Chapter Text
Steve Harrington’s basement couch is surprisingly comfortable. It’s covered in worn-down brown plaid and sucks Eddie’s form in like an aggressive cloud. He doesn’t try to fight it, lets it drag him down until he’s cocooned, the decorative cushions tumbling down the decline to swamp his lap. He runs his hands over them, the embroidered meadow scenes, and cream tassels.
Despite the weathered quality of it all, it’s undoubtedly the kind of thing rich people use to shore up some sense of homeliness. Eddie would know. The couch in the trailer has a spring that likes to stab his right butt cheek and the only pillows to be found there are his and Wayne’s retired ones that get used for Wayne’s Saturday afternoon naps. And those are covered in drool stains.
“You want something to drink?” The man of the house asks, King Steve dressed down in low-riding fleece pants and a laundry-faded swim meet shirt.
Eddie tips his chin up with a grin. “Sure would, sweetheart.”
Steve does not dignify this with a retort, snorting quietly and dragging a hand through his voluminous hair. He prances back out of Eddie’s view and Eddie breathes out.
The centre of the basement hosts a large table, clearly fashioned out of plywood laid across a pool table. The kids swarm around it, nattering and pushing at each other as they set up their game.
Eddie had been to one of King Steve’s parties back in ye olde days, but he’d never been down here. Instead relegated to dealing from the back of his van at the end of the driveway. But, he imagines, those very same parties are likely why the couch has been worn down so much. He tries valiantly not to think about what nefarious activities a bunch of rowdy, drunk teenagers might have done to break in the couch so.
He mostly succeeds.
As the kids set up their playbooks, figurines, and papers, Eddie allows himself to appreciate the view. It isn’t a rip-roaring party and he’s definitely not dealing, but it feels alike all the same. The same bubble of energy that swells with excitement.
Like any other basement, it’s dark with concrete walls and a vague smell of dampness – not that Eddie’s been in a lot of basements, it’s more a feeling than anything else. But, like the couch with its throw pillows, and the green felt pool table, the rest of the space is alive with expensive clutter. There’s one of them large fancy Persian carpets laid out before the couch with a suede ottoman and an overabundance of floor lamps.
The ceiling light has been left off and the lamps’ lights are warm, reflecting off his rings with each sweep of his hands over the embroidery.
Off to the side, there’s a low mahogany end table with a record player and stacked next to it on the ground a pile of records that would reach Eddie’s knee if he ever found his way out of the couch again. He eyes it speculatively.
“Henderson,” Eddie bites out and grins widely when the kid immediately whips around like a puppy. “Hand me those.”
Dustin glares at him for a prolonged moment before heading over to the records, bitching all the way. “I’m not your servant.” He says and drops the pile in Eddie’s lap.
Eddie laughs, slightly winded at the weight of it. “You sure about that, Dusty Buns?”
Before the kid can retort, Steve reappears and whatever vitriol he could have thought up is immediately whipped away by the excitement of pizza.
The kids swarm Steve divesting him of his load within seconds. “Fucking freeloaders,” he mutters under his breath and Eddie allows himself a good chuckle. “Don’t know why I put up with them.”
“It’s their size. Teeny tiny, like babies,” Eddie offers in explanation even when it earns him some dirty looks from the Party. Their displeasure is immediately washed away by the crinkle-eyed smile Steve gives him. Eddie was warm and comfortable already, but he melted just a bit further into the ridiculous couch.
“Leave some for us,” Steve snaps, hands on his hips, sounding so much like a mom that the kids reply with groaning acceptance. Eddie hides his smile behind a lock of hair, dragging his eyes down to the pile of records.
“Fuck, Harrington, what are these?” He flips through them, feeling his black little soul shrivel in the face of the mom rock and piano ballads.
“Madonna is an icon,” Steve says. He disappears for a while and returns with glasses and bottles of glistening cola. He distributes those as well and grabs a box of pizza, settling down on the couch a foot away from Eddie.
He can’t feel the shift in the cushion but a few of those decorative pillows tumble away from Eddie’s side to Steve’s. The pizza box is easily in reach, resting on the mound of pillows. He reaches blindly for a slice, chewing thoughtfully as he goes through each record. “You’ve got Cyndi Lauper.”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth.” Steve scolds. Eddie turns and chews open-mouthed in his direction until the other man looks appropriately disgusted.
“This is mom music,” Eddie bemoans. The pizza is salty and oily, and the tang of pineapple lights up his mouth. It’s fucking good. Free food is always good, though.
“Because he is a mom,” Lucas encourages from over by the pool table to a chorus of snickers.
Steve rolls his eyes and starts at his own slice of pizza. “Music is for everyone, morons.”
“So are clothes, but you don’t see me wearing lingerie now do you?” Steve chokes a bit on his bite of pizza and Eddie grins triumphantly. “Need to introduce you to some proper music,” he says, returning to his search and making a sound of surprise when he comes across Judas Priest. “Well, lookie here. You been holding back on me, big boy?”
“God, you’re insufferable,” Steve says with the fond kind of lip tilt that warms Eddie’s bones.
He keeps himself entertained for a good long while by ripping Steve’s music taste to shreds. It’s relaxing and entertaining in a way he never thought spending time with Steve Harrington could be. They make their way through the pizza and Steve passes him a sweating glass, stern that Eddie will be driving the kids home and doesn’t get any of the hard stuff.
Not that Steve’s leaving him high and dry. King Steve has a glass of water with some fucking lemon in it, and it shouldn’t be endearing, but it is, the way he pokes at the lemon and takes a sip.
Eddie’s knee bounces, dislodging records that scatter to the floor. He’s too busy gesturing wildly to bother with catching them and Steve doesn’t seem too upset at it.
The game is in full swing, Will manning the DM post with a small furrow of seriousness between his brows. The rest of them are hunched like gargoyles over the table, trying to work strategy. They’re lost in some cave, trying to work out if the bodies are a trap or a warning. Will’s carefully impassive face gives no credit to the theories being volleyed about the table.
“Is it a trap?” Steve whispers and Eddie jolts. Turning to find Steve curled up close by, temple resting against the back of the couch and arms wrapped around one of those decorative pillows. He looks tired, bone tired. Eddie notices for the first time the smudged bruises under his eyes, the pallor of his cheeks that until now had been offset by the warm glow of the floor lamps.
Eddie swallows thickly, answering just as quietly. “Zombies,”
Steve snorts a quiet thing that gusts air over Eddie’s bicep and makes him tense momentarily. “Of course.” Then, even softer, “Thank you.”
Not that Will needed help coming up with a playthrough, but Eddie had given him some pointers, and run through some of his favourite scenarios with the kid. Will had been attentive, ducking his dark head, and taking notes, his gracious smile lighting up the empty spaces in his gaze.
Let it be said, Eddie may be a lot of things, but unempathetic ain’t one of ‘em.
The kids have been through a lot. He’d seen the hollow, terrifying outlines of it etched into them the first time they sat before the Hellfire Club. They’d only become easier to see as he learned the extent of what had happened to them. They’re familiar marks now, etchings of fear too deeply embedded to cover with false cheer. Eddie carries some of it himself, but it feels different on them. It feels different seeing the agony of it writ across their young hopeful faces.
He’d seen little Byers’ quivering lip when the others had called Eddie their DM, and it had lit his chest up like a flame thrower. So, of course, he’d sat the kid down and done everything in his power to fold him back into the Party. He hadn’t needed Steve’s strained stare or Robin’s jeering to do it. Fuck, it felt much like all the other times he’d folded his demon wings over the misfits at his table.
Robin’s supportive shoulder bump and Steve’s soft gaze had just been a bonus.
And the kid’s doing great. A natural. He’s allowed to feel proud; he thinks.
He turns back to Steve, dragging his eyes from the kids, hoping for another of those gentle smiles. The warm curl of Steve’s appreciation sticks to his lungs like glue. But Steve isn’t looking at him. Steve’s eyes are closed, golden lashes resting against the blue of his undereye, mouth softly parted.
Eddie jerks violently and then holds his breath, staring much too long. But Steve does not wake at the gentle motion of Eddie’s shoulders shifting, his eyes flicker behind their lids and his brow furrows slightly before becoming lax again.
“Tired, Stevie?” He murmurs and then squeezes his eyes tightly shut when the man in question snuffles and curls further forward, forehead coming to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. It’s barely a touch but it drags the breath from Eddie’s lungs. He wants to jump from the couch and sprint up the stairs into the fresh air of the outside world. Escape. He stays seated because he feels his knees might not work properly even if he managed to dislodge Steve and struggle his way up from the couch.
A moment passes and he neither explodes nor gets attacked by a hidden Jason Carver. Slowly, he peels his eyes open and finds Steve is still here, face lax and body curved like water over the pillows in his grip. Soft, he says, “Fucking hell, man,”
Steve’s sleeping form is a direct contrast to the Steve that lives in Eddie’s head – the Steve that bit a bat’s head off, the Steve that ran full sprint across the Upside Down to lug Eddie’s broken body through a portal, the Steve that faced with danger responded with a sharp grin and a swing of a baseball bat. Eddie drinks him in reverently, all his harsh angles softened into something sweet, syrupy.
A yell has Eddie jolting, head whipping ‘round to the game.
“Zombies!” Mike shrieks and Eddie cringes.
“I didn’t plan for zombies,” Lucas says solemnly.
“Stealth check!” Dustin demands, standing and waving his arms over the table.
Eddie turns back to Steve, half expecting him to be awake, body tense enough to launch himself across the room. But he’s still asleep, his head having slipped further with Eddie’s movement into an uncomfortable bend. For a moment Eddie considers leaving him, shoving him over so he can flop the other way.
Steve hasn’t been sleeping well. He knows because they all struggle with it, their movements sluggish and their eyes downcast. The way Robin collapses against Steve’s side or Max will stare unseeing out a window. Sometimes Eddie’s scars ache, blood buzzing, and skin aflame as he withers in the safety of his room.
He doesn’t know what exactly Steve dreams about, doesn’t know if he curls into Nancy’s shoulder and breathes her in, or if maybe he sits at the door with his bat until he can breathe again. Eddie knows waking up alone, knows what it’s like to stumble blindly from his room only to be confronted with Chrissy’s unresponsive body flickering in his living room. No one is there to reassure him that it’s over. Eddie knows that feeling and it leaves his mouth bitter.
Instead, he slowly extracts his arm and Steve’s limp form slides down to bump against his side. Eddie shuffles a bit until the angle of his neck doesn’t look too awful and then, unsure what else to do, lays his arm back down.
Steve’s hair is soft and it tickles against the underside of his arm, his shoulder and back warm. Eddie swallows, clenches, and unclenches his hands sporadically.
Like this, he can smell Steve’s shampoo, something citrusy that mingles with the dampness of the basement and the grease of pizza. Without his conscious choice, his hand slips through Steve’s hair. Fuck it’s soft.
Eddie shudders out a breath and jerks his head in the opposite direction, hand frozen in Steve’s hair. What is he doing? What the fuck is he doing? Jesus.
“Shit, fuck, Jesus Christ,” he tells the wall as his heart pounds.
This ain’t normal conduct, Munson. You’re playing with fire.
This ain’t Indy, this isn’t a bathroom stall with a stranger.
The wall does not hold the solution for him, and he struggles his way through a few more breaths.
And what if he’s fantasized about this since King Steve emerged from the locker room, hair dripping wet? So what? Not like Eddie hasn’t seen Steve’s scars, not like he hasn’t drunk from the same coffee mug.
He shakes with the effort to turn his gaze back to Steve’s sleeping form. This is a friend thing; he tries to convince himself. They’re friends, friends do this kind of shit all the time.
His fingers twitch and Steve nestles down further, pushing into Eddie’s hand and rubbing his cheek across his pectoral. His one hand curls into the fabric at Eddie’s side.
Eddie might die. He doesn’t think he’s breathing. Who’s he tryna fool? Ain’t nothing about this that screams friends, not when his little heart is trying to crawl up through his throat.
Once more, with feeling, “Fuck.”
He glances up, quick and desperate to find Will staring at him open-mouthed. The rest of the party is too busy arguing to notice, but Will’s eyes are saucer-wide and laser-focused. Eddie meets his gaze, valiantly thinking, “Me too, buddy.”
Rather than come to his help though, Will ducks his head, cheeks pinkening as he interrupts the argument. Eddie is left reeling.
He’s still trapped in Steve’s sleep gentle grip, side on fire from the press of his cheek and shoulder. Eddie’s stomach swoops as he stares down at him, desperate for something – anything.
He forces himself to breathe, it’s a slow thing and the couch is damn near claustrophobic. Unwittingly he continues to pet Steve’s hair, since he’s here he might as well go through with it. Slowly, between the kids’ muttering and Steve’s shallow puffs of breath Eddie finds himself sinking further down, head heavy after the panic.
Steve smells like limes, he decides, only vaguely aware that his cheek is pressed to the top of Steve’s head.
“Eddie,”
His eyes spring open to Dustin’s glare of annoyance.
“Leave him,” Will says, in that quiet rumble of his.
“How’re we supposed to get home then, doofus?”
Will rolls his eyes, “I called Jonathan.”
“When?” Dustin demands, turning his glare on his friend.
“When you and Mike were fighting about the last slice of pizza.”
Eddie blinks again and he must lose some time because Will’s standing there alone, a small smile alighting his face. “Jon’s here. I made sure everyone cleaned up first.”
There’s a pause and Eddie feels his eyes slipping closed again, his cheek heavy against Steve’s soft pouf of hair.
“Thank you,” Will says, or at least Eddie thinks he does.