Chapter Text
“Freakshow to Hairspray, this is Freakshow to Hairspray, coming to you live from Casa de la Munson, do you copy? Over.”
“We should never have gotten you that walkie. Over.”
“Hairspray, this is Freakshow, please confirm identity and location. Over?”
“…yes, Eddie, this is Steve. I’m at home, obviously. You know this is meant to be for, like, emergencies, right? Over.”
“Copy that Hairspray. Negatory bogies, I’m counting zero squiggly-wigglies on radar as of right now. Emergency of the teenage variety. Over.”
“What, can’t find someone to go with you to prom? You know we have phones too, right?”
“…”
“Over. Christ.”
“Yeah, but do you really want me leaving messages where your parents might hear them? Anyway, while I’m sure you’d love to see if you could win Homecoming King a second time round, I’m talking about our shared teenagers. Over.”
“My parents have already told me exactly what they think of me associating with ‘your kind’, Eddie. Hasn’t stopped me yet. You can call the house. Over.”
“‘My kind’, huh? Would that be… trailer trash? Criminals? Wannabe satanists? Plenty of other colorful descriptors to choose from. Over.”
“All of the above, probably? But, like, even ‘musician’ is probably too much for them, so it’s whatever. Over.”
“Does Buckley lose points for that? Over.”
“Playing French Horn for school and being frontman of a heavy metal band that plays The Hideaway are two very different things. At least as far as they’re concerned - to me, you’re just as dorky as each other. What’s this about the kids? Over.”
“Right, getting to that. I meant to ask - why are you home alone at this hour on a Friday? Strike out already? Over.”
“Who says I’m alone? Maybe I’ve already brought someone home and they’re… in a pleasure coma or whatever. Over.”
“Pfff. Yes, I’m sure you sexed a girl so sexily she fell straight unconscious, and you’re answering your walkie-talkie while she sleeps it off. Real Casanova move, that. Over.”
“Whatever. Aren’t you supposed to have Hellfire tonight? Over.”
“Aw, you remembered! Yeah, we were supposed to. All the sophomores bailed on me, last minute, had to cancel the session. Apparently something came up at lunch. You hear anything about this? Over.”
“Not a word. Is everyone alright? Over.”
“Yeah, pretty sure nobody’s injured or seeing clocks or anything. Just ordinary teenage drama I think. I only got half the story out of Dustin, he was kind of pissed. Apparently Will brought tarot cards to school and people got real mad about it? Over.”
“What, like, they got confiscated for witchcraft or whatever? I’m kind of surprised Dustin hasn’t bugged me about it, he’s usually all over my ass when the tiniest thing happens. Over.”
“Wasn’t teachers, pretty sure - I think the kids just really didn’t like the cards Will drew, for whatever reason? Got heated. Was kind of hoping you had a fuller picture, yeah. Damn. Over.”
“Fuck. Sounds like stupid teenager shit to me. Should we try calling Jonathan? Over.”
“See if Will’s all right? Not a bad idea. Over.”
“Could see if Nancy wants to check on Mike, too. Hmm. Hey, you’re into all that shit, right? You know anything about tarot cards? Over.”
“Ha. ‘All that shit?’ Over.”
“You’ve got a literal demon head on your club shirt, and a couple more on your skin. Pretty sure I’ve seen a couple pentagrams on album covers or posters in your room, too. Sue me. Over.”
“Touché, fair enough. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert cartomancer, but I get the gist, I think. Over.”
“You know what a card-o-mancer is, so you’ve got a headstart on me, at least. Any idea what Will might be doing with a deck? Over.”
“Who knows? Might just be trying out the vibe, seeing if witchcraft looks good on him. Might be trying to focus his… like, Upside Down senses or whatever. Maybe he’s just trying to see the future - figure out when everything’s going to go to shit again? Can’t say I blame him - I’ve only been through the one rodeo and I’ve had more than enough for a lifetime. You guys have been dealing with years of this bullshit. That’s gotta be tough on the guy. High school’s hard enough without all the rest. Over.”
“You got that right. Shit. Alright, I’ll call around - on the telephone - and see what I can piece together. I’m thinking maybe we wanna pay Will a visit, if all his idiot friends exploded on him. Over.”
“Sounds good. This is Freakshow to Hairspray, signing off. Over.”
“You absolute dork. Talk to you soon. Over and out.”
It was early evening by the time they gathered around the dining table at the Hopper-Byers household, and Steve had to admit, he was a little spooked. Not, like, scared - he’d done way too much fighting and running for his life in recent memory to be scared about something as stupid as a deck of cards. But the air was chilly, the house was weirdly quiet, and the vibes were definitely… well, whatever they were, the hair was standing up on the back of Steve’s neck.
Joyce and Hopper had already planned a rare date night, and nobody wanted them to cancel (which they absolutely would have, overprotective and self-sacrificing as they were) so they were out of the loop and out on the town. El was having an impromptu girls’ night with Max - apparently El was the only one to get through the disastrous card reading unscathed, while Max had taken things particularly badly. It was just the Byers brothers left holding down the fort, and while Steve believed both were remarkable individuals in their own ways, neither of them were particularly gifted as hosts.
Still, they were trying to make it work. Steve, Eddie, Nancy and Robin had all turned up with big smiles and ready to party. They’d ordered Chinese food to eat in the living room, Eddie had taken over the speakers, and they talked over the TV about nothing in particular like old times. Jonathan valiantly restrained himself from finishing the joint he’d started when he got the phone call, and though Will was clearly still upset about the day’s earlier events and not entirely comfortable hanging out with the Party’s slightly older allies, he seemed to appreciate the company. Steve even managed to get a smile or two out of him.
But when the time came for the main event, the mood took a pretty steep nosedive. Music off, filing into the kitchen, the bare wood of the dining table seemed strangely imposing. Nancy had briefly attempted to play it off, talking about the psychology of tarot readings - horoscopes, Rorschach tests, the human mind’s habit of finding patterns in chaos and seeing whatever it wanted to see. When Eddie joked that until recently he hadn’t believed in curses either, it didn’t seem to land the way he’d hoped. Robin talked about playing with a Ouija board at band camp, how the other girls had all squealed when the ‘ghost’ spelled out that it was a boy, but Jonathan silently signaled her to cut it short as Will was looking a little queasy. Steve belatedly remembered the wall of Christmas lights - that whole adventure seemed like a lifetime ago.
When Will finally took a seat, Steve couldn’t help but notice how much he’d grown. On some level, in Steve’s mind, Will was stuck frozen as the little boy from the “Have You Seen Me” posters, with his big toothy smile and hideous bowl cut. But it had been four years, and Will was now a couple inches taller than his brother. In the straight-backed wooden chair, his pale skin almost luminous in the dim room, skinny hands deftly shuffling the small deck of cards, he looked for all the world like an apprentice wizard from one of his stories. His bowl cut was still very, very ugly, but the look of intense focus and sincere concern marking his face as he manipulated the cards was so… so tragically mature for his age. Altogether, he cut a severe figure. Steve shuffled in his seat, suddenly very unsure if this was a good idea.
Glancing around at the others, it seemed like they were having doubts of their own. They had settled into seats spaced out pretty evenly around the table, each within their own bubble of nervous energy. Eddie was the most obvious, knee jiggling fiercely, fingers fiddling with his rings, torso twisted a quarter-turn like he was ready to bolt out of his chair at a moment’s notice. Robin wore it openly too, chewing at the inside of her cheek, hands wrapped around her elbows like she wished she were wearing another layer. Nancy’s poker face was flawless, her light smile encouraging, but Steve knew her well enough by now to spot the tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes flicked around the room at the slightest sound. It was only Jonathan who stopped Steve from saying something about calling it off - he had a darkness about his eyes that matched Will’s, and a steely resolve that pinned Steve in his seat. He needs this, it seemed to say.
Eventually, Will’s hands went still, and he placed the deck face-down on the table. It sat there, drawing every eye in the room, and it seemed to Steve just for a moment like it was a living thing - some predator from an alien world, back criss-crossed with diamond scales, lying in wait and licking its claws with casual menace. Steve blinked, and rubbed at his eyes, and the tiny pile of cardboard hadn’t moved. Will grabbed a small yellowing book from somewhere under the table - it looked like he’d stashed it in case he needed it, and had decided he did - and flicked through the pages with a rustle. The lightbulb overhead flickered, and everyone froze for a moment… but nothing happened, no monsters appeared. Steve let out a nervous laugh, swallowed, and tried to tell his body to relax.
“Um… okay… so… I’m still very new to this, so…” Will looked like he could use a drink of water, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the moment. “I’m going to do a very basic reading. You… the five of you, collectively, will be the querent - the, uh, question-asker. Five is a good number, apparently.” He paged through the book, seeking confirmation, but was taking too long to find the page he was looking for and stopped himself. He sat, clearly nervous, staring down at the cards.
“So-“ Eddie’s growl of a voice cut through the room and Robin visibly jumped. Nancy reached out to rub her upper arm, and Robin blushed, embarrassed at the outburst (and maybe, Steve wondered, at the contact). Eddie continued, either aware of some protocol Steve wasn’t or just indifferent to the uncertainty, “What query are we bringing before the cards?”
Will nodded, as though that was the correct answer - or, correct question? Question about a question? Steve hated this feeling, being one step behind while everyone else knew what was going on, but didn’t want to throw Will off by interrupting. He clenched his jaw and tried to keep up.
“The query is… who are you?”
Steve took a deep breath. Seemed tame enough.
Will picked up the deck again, quickly squaring the cards before they could get away from him. The way they tried to spread out, just for a moment, reminded Steve of a stretching wild cat. Will held them out toward Jonathan, who took a moment to figure out what was happening before reaching out to take them.
“Draw one card each, and put it face down in front of you. Don’t look at it yet. You can pull from anywhere in the deck, cut or shuffle first if you like, whatever feels right. Then pass the deck along.” Even as Will seemed to be finding his stride, he swallowed nervously. Steve wondered whether this was the same kind of reading he’d done for the Party earlier in the day; he could imagine Will rehearsing the instructions to himself in his room, getting to the point he felt confident enough to show his friends, the look of confusion as everything started to go wrong.
Jonathan slipped the top card off the deck, fumbling part-way and adding his other hand to the mix to make sure the next two or three didn’t go with it. Once he had it isolated, he let it lie where it landed on the table in front of him. With delicate and firm motions, like he was worried it would startle and flutter away, he pinched the deck by the long sides and slid it across the tabletop to Eddie.
Eddie made a bit of a moment of it - of course he did - shuffling the cards, performing a little riffle. Steve couldn’t help but notice the way his long fingers moved with fluid grace, the same strength and lightness as when they danced up and down the neck of his guitar, or absently twirled a pencil while staring at his dungeon master notes. Before Steve let himself ponder what else those fingers might do, Eddie turned his head theatrically, looking away from the deck. He flicked through the cards, sticking his tongue out in a face of deep concentration as though feeling for something, before lighting up with faux astonishment as his thumb caught on a card towards the bottom of the deck. He earned a little snort of amusement from Robin as he drew that card and slapped it down in front of him, before offering the rest of the deck to Steve.
Steve almost expected the deck to give him an electric shock, or to grow fangs and bite him, as he took it from Eddie. Instead, it just felt like old, thin cardboard, a little warm from handling. He cut the deck twice, moving the bottom two-thirds or so to the top each time, before taking the top card, resisting the temptation to peek. He gave Will a smile and a little nod, checking that he hadn’t made a mistake - Will confirmed he was in the clear with a thin-lipped grimace of his own - before holding the deck out to Robin.
Robin was unusually timid as she reached for the cards. Steve had spent many hours over the past two years studying her expressions: the forced smile for customers seeking ice cream or video tapes, the exasperated eye-rolls and exhausted sighs, the quiet confessions with barely-there frowns. He couldn’t quite place where he’d last seen this particular look - mouth set at a blank neutral, eyes soft and distant. Steve felt the urgent need to remind her that it was just a game, a bit of silliness to pick up Will’s spirits. When she went to take the deck from him, Steve kept his fingers clamped down tight. She wrestled with him for a few seconds, quickly resorting to tickling to loosen his grip, and when she finally managed to pry them from his grasp she fell back into her chair with a heavy thump. She glared daggers at him as she took the top card off the deck and set it down on the table, and Steve’s mischievous grin softened to something a little more genuine as he saw the defiant sparkle had returned to her eye. She turned to offer the cards to Nancy.
Nancy moved calmly and efficiently, squaring the deck, cutting it in what looked like perfect halves, stacking the lower half above the upper, and drawing a card a couple from the top. She finally slid the remainder, neat and tidy, back to rest in front of Will.
They stayed there a couple seconds, waiting. Will glanced around the circle one last time, counting the five cards laid out in front of his five ‘querents’, before returning his gaze to his book. He flicked through a few pages, eyes skimming quickly over the text, and Steve forced himself to slowly release the breath he hadn’t really meant to be holding.
Will was just beginning to say, “I’m still memorizing the interpretations-“ when the screech of a chair dragged across floorboards stole Steve’s attention.
He turned just in time to see Eddie stand and hear him spit the words, “Great trick, Byers. You got me good.” Steve, confused, looked first to Jonathan, who was only staring blankly, then to Will, whose face was slowly morphing into a gasp of shock, worry and hurt. Steve whipped back around just in time to see the back of Eddie’s head retreating out of the house. Eddie raised one leather-sleeved arm in a stiff wave and said in a voice thick with emotion, “Have a great night.” He didn’t turn to face them before the door swung shut, and then he was gone.
In the stunned silence that followed, Steve saw confusion had spread to every face but one; Nancy’s had fallen into quiet, melancholy attentiveness. Steve followed her eyeline to where Eddie’s card lay on the table, flipped face-up. The picture was hard to make out at first, the faded image washed out further by the dim light directly above, but the text at the bottom read clear as day. The Devil.
“I- I didn’t…” Will looked so scared and confused. Nancy stood and closed the distance, pulling him into a hug, as Jonathan belatedly sprang into action, launching himself from his chair and sprinting out the back door after Eddie. Steve and Robin shared a silent conversation, confirming neither knew what was going on. The sound of Eddie’s van peeling away out front came too soon for Jonathan to have reached him in time; he slunk back into the room a few moments later, eyes downcast. He stopped to stare at the card sitting in front of Eddie’s empty chair, as Nancy murmured reassurances to Will.
“I really didn’t mean to- I didn’t change the card or anything, I swear! He shuffled!” Between Nancy’s arms, Steve could see Will was tearing up. He made eye contact and gave a little wave to make sure he had Will’s attention, before replying.
“Hey, hey, buddy. I believe you. You didn’t do anything wrong, alright? You’re not in trouble. Eddie pulled a random card, and it happened to hit a little too close to home. It was just a coincidence.” Steve tried to look as serious as he could, compel Will to believe him by sheer determination, but some quiet part deep inside Steve held doubts. He’d spent too many years fighting monsters from hell to let himself fully believe in coincidences any more.
Jonathan made his way around the table to hug his brother too, and eventually things calmed down. Steve and Robin sat in awkward silence, not sure what to do to help, except for not leaving. Steve watched as Robin kept glancing between the other four cards on the table, still face-down, and resisted the urge to do the same.
Once he managed to get his voice under control, and after a brief private conference with his brother, Will asked everyone to take their seats so he could finish the reading. He turned to a specific page of his book and read it through from top to bottom, before returning to the section he wanted, taking a deep breath, and reciting. “The Devil is the fifteenth Major Arcana. It represents temptation, materialism and entrapment; addiction to worldly vices; action inhibited by shame. While-” he paused, swallowed, and continued, “it can refer to the black arts and immorality, it first asks the querent to examine what beliefs and attachments hold them in bondage.”
Steve thought of Eddie - Eddie the drug dealer, the self-professed coward, Hawkins’ resident Freak. He didn’t like the image Will’s description painted in his head: Eddie in chains. Eddie twenty years from now, still living out of a trailer, using his own supply. Eddie stuck in Hawkins after his friends left one by one.
Steve shook his head, to try to clear out the images. He looked up to Will, who was still clearly shaken, and tried to sound more confident than he was. “What’s next, bud?”
After just three days, Steve was surprised by how much he missed Eddie Munson.
Six months ago, the guy was as close to a total stranger as you could get in a town the size of Hawkins. They’d had a couple classes together, but moved in very different social circles, and hadn’t crossed paths at all outside of school. He knew the guy by reputation, but after spending as much time around Dustin and the gang as he had, Steve was pretty well disabused of his major biases against Dungeons and Dragons. It was still boring and nerdy, but it had about as much in common with demon worship as it did with knitting, or motocross.
Then the world cooked up a fresh batch of nightmares to join the old ones, and this time it really seemed like the whole world had turned against them. He’d learned to accept the monsters from beyond reality, shadowy government agencies, and Russian spies (not that he had a lot of choice in the matter), but he still remembered running basketball drills with Jason Carver and his buddies. There was something so twisted about a town-wide manhunt for an innocent guy who, as far as Steve could tell, had almost nothing going for him other than decent hair and the respect of a handful of dweebs.
And when push came to shove, and lives were on the line like they had been when Steve first took up the nail-bat, Eddie stepped up. When Steve was dragged down through a portal, Eddie swam to the bottom of a lake to chase after him. When they needed a way to get to the monster’s lair, Eddie pulled off what may well have been the single coolest feat of any of the non-superpowered members of the team. And in the aftermath, after El had shut the gates and saved the world for… however many times it had been, Eddie did the part that was way harder than the monster slaying.
Steve saw him fight his way back from the very brink of death - maybe beyond, according to some of the doctors. He saw how hard he worked, to get his body moving again after so much of it had been ripped to shreds. He saw the way he put on a smile and joked around with the kids when they visited, even when every breath was pain. And he saw the way Eddie got out of that bed, faced a world that for some goddamn reason still hated him, and walked out into it.
In the weeks and months after, while Hopper, Eleven and the Byers family were getting settled back into Hawkins, and Steve was trying to remember how to be human again for… however many times it had been, Eddie had been there. There had been the team meetings, making sure all the gates were completely sealed and that no new ones were popping up, where Eddie started volunteering to help long before he was physically fit to. But it was all the times inbetween, too. Loitering in the Family Video. Hangouts at the dwindling number of places in town that weren’t stained with horrible memories. Late-night radio calls, when someone woke up screaming and just needed someone else who understood to remind them that they’d made it, that they were alive.
Robin had been that for Steve, after the last time - something that had confused both of their families - but it was nice to have another guy to talk with. Jonathan was back, and no longer monopolized by Nancy, but he was… difficult to reach, these days. He’d found his own way of managing it all, and it seemed like it was working for him. Sort of. There were the kids, of course, but they were too young - they shouldn’t have had to carry their own damage, let alone adding someone else’s on top. Hopper, too, was already filled up to the point of overflowing.
So through the unlikeliest of circumstances, process of elimination, and a frankly unexpected degree of heroism, Eddie Munson had become an integral part of Steve’s inner circle. They had sat in Eddie’s trailer for hours, making sure the reinforced roof held and talking about music; they were still working on finding even a single track they both liked. They’d partaken in some of Eddie’s supply on Steve’s back patio, filling him in on everything he’d missed in the years prior and staying out of the pool.
They had even compared scars - something Steve had found himself getting unexpectedly flustered about, when showing off his body had never been a problem for him before. Something about doing it with Eddie - as in, taking his shirt off at the same time Eddie was taking his shirt off, as in his own shirt, they were both taking their own shirts off, nobody was taking anybody else’s shirt off - made him feel nervous and kind of.. fizzy? Like something strange and new was going to happen this time, like he’d suddenly realize he’d had a third nipple all along and only Eddie had been able to point it out. It was almost like how he felt in the locker room before a swim meet, everyone changing into their gear, something electric in the air somewhere between competition and comradery. Or maybe it was actually nothing like that at all, and actually maybe it was nothing like anything at all, maybe it actually wasn’t actually anything actually. Just two dudes comparing where monster bats from hell had taken chunks out of their flesh with teeth and claws and tails. Normal nightmare survivor stuff. Nothing weird at all.
Thinking it through, in light of all of that… yeah, maybe after three days it wasn’t totally surprising how much Steve was missing Eddie.
“This is Hairspray to Freakshow, Hairspray to Freakshow. Come in Freakshow? Over?”
“…”
“Hairspray to Freakshow, do you read me? Over?”
“…”
“This is Hairspray to Freakshow, coming to you live from Château du Harrington. If you do not respond I will be forced to fill this frequency with off-key, badly-remembered Tears for Fears vocals. Please come in. Over?”
“…we have phones, you know. Over.”
“Copy that, Freakshow. Landline appears to be temporarily out of action. Or you’re not picking up. Over.”
“Mmm, I wonder why that might be. Over.”
“He didn’t do it on purpose, you know. Over.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Dustin says the picture on the card is probably a… a male branch? Am I pronouncing that right? Over.”
“…Malebranche. Horned Devil. Over.”
“Ah, yep, that’s it. Mal-bronsh. A ‘greater devil’, native to the seventh plane of Bah-tor? Over?”
“…sixth and seventh, yeah. Baator. Over.”
“Bay-uh-tor, copy that. Now, you see, I’ve been receiving some conflicting intel over here. Erica seems to think it looks more like a… Baler?”
“…Balor. And it’s the Balor, not a Balor, there’s just the one. He’s a type six demon. Where are you going with this? Over.”
“Well, to figure it out for sure, apparently we have to stab you with iron and silver. I’ve been informed that devils are - let me make sure I have this the right way around - devils are immune to iron but vulnerable to silver, while demons are vulnerable to iron but immune to silver. So Mike thinks his dad’s letter opener might be real silver-“
“Steve-“
“And! And, I’m not finished- Max found a railroad spike in the junkyard, and it’s rusty enough that we’re pretty sure it’s mostly iron. And so we just have to stab you with both, and depending on which one hurts you we’ll know what you really are! And if neither work, apparently that makes you some kind of tiger-demon -”
“Rakshasa.”
“- and if both of them hurt you, then maybe it turns out you’re not any kind of monster at all. Maybe you’re just our ordinary human friend. Over.”
“…”
“So I was wondering if you’d be free sometime to get stabbed. Like in the next hour or so, if you’re not busy. Over.”
“…”
“As an alternative - if I come by with beer, will you drink it with me? Over.”
“…sure. Over and out.”
The trailer park was quiet, this time of night. Steve and Eddie sat at opposite ends of the couch on the front porch, legs spread, knees a foot away from touching. Not that Steve was counting. There weren’t many lights on, and they could have watched the stars if it hadn’t been completely overcast. Eddie had a cigarette in his free hand, taking turns at his lips with the beer. Steve felt a pang of directionless, inexplicable jealousy. It had been an odd couple of days.
Steve knew they were layers to the tension they were both feeling - that he was feeling, anyway, and was pretty sure Eddie was feeling too. He couldn’t know for sure, and that was the trick of it, wasn’t it, but they’d talked around it before, so that was pretty close to confirmation. The whole thing with Will and the tarot cards was new, a fresh sting, like a papercut. But there were older things too.
There was the fact that, not three feet behind them, Chrissy Cunningham had been killed in a way that haunted Steve’s dreams, and he’d only heard about it second-hand. Steve did see the gate that opened after, a hole like a wound in the world, and had fallen through it after running for his life through the hellscape that kept sucking him back in over and over. It was shut now - scabbed over with psychic power and welded shut like a slice of ham sandwiched between two slabs of pure American steel. Compasses barely twitched here any more. There was no sign of anything even trying to come through, and Eddie had insisted on staying to make absolutely sure that stayed true. Joyce had tried to talk him out of it. Steve had understood. Even so, no matter how many times he visited, he thought he’d maybe never fully relax here. He wondered if Eddie, who wasn’t just visiting, thought he ever would.
There were tensions older than that. The fact that Steve couldn’t be completely sure that he’d never been one of the guys that chased Eddie, in all their years of going to the same school. He’d racked his brain and come up with nothing. He’d asked Eddie, once, but hadn’t quite believed him when he’d said he couldn’t remember either.
There was apparently beef between their dads, too, though neither of them knew pretty much any of that story. Steve’s dad had unhappy history with almost everyone in town, and wasn’t inclined to share any lessons he might have learned from it. Eddie’s dad wasn’t around to tell his side. It was bigger than just the personal stuff, too; growing up on opposite sides of town wasn’t purely a matter of geography. Eddie never said anything about having a problem with it, and Steve wasn’t about to go apologizing for his parents’ money out of nowhere, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
And if there were any other layers to the tension between them, Steve had already stopped counting.
So they just sat, and sipped, in silence. When the first beers were gone, they opened up their seconds.
When those were getting low, Eddie was the one to speak first.
“When was the last time you went to church?”
Steve cast his mind back. “Last Christmas. Got out of attending Easter this year, my bandages still stank.”
Eddie nodded. “Did you ever believe?”
Steve considered. “I’m not sure. I think I still might - bits at least. Love thy neighbor, don’t covet his wife.”
It was too dark to be sure, but Steve thought Eddie’s lip might have twitched. A flicker of humor.
“You think there’ll be pearly gates waiting for you when you die?”
Steve took another sip of his beer. He sat in thought. He took another. “No. I don’t think so.”
Eddie was quick to follow up. “That because you don’t think there are any, or because you don’t think they’d open to let you in?”
Steve finished his beer, one sip at a time. After a while, Eddie did too. He stood, walked inside, and returned with the last of the six-pack. He passed one to Steve - it was cold, straight from the fridge, and the label was already dampening in the evening air. He popped the top of his own bottle, then offered the opener to Steve. He used it, then passed it back. Eddie’s fingers brushed Steve’s as he took it, and compared to the still air and the cold glass bottle and the metal opener he was shockingly warm.
They drank. Eddie smoked.
Eddie was the one to break the silence again.
“You know I’m gay, right?”
Steve raised the bottle to his lips. In his effort not to take a longer draught than he had been, he overshot and only got a teaspoon of liquid between his lips. “I’ve heard some things. Didn’t want to put too much stock in rumor.”
Eddie blew air out of his nose, a bitter little laugh. He took another sip. “Buckley said you’d be safe to tell.”
Steve nodded. “Still takes guts. Thanks for trusting me.”
They sat.
“Corroded Coffin’s breaking up.”
Steve turned his head at that, eyebrows knitting together. “Why?”
Eddie stared ahead, into the dark. “Gareth doesn’t buy that I was attacked by dogs. He thinks I’m hiding something. That the kids and I know something about what happened to Chrissy, and Patrick. And Fred. Gareth and Fred were close.”
Eddie took a long drag on his cigarette. “And Doug doesn’t like that the sophomores wanted to go back to my campaign when I got out of the hospital, and not finish the one he was running while I was AWOL. Really doesn’t like that they asked me to keep DMing next year, if I don’t graduate. And I think Jeff’s just mad that I’m spending time with new people.”
Steve didn’t take another sip. “Fuck, man.”
Eddie, having built up some momentum, continued. “Dad’s looking at another couple years, minimum. Hit another inmate who ended up dying. Could be a lot more than a couple years.”
Steve blinked.
“A guy up in Bloomington thinks I gave him the clap, so now I’m pretty much blacklisted from Moe’s.”
There was that feeling again, of being one step behind. Maybe it was the beers but Steve’s head just wasn’t keeping up. He sounded angrier than he meant to, when he said, “Why are you telling me all this, all of a sudden?”
Eddie shrugged, and finally turned to face Steve. His hair framed his face in little dark curls. They didn’t seem to go together at all with his look of sorrow and disgust. “So you can stop pretending. So you can go back and tell the others that Eddie’s done now, you don’t have to keep inviting him places. It’s fine. I’ll be alright. It’s kind of my whole thing.”
Steve’s head swam. He should have been able to understand this. “What is?”
Eddie sounded a bit like he wanted his words to have venom, but he was too tired to get them there. “Getting kicked out and keeping on kicking. You’ve done the Good Samaritan thing, you’ve taken care of the Freak. You did it. Congratulations. Big round of applause for all of you. Now you can take your bows, and fuck off.”
Steve’s hand was getting a little numb, where it held the cold glass bottle. He put it down by his feet. “Mmm. Nope. Not gonna do that.”
Eddie sighed. “Tell us another, I’ve heard that one before.”
Steve tried to sort the conversation in his head. It felt like they’d gone from 0 to 60 while he’d been blinking or something, and he was still playing catch-up. He wished Nancy was here - she was so quick, so clever. “Ok, so… you think we’re just waiting for the chance to kick you out. What does you being gay have to do with it?”
Eddie laughed out loud, short and sharp, almost like barking. “Wow. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, King of Hawkins High, Steve Harrington. So very popular and so very straight he can’t even imagine what being gay could possibly have to do with rejection.”
Maybe it should have been Robin here, actually. Even Jonathan would have brought weed instead of beer, and they probably wouldn’t have been having this conversation.
But instead, Eddie got Steve.
“I- we don’t care that you’re gay. Or, like, we care but like… ‘cause that’s a part of you that you’ve chosen to share with us, and that’s special. We’d never kick you out for being gay.”
Eddie looked down, hair flopping forward as he hung his head, rings clinking against the glass bottle. “If it’s not that, there’ll be something else. There always is.”
Steve breathed. “I think… if you’re always looking for a reason for people to reject you, and running away before they get the chance, then you never give them the opportunity to… to not do that. To accept you.”
Eddie stared at the bottle between his knees, swirling the dark liquid within. He remained silent.
“We accept you, dude. You’re a bit of a weirdo, and you’re a huge-ass nerd, but you’re still one of us. You stood and fought with us against, fuckin’… demon bats and shit. If you want to get rid of us you’re going to have to try a hell of a lot harder.”
Eddie definitely smirked at that, despite himself.
“I’m super fucking sorry about Corroded Coffin, and your dad, and… Joe’s or whatever. That’s… that’s shitty. It’s so stupid that you can do the right thing, the hard thing, and somehow end up even lonelier than before.” Steve stopped himself, because he realized he might not actually be talking about Eddie any more, and that wasn’t what tonight was about. “But just because people suck doesn’t mean everyone’s always gonna suck forever. That’s, like… a belief that’s holding you in bondage, or whatever.”
Eddie looked up at Steve through the section of curls that cascaded over the side of his face. His eyes had a curious expression that was hard to make out between the gloom and the hair. Steve felt a sudden, powerful urge to reach over and tuck them behind his ear. He shifted on the couch to sit on his hand, instead.
“That’s weirdly eloquent of you, Harrington. Where’d that come from?”
Steve was feeling warm - just the beers, and being a bit embarrassed, nothing else. “Will talked about the card, a bit. After you left. What it’s supposed to mean.”
Eddie tossed his head back to fix his hair himself, and Steve felt a little twinge of sadness that the opportunity was gone. “Sounds like you were paying attention.”
Steve’s mouth twisted. Eddie had a way of making something sound like an insult and a compliment at the same time and Steve never knew what to do about it. “Will was pretty upset.”
Eddie sighed again, not quite as heavily as before. “Yeah, figures. Shit. I’ll apologize.” Metal rings clinked against the glass bottle. He gave Steve another appraising look. “So what’s it supposed to mean then? If it wasn’t a prank, and I’m not doomed to be hated, what’s the card really say? Who am I?”
Shit. This was another job for Nancy, or maybe anyone but Steve. He tried to think back to what Will had said - something about addiction, inhibitions… Steve’s test scores hadn’t been enough to get him into community college. But Eddie was here, and waiting, and looking at Steve with those big brown eyes like a kicked puppy waiting to see if the hand reaching down was going for a pat or a slap, and those soft lips so ready to snarl or smirk to hide the pain… he had to say something. He went with his gut.
“You’re an outsider - people look at you and make assumptions. You’re not afraid to push boundaries, challenge expectations, break rules. You’ve been kept down by things outside your control, things that started before you were even born. You keep yourself down because you don’t believe you deserve better. You learnt to run away when it was about saving your skin, and you’re still tempted to run away from anything that seems too good to be true… but you fight that temptation, every damn day, for the people you care about. You say ‘fuck you’ to the world that tried and failed to kill you, and work really, really hard wherever you find yourself, to create a better one.”
Steve’s heart was hammering in his chest. He’d gotten fired up - he could feel the heat in his neck and cheeks. He wished he had his beer back, just for something to do with his hands, but it was still where he’d left it on the ground and it felt weird to grab it now.
He couldn’t look at Eddie’s face. Wasn’t ready for what he might see there. Chickenshit.
Eddie’s voice was soft. “One card said all that, huh?”
Steve’s face burned.
Eddie stubbed out his cigarette, the little orange ember winking out. One less light in the dark evening. He took a long sip of his beer.
“Cards like me better than I thought, I guess.”
Steve wasn’t sure his face could get any hotter without actually bursting into flame. He was certain he was bright pink - glad for the darkness that was maybe making it a little less obvious. Why was he even having this reaction? He was just trying to cheer up a friend. He reached down and grabbed his beer after all, taking a few quick swigs. He drank too fast, nearly choking and spraying beer out his nose, at which point he’s pretty sure he would have literally prayed for a portal to open up and swallow him. He managed to coordinate his face enough to keep all his liquids on the inside, and breathed.
If Eddie found any of this amusing, he mercifully declined to comment. When he spoke up, he sounded more like his usual self. “I’ve been out of the loop, sulking. How is everyone? How’d the rest of the reading go, after I left?”
Steve blew out a long sigh. “To be honest? Not great.”