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Eddie clicks his van door closed.
His head is pounding. His teeth ache in the cradle of his gums and his eyes must be trying to evacuate from their sockets because their pulsating pain is making him want to rip them out himself.
He still hasn't gotten used to the way his body retaliates against him, the way it enacts its own revenge for pushing too hard, going too long, for having the audacity to force his fingers along his fretboard and stand for a whole two hours of band practice the night before, and now he's paying the price.
The hard little stool he found in the back of the supply closet at work hadn't even helped. His bad hip throbs. His forearms and hands are stiff and uncooperative, and despite popping his legally-prescribed painkillers, he hadn't gotten a single wink of fucking sleep.
He keeps his eyes closed until he knows he can bear focusing on the road, his sight slightly blurry as his exhaustion headache pounds hard at his temples, and he opens them to slowly pull out of the record store's lot. He doesn't even turn on his music as he begins to accelerate, just the wind's whistle against his windows making him wince.
All he wants to do is go home and sleep. His fatigue is now weighing heavier than anything else, and he knows if he were to smoke a joint before snuggling under his covers, he might actually pass out for a few hours. But Eddie'd also promised the kids he'd make an appearance for movie night tonight, a promise he's made and broken and made and broken because of the same things he's experiencing now.
He hesitates at the intersection that could take him home. Thinks of his bed and the joints he has stored underneath it, thinks of the leftovers in the fridge and the six pack waiting for him, until the driver behind him honks, and Eddie puts on his signal to turn away from all of that.
At least Harrington usually orders pizza, even if they'll probably watch something stupid. Something like the new Superman movie, and Eddie fucking hates Superman.
Stupid goody two-shoes asshole.
Five minutes later he's pulling onto Steve's street, sort of feeling like he wants to crawl out of his skin, and takes a deep, steadying breath.
He can do this.
Eddie can't do this.
He's had to hightail it to his van, had to take one of his emergency joints from his glove compartment, and he knows he's being an asshole, abandoning his friends to get high, but he's desperate.
Eddie was somehow sequestered to the floor with all the gremlins, Robin, Steve, Jonathan, Nancy and Argyle all having taken all the spots on the couches and loveseats.
Argyle had offered him his lap, at least, but the stoner's bony thighs hadn't seemed like the most inviting of places.
The throbbing in his hip, though, had migrated as he sat, spreading down the back of his thigh, across his ass and up his lower back, and despite how plush the Harrington's carpets are, his nerves are acting more than a little ungrateful.
He sighs, blowing a thick cloud of smoke into the air, when he hears the front door clatter.
Eddie closes his eyes, preparing for Dustin's shrill voice asking him why the hell he isn't inside, when slow, heavy footfalls signal definitely not Dustin.
It's Steve. Only half-illuminated by the harsh porch light, his hands in his pockets and a half-smile on his face like he's glad to have found Eddie here.
He leans up against the van when he gets close, puts a foot on the tire and nods towards the joint.
"Can I hit that?"
Steve's voice is slow. Easy. His posture loose like he's asked Eddie to bum a hit a million times before.
It isn't weird, per se, Steve has been a fixture in Eddie's life since spring, but it is... unexpected. Steve and him hang out because Eddie hangs out with Robin. With the kids. Steve and Eddie are only Steve and Eddie because of the people around them.
Slowly, Eddie finishes his drag before wordlessly handing the joint over, Steve nodding his thanks before tucking it between his lips.
Eddie turns abruptly away, focusing far too intently on the moths beating themselves senseless against the porch light to distract himself from Steve's mouth.
The two of them would be closer if it wasn't for him. If it wasn't for the fact that Eddie knows--like he knows Sam and Frodo never could've ridden the Eagles to Mordor--that he would fall ass over tits for Steve if he allowed himself.
So he hasn't been allowing himself.
Smoke curls into the air in front of them, and with a slight wiggle of his fingers, Steve hands the joint back over.
"For the record," Steve starts, and there's a tilt to his mouth as he says it, his eyes shining, "I saved you from Dustin being the one to come out here and check on you."
Eddie rolls his eyes, his smile coming unbidden, and flicks the ash off the end of the joint. "'M surprised you were able to persuade him otherwise."
Steve's grin stretches, and Eddie feels his chest expand with it. "He's still on his crusade for us to be friends," Steve explains, and he's leaned in closer now, the shadows falling differently across his face, highlighting his sharp jaw, "he definitely wasn't being--" Steve frowns, hesitating. "Alter--altrar--"
"Altruistic?" Eddie supplies, and Steve's stretchy grin comes back.
He looks like Gumby.
"And I'm the one that graduated my first try." Steve shakes his head, like this is really something that he's spent time considering, and then tilts his head back, staring up at the dark sky.
Eddie wonders if Steve's the only person who can bring up his multiple senior years without leaving him feeling like a piece of shit.
He mirrors Steve's stance, head falling back to gaze at the faint stars above. "Aren't we?" He asks, morbidly curious, wanting to know exactly what Steve thinks of him, "friends?"
He hears Steve shrug, the rustle of skin against fabric. "You're a hard guy to read."
Now Eddie does feel like a piece of shit.
He drops the cashed joint to the slickly paved driveway, and crushes it under his toe. He misses it immediately, guilt writhing in his chest, pervasive and chilling, and his hands fidget without something to distract them.
"Sorry," he says, and means it. "It's--" but he stalls out there, and gestures uselessly with a hand.
Because yes, it's him. It's him and his horrible, soul crushing ability to fall for those that could never want him, but it's everything else, too. Because when did simply living become so goddamn exhausting? Things he likes to do, things he loves, are just so much effort now.
He feels like Sisyphus, with his giant boulder, except Eddie's boulder is just--him keeping his head above water.
"I know," Steve offers. He's nodding because he understands, those shadows dancing across his face, and Eddie feels that familiar, desperate sort of longing claw at his chest, the same he felt in the Upside Down, the same irrational yearning that made him throw his vest in Steve's face. Because Steve is kind, and he's kind to Eddie, and it makes hope's wings flutter in his stomach.
"That wasn't a dig," Steve tacks on, shifting his weight between his feet, "just--" and he fidgets, looking away, towards the street, before making eye contact again, "'m here for you too, you know?"
God save him. Help him. Because while his heart might've been protected from the demobats, it certainly isn't from Steve, who's waltzed right in to where the fragile bits are and is making himself right at home.
He'd love it if he wasn't so intensely terrified of it.
Eddie fights to hold Steve's earnest gaze, his wide eyes and pinched brows, the downturn of his lips and the faint color on his cheeks, and manages.
"Thanks, Steve."
Steve nods again, more color rising to his already tinged cheeks. He scratches the back of his neck. "You have anywhere else to be tonight?"
The question catches him off-guard, and Eddie blinks once before Steve is hastily adding, "I just--I have something that might help. But we should wait. Until everyone's gone."
That is... actually a little unsettling. Eddie would be terrified of being Carrie'd if Steve himself wasn't the one to save his life not four months ago.
"Oh." It comes out high and squeaky while Eddie's brain speed-runs through all of the ways in which Steve and him could spend time together if it was up to him.
Eddie clears his throat. "Yeah, man. 'M not doing anything after this." He's proud of how even his voice comes out, the casual man that he dropped in so seamlessly.
Steve's smile goes all stretchy again, his shoulders relaxing, and he pushes himself off Eddie's van with a bounce off his toes. "Great," Steve says, clapping his hands, which should not be as endearing as it is, "we should probably head inside, before Dustin sends a search party." He nods towards the house, and when Eddie follows, his hands in his pockets, he feels Steve's hand ghost over the small of his back.
Things are different when they go back inside.
Steve beelines to Robin, for one, grabbing her by the elbow and dragging her to the kitchen after telling Eddie to take his spot on the couch.
Which Eddie does, of course, his hip hardly as grateful as it should be, and Dustin is, thankfully, far too focused on Superman white knighting his way across Steve's television screen to notice how long they'd been gone.
Robin and Steve aren't in the kitchen for long, and when they return Robin sits next to him, Steve replacing Eddie's spot on the floor.
"This okay?" Steve asks, settling himself far more comfortably than Eddie had allowed himself earlier. Steve doesn't look at him as he presses his back against Eddie's shins, his shoulder blades against Eddie's knees.
He's so warm. Even through his teeshirt and Eddie's jeans he's warm, and Eddie can feel the flex of his muscles as he shifts, settling against the carpet. His hair is long, curling at the nape, half-obscuring the smattering of freckles and moles along his neck.
Eddie's skin burns where Steve touches him, alive like static, the tingles traveling up his spine and into his fingertips as he mumbles a distressed, "yes."
Steve relaxes fully, then, his shoulders dropping, his weight settling against Eddie's legs and--
It's nice. It's so nice it takes Eddie a moment to realize he's smiling, twisting his fingers under his thighs to prevent himself from reaching, from twirling his hands through the soft locks of Steve's hair. He's so content the movie doesn't even piss him off, his thoughts spiraling up and around and into all of the possibilities of what Steve could feasibly want them to do after.
Drugs, maybe. Maybe his parents have a stash of the good prescription stuff they never finished. Maybe Steve will want to get high with him, maybe they'll sit in his room and let the opiates take over.
Or Steve has some sort of basketball stretch that will release all of Eddie's muscles. Maybe he'll demonstrate. Maybe he'll guide Eddie into the stretch, put his hands on Eddie's skin and nudge him into the correct stance, his skin warm and calloused and sure.
Or maybe Steve wants to give him a massage. Maybe he wants to knead his fingers into the tight muscles of Eddie's hips and thighs, maybe he wants to release the pain with his own hands, make Eddie feel--
The television clicks off. The kids are scrambling over each other, already arguing about something Eddie's clearly missed, Mike's voice going high and defiant in response to whatever Lucas is saying, and suddenly there's a toothy grin and a mop of curls in front of Eddie's face.
"Did'ya like it?" Dustin asks, over-eager and excitable, and Eddie doesn't have a chance to reply before Max cuts in, calling Superman a "twat", and all in all summarizing Eddie's thoughts on the superhero.
They're still arguing even as they make their way out the door twenty minutes later, Nancy and Jonathan doing their best to shepherd them all out the door, Robin, finally, with her license, taking Max.
She spares a quick glance behind her, smirking as she makes eye contact with Steve in a moment Eddie is almost sure he wasn't supposed to see.
And then they're alone.
Eddie can hear the clock above the television tick. Can hear the hum of the refrigerator and the buzzing of the light above them and Eddie doesn't think he's ever heard Steve's house this quiet.
"C'mon," Steve encourages, and suddenly Steve has his hand on Eddie's back for the second time that night, his presence firmer now, more solid than it was before, and Eddie's guided out of Steve's living room and into the calm summer night.
Steve leads him to the edge of the pool and then he just--
He strips. Steve takes off his shirt with one swift pull over the back of his neck, and then he's undoing the button of his shorts, and in just a few short seconds Eddie has found himself fully clothed while Steve stands in front of him in nothing but his briefs.
He's perfect. Of course he is. Even more moles dot his stomach and thighs, his tan skin lightening past the lines on his arms and legs, his middle a perfect shade of cream that Eddie just knows would taste sweet.
"Eddie?"
He's snapped back to reality by the sound of his own name, and he blinks back up to Steve's face, who's staring at him.
"We don't have to get in if you don't want to."
Eddie blinks again. The pool, he realizes, bittersweetly, is what Steve thought might help. It's not a massage, which was foolish of him to even think of, but seeing Steve this stripped down just might be worse.
Eddie's also tried this before, gone to the public pool and let the chlorinated water buoy him, tried to let the weight of his limbs release to provide some measure of comfort to his aching joints.
It didn't work half as well as his therapist told him it would.
But Eddie nods through his hesitation, smiling wide, overcompensating, and strips the same way Steve did.
And then they're...standing in Steve's backyard in nothing but their underwear.
Steve makes the first move, Eddie glued to the spot under the high beams of Steve's glorious chest, starting down the small set of stairs at one end.
He looks expectantly at Eddie once the water is around his hips, the outline of his lower half blurry and warped under the darkness of the water.
With a confidence he doesn't feel Eddie follows after him. He dips his toes in the water and realizes, with a shuddering sigh, that Steve's pool is heated.
Eddie melts into the water. Sinks until just his face is above the surface, his joints and muscles soothed by the heat and buoyancy. It's the most dramatic, instantaneous relief Eddie's felt in months. He sighs again, relief making his lungs expand and contact more fully than they've been able to since the bats tried to eat him, and he closes his eyes under the bright canopy of stars above him, content.
He hears Steve move behind him, hears, distantly, the movements of water with his ears completely submerged, hears dripping and Eddie opens his eyes because it sounds like Steve is close, sounds like--
Steve is above him. He's looking down at Eddie with a crown of stars, and... he's the most beautiful person Eddie's ever seen in his life. He's the most beautiful person Eddie ever will see in his life. He feels that in his chest. In his bones. Like all of what makes Steve, Steve, are all the same parts that make Eddie, Eddie, just stacked up in a different order. Like them together would be everything Eddie's always pined for, always thought he'd never have, not with who he is and how this town treats people like him.
But Steve just comes closer. He cups his palms around Eddie's head, his strong fingers in Eddie's hair, the touch gentle, but firm.
"Better?"
The word is distant, far away, the water in Eddie's ears making it garbled.
"Yeah," Eddie says, dumbly, his mouth dry as he stares up at Steve, who looks ethereal, looks divine, looks like the gods handpicked him from heaven to exist amongst the mere mortals like him.
Steve smiles at his word, though, and those fingers on his scalp press a little more firmly, rubbing small, smoothing circles into his scalp, making the pain in his skull recede.
It's enough to make him close his eyes again. He feels safe here. Feels like, no matter what, no matter if the ground starts opening up again, if Vecna himself crawls from the cracks, Steve would protect him. Would keep him safe. That Eddie would never need to worry about his life again if Steve was the one next to him.
Eddie loses track of time. He doesn't know how long he lies there, floating in Steve's pool, Steve's hands in his hair and Steve's belly at his head, but he knows that when he opens his eyes again, his pain has dulled to a distant, ignorable hum, and he's so close to sleep he can't even open his eyes all the way.
Steve is still standing above him. Still massaging his scalp gently, and Eddie realizes he was right, a little bit. He's getting a massage from Steve Harrington.
His breath must change, or maybe Steve's just as in tune with him as Eddie feels they must be, because it only takes a moment for Steve's gaze to drop down to him again. He smiles, a soft, gentle thing that makes Eddie's chest fill with something like cotton candy, airy and sweet.
He must've dipped himself in the water while Eddie was out, because his hair hangs in wet strands, dripping lightly onto Eddie's face.
Without thinking he grabs a lock. He twirls it around his finger and revels in the way Steve leans into the touch, until only inches separate them.
Steve looks down at his lips. Back up. A question. One Eddie is ready to answer. He tugs, gently, firmly, at the strands of hair in his fingers.
Eddie closes his eyes just as Steve's lips meet his.
It's wet. And upside down. And a little uncomfortable because the only thing under him is ten thousand gallons of water and Steve's nose is knocking against his chin, but Steve's hands are still under his head, and when Steve sighs into his mouth, nothing else matters at all.
He parts his lips when he feels Steve do the same, and soon Steve's warm, wet tongue is sliding behind his teeth, licking across his gums and Eddie feels it all the way down to his toes, like his nerves are sparkling now, instead of burning, alight and fizzing.
Eddie turns in Steve's hold, tired of not being able to angle his face the way he wants, and when he does, when he stands, Steve's arms wrap around his waist, holding him close, and his hip doesn't twinge at all.
Soon their kisses slow, Steve placing wet, chaste kisses to his lower lip before he's pulling away, not far, but for enough that he can once again look into Eddie's eyes.
"You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that." Steve's voice is rough, husky in a way Eddie's never heard before, and it makes desire rile under his exhausted bones. "You kept bailing," Steve goes on, nosing at Eddie's jaw, skin slick, "I got in my head about it. Thought you didn't want to see me."
Eddie's hands find Steve's hips. He squeezes. "Why wouldn't I want to see you?" He murmurs, bewildered, a little endeared, and rubs his thumbs along the bones of Steve's hips.
Steve huffs, his breath ghosting across Eddie's wet skin, sending a chill through him. "I thought I was being too obvious," Steve says, "I thought I scared you off." He kisses Eddie's jaw. "I came outside to apologize. Until I realized that Robin was right. You were just..." he trails off, and Eddie brings a hand to cup Steve's face, making their gazes meet once again.
"In pain," he finishes.
Steve winces in sympathy, his broad palm running across Eddie's back. "Did that help?" He asks, his voice pinched with worry. "It helps me, sometimes, but--" he grins ashamedly, "I also had ulterior motives bringing you out here."
Eddie snorts a disbelieving laugh. How is this his life? How did this all change so quickly? He was content in keeping Steve at arm's length. Content in never letting himself walk down the path that he was so certain would end in rejection.
And now here he is. Here they are. Steve, confessing he's wanted to do this for far longer than Eddie ever could've imagined.
Eddie leans closer. Brushes their lips together. "It helped," Eddie assures their lips meeting at his words, "you helped."
They can't stay in the pool forever. The mosquitoes come out, ignoring Eddie entirely but apparently as lustful for Steve as he is, landing on his arms and interrupting them enough times that, eventually, Steve lets him know they can head upstairs.
If Eddie wants to.
Like he would ever say no to that.
Steve wraps him in his own clothes. A pair of Hawkins High Swim sweats and a Hoosiers shirt, and Steve kisses him again when he's dressed, more possessively than Eddie's ever been kissed, like the title of Harrington down his left leg is Steve's fantasy come to life.
A not so small part of Eddie hopes it is.
Steve climbs under the covers. He parts the sheets for Eddie, a plaid abomination that Eddie doesn't yet have the energy to give him shit for.
Tomorrow, maybe. Maybe even next week. Next month.
But now, but here, Steve is again wrapping his arm around Eddie's waist. The other comes to his hair, rubbing soothing circles into his scalp.
He's pretty here, too. Eddie can barely see him, his room dark, the moonlight barely coming in through the slats of the blinds, the streetlights far away. Still there's light reflecting off Steve's eyes, his hair, and Eddie inches closer, until their noses brush, until their lips meet, again and again and again.
Until his body, for once, seems content exactly where it is.