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“Code red! Code red!” Eddie hissed into the walkie, keeping himself crouched low by the guest room window. Carver and his goons continued to skulk around outside Steve’s house, looking for a way in.
All the walkie did was piss out blank static back at him.
“For fuck sake. Saruman is at Rivendell, I repeat Saruman is at Rivendell!” He released the button, waiting for a response but there was nothing.
“Dustin! Steve! Fucking…” he slapped the side of the walkie in frustration. “Why do you pricks even bother to carry these things around if you never fucking keep them nearby.”
Downstairs he could hear someone testing the front door to see if it was unlocked. Of course it was locked, what kind of maniac would go out with a wanted fugitive in the house and not lock the door?
Rich people who think their estate repels criminals, like the HOA is some kind of force barrier. He answered himself and just as he did, he heard the back porch door click and slide open.
“Fuck.” He whispered, turning the walkie down so it was almost silent just in case one of those bastards decided to finally pick up. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.”
He couldn’t stay here. He was in direct line of sight of the bedroom door. He needed to hide and he needed to find something to defend himself. He’d really rather not have to defend himself. He’d prefer to just sit and smoke and not have to deal with any of this fucking bullshit. But he’d be damned if he was gonna die at the hands of some dollar store imitation of King Steve.
Especially when King Steve himself had taken a broken bottle to the throat like a champ, was some kind of white knight who fought the forces of interdimensional evil in his spare time and had opened his home to him.
He'd rolled his eyes when the kids had vouched for him, even when Jeff had said that Steve had stepped in between his mother and some prick who was harassing her at the grocery store, he’d pushed it to the back of his mind.
Well, what he wouldn’t give to have King Steve here now.
“C’mon, Harrington. You have to have something.” Eddie muttered to himself as he rifled through the cupboards in the bathroom, hoping for a pair of scissors or a straight razor or anything really but all he was coming up with was fucking hair care.
He kept tapping out S.O.S. on the walkie consistently, just fucking praying that one of them would finally pick it up so he didn’t have to jump out a god damned window.
There were whispered voices downstairs and very much inside, getting closer to the stairs and Eddie was out of fucking options. “Fucking… son of a bitch.”
He snatched up the mostly full bottle of god damn Farrah Fawcett hairspray and once he got back into the hallway he closed the bathroom door softly behind him.
It was only then that he noticed Steve had one of those safety locks so the bathroom door could be unlocked or locked from the outside with a coin or a screwdriver or something.
“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!” Eddie fumbled in his pockets, shifted the hairspray around under his arm and digging in his pockets before coming up with an arcade token that would have to do.
It slipped through the groove before finally catching, he heard the lock click shut and Eddie could have shouted in celebration but there was the telltale creak of the stairs behind him so the celebration could wait.
As softly as he could, he put as much space between the stairs and himself, creeping towards the furthest door at the back of the hallway. Most of the rest of the doors leading to bedrooms and a study were cracked slightly open so he left the door he disappeared through slightly open as well so it didn't look out of place.
The smell of stale cotton and some truly awful flowery shit hit his nose as he found himself in a bedroom that on its own was probably the size of his fucking trailer.
Definitely the parents room.
And just as fucking tragic as Steve's bedroom, but this time instead of fucking plaid it was plain and mind numbing beige and whatever the fucking monstrosity on the bed was. He couldn't talk about that pattern. It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Glancing around he catalogued where he could go.
Under the bed was a bit too obvious so the only option he really had left was what looked like a big walk in closet.
If he had the time he would have climbed up into one of the upper shelves that held an obscene amount of handbags and shoes.
People didn’t tend to look up, they usually kept to their eye line or below, but as it was he heard the handle of the bathroom door being jiggled out in the hallway.
He shut the closet door almost all the way before he shuffled in behind a ridiculous high number of hanging slacks in various shades of black and grey and tried to calm his frantic breathing and heart, still tapping out his code into the walkie over and over and over.
It only lasted a few seconds before he heard the sound of a body slamming up against the bathroom door.
“We know you’re in there, Freak!” Jason’s voice rang out through the cavernous house and Eddie was forced to hold his breath, this whole body locking up as he clutched his fucking hairspray and his fucking walkie to his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible in his dark little corner.
Back in the closet again? His brain supplied in a teasing little voice and all he could do was scowl at himself. If his brain was going to choose this moment in time to be a little shit then there truly was no fucking hope for him holding his tongue out in the real world after all.
The bathroom door finally gave with an almighty crack and the silence that followed after was one of the most terrible things Eddie had ever heard.
They’d be even angrier now, they’d be humiliated and they’d know he knew where they were. They were more dangerous now than they had been before.
But maybe he could take them.
He had the element of surprise on his side, like he had with Steve back in the boathouse and if he moved fast enough he might be able to outrun them.
But they were the damn athletes and he… was not.
All of those thoughts were swiftly crushed when he saw, through the hanging clothes and the crack in the door, Jason’s blonde head creep into the bedroom with a terrible glint of metal held in his hand.
The fucker brought a gun?!
That was so fucking unfair.
And now he was walking into the closet, pushing clothes aside, pointing the gun into all the small corners he could find and getting closer and closer to Eddie’s hiding spot.
Fuck it, he had to fight, he wasn’t going to get shot here amongst the Dress Pants of Corporate Greed.
Jason had just reached his hand out to the hiding space and Eddie was just getting ready to pounce when a voice sounded outside the bedroom.
“The fuck are you doing in my house, Carver?”
When Jason turned Eddie could see Steve standing in the doorway looking thunderous with a- was that a fucking baseball bat with nails?
Well that made the mace Dustin insisted on for his character make so much more sense all of a sudden.
Steve didn’t flinch as Jason raised the gun towards him, taking a few steps closer to his former teammate.
“You have him here. I know you do.” The hand with the gun shook until the barrel was almost pressed up against Steve’s chest. “I never would have thought I’d see you in league with Satan-”
“If it’s Satan you’re looking for, you’re in the wrong place.”
Eddie started to inch his way out of his hiding spot, hoping that if he could creep up on Jason from behind the two of them could disarm him before anyone got fucking shot.
Steve had definitely noticed his movement but didn’t take his eyes off Jason, continuing to look down on him with cold anger and just a little bit of that old King Steve leaking through.
Eddie was able to silently get out from behind the clothes and he straightened up, taking slow measured steps in Jason’s direction.
But just as he closed in there was the creak of a floorboard under him and Jason swung around.
Eddie ducked and the crack of a gunshot reverberated around the room as the stray bullet lodged in the back wall, just a hair's breath away from where his fucking head had been.
He launched himself forward, catching Jason around the middle and crashing the two of them down to the floor, the arm with the gun being thrown out to the side.
Steve dropped to his knees, landing hard on Jason’s extended arm and wrenching the gun out of his grip, allowing it to go skittering away behind him.
“Get him on his front! Hands behind his back!”
“Boys!” Jason screamed out and Eddie had a momentary terror, while trying to avoid a blow to the face, thinking about how the fuck he and Steve were supposed to fight off two or three more jocks.
“Your boys are long gone, Carver." Steve grunted, definitely doing more than half of the hard labor of wrangling Jason's flailing limbs. "Cut and run first chance they got when they heard my car.”
They were eventually able to wrestle a spitting and frothing Jason around, Eddie putting all his weight onto him, straddling his back and pinning his arms behind him.
“We just need- we need something- hold on.” Without any warning Steve reached over and one handed undid Eddie’s stupid complicated handcuff belt buckle, smoothly pulling his belt out from its loops and winding it around Jason’s wrists to properly restrain him.
And Eddie’s brain had just fizzled out.
Ceased to exist.
No longer present.
Gone.
Goodbye.
“Off.” Steve’s voice filtered through his haze and Eddie was just barely able to raise his eyes up to meet Steve’s own honey-brown, tracking all over his face with a rising concern. “Eddie?”
“What?” He croaked, just barely able to push the word out.
Steve waved his hand. “Off.”
Eddie looked down.
Oh.
He still had Jason clamped underneath him.
He swung his leg over and landed on his ass off to the side with a thump. Steve grabbed Jason by the collar and hauled him up to his feet.
“I will not be sacrificed! The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want-” Jason was cut off as Steve shoved him towards the back of the closet.
“Spare me.”
The adrenaline that had kept him buzzing was crashing out of him now, leaving Eddie rattling down to his very bones and his heart thudding like a kick drum through his ribs.
Jesus fuck, when he told Wayne he wanted more out of life last week this was not what he meant!
He pulled his legs up to his chest and hung his head in between his knees just trying to breathe it out.
“Eddie?”
The featherlight touch of fingers brushing through his hair caused him to jump, snapping his head up and thumping it back into the shelves behind him.
Just fucking perfect.
“Ow.”
Steve winced in sympathy and retracted his hand and Eddie had to stop himself from reaching back out for it.
He needn’t have worried though because Steve reached out again, taking his hand in his own and pulled him outside the closet door.
The muffled sounds of Jason’s praying and protesting followed them through.
Steve didn’t close the door the whole way, just enough to be able to keep an eye on him before turning back to Eddie, a little frantic.
“Are you okay?”
Eddie blinked across at him. Steve’s face was alight with concern and the hand that had once held his was hovering again just by his face and shit.
Bam.
Zero to crush, just like that.
Fuck you universe for doing this to me, you dirty bitch.
“Who, me?” He asked a little hysterically. “Yeah, I’m fine. Fine, fine, fine. Nothing-” he closed his eyes, trying to save himself from the sight of his own embarrassing actions but that didn’t help when he was in his own fucking head. “Nothing wrong here that wasn’t wrong before.” He huffed out before he felt the warmth of a hand on the side of his face and his eyes flew back open.
Steve was so fucking close, so stupidly close and he could definitely feel Eddie’s quickening pulse under his fingertips if the way his mouth curved upwards to the side was anything to go by and stop looking at his lips!
He brought his hand up to rest on Steve’s wrist and just for the barest of a second, dared to hope.
“Good.”
Steve brought their faces closer, brushing their noses together and paused, just for a second, just enough time for Eddie to pull away but when he didn’t Steve closed the space completely.
Maybe it’s just a platonic kiss. Maybe he kisses all his friends this way!
The panicking part of Eddie’s mind was valiantly trying to rationalise what the fuck was happening but he couldn’t deny the sweet and deliberate movements of Steve’s lips against his and the hand inching around towards the back of his neck. His own response was happening before he could even register it when his eyes slipped closed of their own accord and he leaned in.
They could have stayed doing that for hours, for the rest of time as far as Eddie was concerned but the banging and outraged muffled screaming coming from the closet (ha) was enough to make Eddie pull back.
“He saw.” It was a whisper between the two of them, barely a hair's breadth away but he couldn’t bring himself to speak any louder or put any distance between them.
“I’m not worried about him.”
Those were definitely slurs being spat out around whatever Steve had stuffed into Jason’s mouth but Eddie couldn’t really care less, especially when an arm slipped around his waist, pulling him in tight and he leaned in again.