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Steve’s two beers deep on the Munson couch. And Eddie’s next to him even more wasted; three beers, a couple shots of vodka, and the last quarter of a joint from a different time they hung out all swimming in his system. They’re watching some…some movie, it’s unclear which one it is in the slow to glaze vision he’s sporting. All he knows is this: the couch is sinking slowly under both their heavy bodies, Wayne should probably get somebody to fix the leak in the trailer’s bathroom, and Eddie’s extremely clingy when inebriated. Not that that’s a bad thing, per se, just…unexpected.
Maybe he should’ve expected Eddie to be flopping all over the place. Considering how easy it was for the guy to lean into his space in the Upside Down, quirk his dimpled grin, flash his crazy eyes, and laugh around raspy, tired breaths. Shockingly, it was easy to let him. To have Eddie in his space. To joke and poke and tease. If anything, Steve’s only continued to bring that energy to their hang-outs; though, now that they’re around each other more, he’s come to notice that Eddie doesn’t casually enter Steve’s space or joke or tease or…whatever else he fancies doing. No, Eddie would rather sit as far as possible, and snark rather than smirk.
With the alcohol, Eddie’s come right back to square one.
Currently, there’s a hand on Steve’s right cheek. Thumb working into his skin. Tracing it down the edge of his face.
Slurred, “You’ve got such a nice face,” Eddie comments.
He snorts. “Eds, you’ve already said that, like, four times.”
“It’s true!” And that’s another thing about Eddie—when he’s wasted, he gets a little too loud. Not enough to really cause a scene, but just enough to make the wall vibrate. “God, I could look at you all day.”
“Feels like you have been.” Steve gently circles his fingers around Eddie’s wrist. Sweeps his thumb in the little dip where a pulse point sits. “How about we get some food and water in your system? Maybe go to bed?”
Eddie sighs, pulling forward into Steve’s shoulder. His forehead rests. And then he groans, pushing himself back up. All the while, keeping a heavy, steady hand on Steve’s cheek. “No,” he whines. “I wanna keep looking at you…like…like so bad.” His other hand comes up, sweeping back some of Steve’s stubborn hair. Holding his bangs in place. Eddie smiles, small and adoring. “Did you know…”—hic—“…know that you are so pretty?”
Something churns in Steve’s stomach.
Sour and alive and sickly.
“Ed,” he sighs. “C’mon, man, don’t…don’t say stuff like that.” Not that he particularly wants it to stop. Just…
If he keeps hearing just how pretty he is, it’s going to get his hopes up.
It was a hard thing to conclude. How much he’s really invested and infatuated and at the ready for Eddie. All the things he’d do for him. Waive a late fee at Family Video, take him out for food, odd jobs around the trailer, be at his side during physical therapy or recovery, take a trip around the moon to gather the rocks Eddie can’t pocket, and stop the world for them to remain frozen in time—right next to each other, stitched at the sides.
He loves Eddie.
But he can’t say that right now.
“Let’s just get you to bed, Eddie,” Steve says, more pressure under the words. “Then you’ll be right back to normal in the morning. I’ll make us eggs for breakfast, you can brew some coffee, and we’ll ride on over to the video store to return the movie and VCR—alright?”
Eddie releases Steve’s bangs from the top of his head. Clumsily, he points out his right index finger, and boops the tip of Steve’s nose. Squishing it with pure determination. “I want you to stay right here,” he husks. It’s almost flirtatious. Low enough, but melancholic instead of sultry. “Don’t…don’t want this to be over yet.”
Steve frowns in confusion. “I’m not going anywhere, man. I’ll be right where I always am when I stay the night, yeah? On the couch, waiting for you to wake up in the morning.” He licks his lips, stutters his breath when Eddie follows the motion. “You’re just very drunk right now and feeling a little bad, okay? Get on up with me and we can make you feel better.”
It takes some more resistance, but Eddie finally concedes, standing heavily against Steve’s side once off the couch. One slow step at a time, they get to the back bedroom. Where, gently, he plops Eddie down onto the bed.
He takes the extra time to help Eddie lay on his side. Tuck the blanket around him. Set out a mop bucket just in case. Water on the nightstand, next to the lamp he leaves on—just as he does every night they hang out; it’s the same routine.
When he smooths his hands over the top of the blanket again, Steve slows extremely in his tracks.
Eddie’s looking at him. Wide eyed and glossy. Breathing gently. Tracking. One of his hands comes up out of the blanket, latching itself to Steve’s left forearm.
He steadies himself with a deep breath. Then, “You need something, Eds?” Steve murmurs.
The thumb on his arm sweeps.
“Can you sit with me?”
Steve, without a second thought, sits down on the edge of the bed, facing Eddie. Cautiously, he reaches up and places a hand in Eddie’s hair. Combing through it gently. “Everything alright?”
Eddie shrugs tightly. “I think so.”
“You having nightmares again? I can stay in the room tonight if you need me to.”
“No,” Eddie whispers. “I just…just feel—different.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. Because what does that mean? Of course Eddie’s different he’s…Eddie! The whole wild card character, his big eyes, every little thing he takes apart and nitpicks. How he interacts with others. How he usually accepts others. Nobody else in Hawkins lives like Eddie does—courageously, somehow even free.
“Steve?”
He hums in question.
“I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“Do you think you’re sick? I could find a thermometer around here, check your temperature? I could maybe grab some Pepto”—
Eddie groans. Long and garbled and rough. “Being around you feels…feels…impossible sometimes,” he confesses, still slurring—heavy and distraught. “One moment, you’re my friend. And the next…”
Confused once more, Steve can only furrow his eyebrows. “What are you saying”—
“I wish that you were a girl,” Eddie harshly sobs out. There are fast falling tears smearing down his cheeks. Steve didn’t even notice they were there to begin with. But they won’t stop. And Eddie’s face goes blotchy in distress. “I wish…I wish you were a girl and I could…then I could—It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to be”—
“Ed,” Steve interrupts softly, “I think you should close your eyes and go to sleep.”
“But I”—
He shakes his head. Hates the way something dark shutters in Eddie’s gaze. “We can’t…I can’t talk about this right now, Eds. It’s not the right time.”
Eddie sniffles. Pouts. “What the fuck do you know about right time and”—
Voice croaking, “Maybe I have feelings, too,” Steve miserably admits. His throat hot and pinched with oncoming tears. “And I know they’re right for me, but I can’t walk you through this. I can’t…I can’t help you this time, Eds. I can’t tell you who you are.” Reluctantly, even though Eddie tries to grab back for him, Steve removes his hand from where it’s petting. “But if you were a certain way, Eds, it wouldn’t be wrong. It’s not wrong. I know it’s not wrong.” He folds his hands in his lap, fidgeting loosely with his fingers. And casts his stare just off of Eddie’s face. Quietly, “When you’re sober and you’ve spared some thought to it, then come find me. For now, I just want to be a friend. I want to support you. But you’re also breaking my heart.”
“I am?” Eddie chokes out. “‘M sorry, Stevie…’m so sorry.”
Even though it’s going to hurt more, Steve ends up reaching out again. Touching Eddie’s heated face. Caressing him, swiping away the tears, holding onto him. “Hey,” he coos, “hey, it’s okay.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose with his spare hand, and lets out a quick, shuttering breath. Shakes his head, sucks on his teeth, sighs. “I’m gonna be okay, I promise. It’s just that I…I…”—be brave, he tells himself, you just gotta be brave—“…I love you so much, Eddie. It hurts right now, hearing you say stuff like that. But I know you’re just…you’re figuring stuff out for yourself. And that takes time. And I’m gonna be right here with you…for you.”
“But what if I never figure it out, Stevie? I’m…I’m broken. I…I can’t feel this way. Not a-about you.”
Steve quirks a small, sad smile. “You’re not broken,” he murmurs, “you’re different, like you said. And that’s completely okay. It’s also okay if you don’t figure anything out. I love just being your friend.” He pats his thumb along Eddie’s under-eye. Lets him tilt into the hold. “I love you, no matter what,” Steve whispers, “even if all we are to each other is just friends. I’m still gonna love you.”
Against the fresh, broken, wet sobs from Eddie’s mouth, Steve closes his eyes, turns his head down, and tries to put himself anywhere else.
In another version of himself, Steve would’ve left fifteen minutes ago. He would’ve chugged down a couple glasses of water, grabbed his keys from the coffee table, and left Eddie to sober up on his own. The front door would’ve hit his backside. Stairs creaking as he stepped upon them, drifting farther and farther away from the blood to his beating heart. Drove himself—home, he doesn’t know, aimlessly almost sounds better. And maybe he’d go and drown himself in more booze—something stronger and darker and more bitter—and choked on his bile swirled saliva, sprayed puke from his nostrils the following morning, forgotten all about the fiasco that was this night before.
But he’s not that guy.
And he’s always loved too hard.
His heart still beats even when his chest hurts. And his soul still sings even when his throat closes up. He still touches and he still feels and he still loves. That’s his problem—oh, how he loves Eddie.
The safety and warmth that comes with somebody who just gets it. With somebody in similar age, in large personality and quirks. Somebody he can riff off of, tease with his words and scoff with his eyes and still find themselves laughing with one another—rather than at one another. He hasn’t felt a connection like this since meeting Tommy Hagan in the second grade; but he doesn’t want a connection like that…especially if it means the same fate as before.
He can’t lose Eddie. And he knows how to keep to himself, how to yearn from a distance, how to bite his own clumsy tongue. Steve knows the limits he possesses, yet how to burst and cross them. He can flirt, he can bitch, he can close up and keep to himself. He can be anything Eddie needs him to be: the bumbling idiot of a best friend, the charming boyfriend who doesn’t know when to let up, the last minute reservation when all the other restaurants closed, the friend you only see at reunions and by happenstance at the bar.
Tonight, he can be the one to comfort. And, sneaky as he’s claimed to be, Steve can keep a secret.
It’ll be just like any other night they hang out.
Eddie gets too clingy, too inebriated, too clumsy. And Steve keeps an eye out, helps them to the bed, leaves out the puke bucket, serves breakfast in the morning.
By the time the sun meets them through the windows, Eddie will have forgotten the night before. Just as he does every time.
But Eddie doesn’t know that.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he had confessed to Steve four nights ago.
“Something about you just feels right,” Eddie had said around a tipsy-happy smile.
“I’d kiss you if I could,” and that was whispered just last night.
If he could change to make Eddie feel safer, Steve would do it in a heartbeat.
Even if that means not being himself. Be a woman or something, whatever that really entails. Nancy and Robin would probably tell him it’s…anti-feminist to try and fit a stereotype. But he would do it anyway.
He’d do anything for Eddie to say those words in the daytime. To touch Steve. To want him in all these carnal, late night craving sort of ways. For Eddie to wrap himself along Steve’s back as breakfast is sizzling on the stovetop. Slow dancing to Etta James records that Eddie only breaks out when he’s feeling particularly emotional while drunk; clumsy feet trying to keep pace on the carpet, in the dark, syrup stuck to each other’s souls.
Steve can keep a secret.
No matter how much it’s killing him to keep quiet.
Not even Robin knows.
Tonight, he is still quiet. With his hand warming Eddie’s cheek. Drying his tears. Soothing him to sleep.
With snores muffled under the blanket, puffs of air hitting Steve’s fingertips, he remains glued to the edge of Eddie’s bed. Right where he remains, as he has for weeks on end now, every single time he’s asked to sit down. Watching the same alcohol soaked memory sleep soundly by the amber glow of a giving out lamp and tucked securely by Steve’s own handiwork.
He should head out to the couch. Wrap himself in a scratchy throw. Move to the recliner when Wayne’s ready to get the fold-out. Just as the original plans when they first started hanging out one on one.
Instead, though, he cautiously maneuvers around Eddie. Lays himself between the rise and fall of a warm back and the cold press of a bumpy wall. Keeps his arms and hands tucked into himself. And he closes his eyes—thinking of an alternate world where Eddie feels safe to completely give himself to his truth.
Even if he never does, Steve will remain tucked against the wall.
Cold against his spine. Stomach turning with sick and want and sore hope. He’ll be the battered copy of a book people are too scared to read—in fear the pages will tear. Just the same paperback, wrinkled with signs of reading, yellowing with years of just enough love to keep the words fresh. And maybe those words will be enough to help the both of them sleep, just a little while longer, just until the bedside lightbulb burns clear out.