s better at it, but, well. This is beginning to feel a little bit like an intervention or something and he's sweating, now.
“Right. Reorganizing. All of your belongings. Into cardboard boxes labeled with your name. Makes total sense.” Dustin pauses, then bursts, “You know, I wasn’t born yesterday. Clearly you were going to just up and leave us in the dust, you asshole.”
“Jesus, this kid needs to get his attitude in check,” Eddie mutters.
“It’s his tone,” Steve supplies, smirking, and Eddie rolls his eyes and nudges him gently in the ribs.
“Yeah, yeah. Yell at me all you want, but I’m telling you now that you don’t have anything to worry about, Henderson. I’m not leaving.” He stops. Sighs. “I was—I was thinking about it, earlier. Seriously considering it and everything. That’s kinda why I originally came over here. I wanted to say goodbye, but, well. Steve was here and he talked me out of it.”
“Steve,” Dustin says blankly. “Steve talked you out of it.”
Steve’s brows furrow. “Why is that so surprising? I can be very persuasive.”
Eddie looks over at all of them. None of them look all that suspicious about any of it, except, well—Max’s eyes are narrowed at the two of them, zipping back and forth between them, their bodies, how close they’re sitting together on the floor. Eddie leans back and winks at her and her eyes widen in realization.
“No way,” she says.
“What?” Lucas asks.
“Nothing,” she says quickly, then turns back to Steve and Eddie. “Just, you know. I’m happy for you.”
“Is that so?” Eddie asks, raising a brow.
“Yeah. It’s a good thing you decided to stay.” She pauses. “Nobody else in their right mind would want to put up with you.”
Eddie clutches at his chest and slumps backward, saying, “You wound me deeply, Red.” Holly laughs at his dramatics. He smiles back at her.
“She’s not wrong,” Steve agrees, and he’s smirking at Eddie just over Holly's head.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Lucas mutters. “So… you’re not leaving, then?”
“Nope, I’m not. You all still have to deal with me, regrettably. But also I got, like, five different great ideas for a new campaign while playing with Princess Holly today, and this one’s gonna be a real doozy, I swear. You gremlins better prepare yourselves. One word: lycanthropy.”
The only one who looks remotely excited about this is Dustin, but Eddie can easily whip the remaining party members into shape. If he gets Will in on it, the rest will follow. Maybe he can get Holly interested, have her help him make decisions when it comes to the overarching story. He can only imagine the Wheelers' reactions when they find out that Eddie Munson, the guy who was falsely accused of triple homicide just a few months back, has indoctrinated their youngest daughter into the game that is sending upstanding citizens across the country into a satanic panic.
Steve is mid-yelling at the kids to go get ready right now if they want a ride home when Nancy walks into the room. She looks over at their drawings and praises Holly way more than she praises Eddie, but she winks at him when he catches her eye; her hair bounces where it skates her shoulders, curly and short. It’s pretty. Undeniably so.
Eddie won’t cut his own again, though. He’ll let it grow this time around.
He links his pinky with Steve’s under the table and smiles when Steve seemingly throws caution to the wind and laces their fingers together, pressing their hands palm to palm and squeezing tight.
Wayne is waiting for him at the kitchen table when he finally gets back home. The sun is setting and the air is warm; Steve had kissed him three times, pressing him out of sight and up against the side of the van and stealing the breath right out of Eddie's lungs before finally leaving to go drive the gremlins home. Just a moment or so before this, Dustin had held him close and told him not to go anywhere, and Eddie had sighed, patted Dustin’s back, and told him he wouldn’t. Not anymore. Probably not ever.
He’s weak like that.
“Finally back,” Wayne mumbles, ashing his cigarette. The window is open so it smells like the outside, like pollen and fresh air. And the cigarette smoke, too, but that’s comforting, in a way. The way it lingers. It means Wayne and Wayne means home.
“Yeah,” Eddie says slowly. “Did you—how’d you know—”
“That you’d come back?” Wayne asks, and Eddie nods. “I know you, Ed. Didn’t matter if it was today, or three days from now, or a year. Hell, even in ten. I knew you’d come back home. You always do.”
Eddie nods again, biting down on his lip so he doesn’t do something silly like burst into tears in front of his uncle. He almost doesn’t manage it. “So you didn’t really have any loose ends to tie up, did you?”
“You’re my loose end,” Wayne tells him, shaking his head, and he says it with a conviction that settles the last little stray thing rattling around in Eddie’s chest. It's quiet, now. Still. At peace.
He doesn’t know why he ever doubted in the first place.
“Right,” Eddie says. Kicks at the floor a little. “You know I love you, right?”
Wayne softens. “Yeah, Ed, I know. Love you too, kid.”
Eddie nods. Wayne nods. A gentle breeze kicks in through the window. Wayne leans over to shut it.
“Need help moving your boxes back in?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Eddie admits. "I do."
He lets Wayne nudge him gently before they make their way out of their new place. They walk side by side in the grass as the sun cuts diagonally across the cloudless sky, turning everything it touches golden.
And Eddie is staying.