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The first time Steve Harrington cried, he was six years old on the manicured grass of the Hawkins Country Club golf course. Tommy Hagan was just ahead of him, shrieking with laughter as they chased each other between the sand traps. Steve’s shoelaces had come loose—of course they had—and when his foot caught, the ground came up too fast. His palms burned with the scrape, his knee split open against the turf, and the sob rose before he even knew what it was. Hot, wet, impossible to stop. Tommy froze, eyes wide like Steve had just grown a second head, before taking his hand and tugging him toward the pool house. His mother was there, drink sweating in her hand, and she bent to kiss the sting away. A dab of iodine and a band-aid. That was all it took. At six, the world could still be fixed that easily.
—
The second time, it was Little League. Summer heat pressed sticky against his back, his jersey clinging, the dust of the diamond coating his shins. The ball was coming—an easy one, practically begging to be hit—but his bat cut the air wrong, empty. Strike. The sound of it rattled him hollow. He stormed off the field, helmet under his arm, throat tight with a lump he couldn’t swallow. On the bench, he pressed his face into his hands, and nobody bothered him for the rest of the game. Afterward, in the parking lot, his father’s shadow fell over him. The cuff to the back of the head was sharp; not cruel, not gentle. “Harrington boys don’t cry,” his father said. Steve had been grateful, in a strange way, that his father wasn’t angry. He didn’t understand until later that coldness was worse.
—
The next time came in sixth grade. Jenna Williams, hair braided with blue ribbons, had smiled at him with teeth too big for her mouth and told him no, she was already going to the dance—with Tommy. He’d said it was fine. And it was fine. It was Tommy. He could never be mad at Tommy. But that night in the kitchen he stood with both hands braced against the counter, staring into a glass of water he didn’t really even want. His throat was raw from swallowing tears, but they came anyway, spilling hot and silent down his cheeks. His father found him there. Another cuff, harder this time, the ring on his hand leaving a brief starburst of pain at Steve’s temple. “Crying’s for women,” he’d muttered. “Pull yourself together.”
—
The fourth time Steve Harrington cried, he was sixteen, standing in his father’s study, a place that always smelled faintly of leather and scotch. He was still in his practice jersey, sweat drying sticky on his skin, basketball shoes squeaking against the polished floor as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
His father didn’t look up from the papers on his desk when he spoke. “You spend too much time chasing that stupid ball. Sports won’t mean anything in ten years. Business will. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Because you don’t think.”
Steve’s jaw clenched. “It’s not stupid, dad. Basketball isn’t—”
“Don’t interrupt me.” His father’s eyes cut up, sharp and hard. “I’ve seen dogs with more sense of direction than you. You think colleges care about another mediocre high school athlete? They don’t. They care about brains. They care about legacy. You have one, and you’re squandering it.”
Steve’s heart kicked against his ribs. He hated how small his voice sounded when he said, “I’m good. Coach says I could—”
“Coach,” his father snapped, practically spitting the word. “That man is paid to tell every boy on that team he’s special. It keeps the parents writing checks. Don’t be such a fool.”
“I’m not a fool!” Steve’s fists balled tight at his sides. His throat hurt with the words, with the heat building behind his eyes. “You don’t know everything, maybe I’ll—”
“Enough.” His father’s voice cracked like a whip, loud enough to make Steve flinch. “You are an insolent boy who doesn’t understand the first thing about this family. A Harrington doesn’t sweat on a court for scraps. A Harrington earns his place—and you?” He leaned back in his chair, lips curling in something that wasn’t quite a sneer. “You’ll be lucky if you manage to sell shoes for the rest of your life.”
Steve’s face went hot, humiliation scalding him from the inside out. His mouth opened, words tumbling before he could think. “Maybe I don’t want your stupid business. Maybe I’ll just leave, then!”
His father didn’t blink. He just sat there, steady and cold. “Alright. But if you do, don’t let me see you back here again. My house isn’t a revolving door for failures.”
The silence afterward was worse than the shouting. Steve felt it hollow him out as quickly as the heat of anger had set in, leaving only the shaking in his hands, the burn in his eyes he couldn’t fight down. He turned on his heel before his father could see it break through, and somehow made it to the upstairs bathroom.
He locked the door, pressing his back to it, chest heaving. In the mirror, a boy stared back at him—red-cheeked, wet-eyed, jaw trembling. Pathetic. He twisted the faucet on full blast and splashed cold water on his face, again and again, until the skin numbed.
And still the tears came, unstoppable, dripping onto the marble counter. He pressed both hands to his mouth, smothering the sound. Because if his father heard him—if he saw him—Steve knew he’d make good on his word.
The fourth time Steve Harrington cried, he cried as quietly as he could.
—
The first time Steve didn’t cry, he was nine-and-a-half years old, standing on tiptoe to see over the edge of a polished casket. Grandpa Louie lay inside, dressed in a suit Steve had never seen him wear, face powdered and painted until he looked like a stranger. His lips were too red, his cheeks too pink. Like a clown pretending at rest.
Steve didn’t really understand death, not yet. He only knew that Grandpa Louie wasn’t going to read him another bedtime story, or sneak him a second cookie when his mother wasn’t looking. He wasn’t going to let Steve stay up past bedtime to watch old black-and-white monster movies, or toss a baseball in the backyard until the sky turned violet.
Grandpa Louie was gone, and Steve felt the hollow of it deep in his chest. The tears prickled hot at the corners of his eyes—right there, waiting—but he didn’t let them fall. Because he could feel the weight of his father’s stare pressing down on him from across the room, heavier than the silence of the funeral home.
Harrington boys don’t cry.
So Steve straightened his shoulders like his father always told him to. He looked away from the casket, eyes fixed on the brass handles instead of the too-red paint on Louie’s face. He bit down on the inside of his cheek until it hurt and he tasted something metallic on his tongue.
The first time Steve didn’t cry, he stood stiff and silent, mourning the only grown-up who had ever made him feel small in a way that wasn’t cruel.
—
The second time Steve didn’t cry, he was ten, knees swinging off the bench of a plastic piano stool, toes barely brushing the floor. The lesson room smelled like lemon cleaner and cheap varnish; sunlight fell through the blinds in hard bars across the upright, catching dust like something alive.
Mrs. Cartwright’s hands were quick, precise—her wrists like the metronome she kept on the music rack. When Steve’s fingers stumbled over the measure, when the wrong note popped out like a hiccup, she stopped him with a quiet that made the room hold its breath. “Again,” she said. The metal ruler on her desk made a bright little sound when she tapped it. “And this time, pay attention.”
He tried again. His pad grew sweaty on the keys; the notes slid and eluded him. The ruler came down on his wrist then, sharp and smarting, a crack that lived under his skin. He flinched anyway. Mrs. Cartwright’s expression never softened. His mother sat in the plastic chair by the door, posture straight, lipstick perfect. She did not stand up. She did not take his side.
When his knuckle caught the edge of the key and Mrs. Cartwright snapped the ruler across it, the sting blooming white-hot, Steve felt something inside him press flat. Tears pooled, hot and immediate, right behind his eyes. It would have been the smallest thing in the world for them to fall; no one would have called it scandalous, no one would have written a note home about it. But he remembered, somewhere under the sound of the ruler, the shape of his father’s face when he frowned at fuss. He remembered being told to be steady, to take his medicine like a man.
So he swallowed it. He tightened his jaw until it hurt. He finished the measure, small and exact, while Mrs. Cartwright tutted and marked her page. His wrist throbbed; the skin would bruise by the afternoon. His mother stood as soon as the lesson ended, smile flat and approving, and Steve slid off the bench without a sound, fingers stiff.
On the walk home he clutched his backpack so hard the straps bit into his shoulders. He kept his face blank for the neighbors’ windows and the mailman and the boy on the stoop who wanted to trade marbles. The tears that had wanted to fall stayed behind his eyes, patient and quiet.
The second time Steve didn't cry, he learned that some hurts were not to be shown, that pain could be folded in and carried like a secret. He learned how to make his face a lid.
—
The third time Steve didn’t cry, he was fourteen, standing in the kitchen with a graded essay clenched in his fist. Red pen bled across the page—F. See me after class. He’d handed it to his father like a confession, and for the first time, the cuff hadn’t been to the back of the head. It was a slap, sharp and ringing, that split his lip against his teeth. His eyes stung, tears pooling hot and ready, but he swallowed them down. He told himself it was just the pain, not weakness. He told himself his father was right—that Harrington boys didn’t cry. He smiled at his mother when she glanced up from her wine glass, lip bleeding. She didn’t ask.
—
The fourth time Steve didn’t cry, it was Nancy Wheeler’s voice in his ear, slurred but final: It’s bullshit. You’re bullshit. They were in his bathroom, the smell of beer and weed clinging to everything, the sound of the party raging outside. She didn’t even look sorry. He felt his chest hollow out like someone had reached inside and scooped it clean. His throat tightened, but no tears came. He only nodded, let her leave. Later, alone in his bed, he stared at a crack in the ceiling and clenched his teeth until he felt like he could take a breath without breaking. The tears stayed where they were, locked away.
—
The fifth time Steve didn’t cry, it was spring of senior year. Thin envelopes arrived from every college he’d applied to, one after the other, until the pile was nothing but rejection. He sat at his desk, hands limp in his lap, staring at the letters like they were written in another language. The house was quiet, his parents away on some trip, and there was no one there to see it if he broke. But he didn’t. He tore the envelopes in half, then into quarters, then into shreds so small they could almost be confetti. He told himself it was funny, even laughed once, sharp and hollow in the empty house. His chest burned, his eyes ached, but still—nothing.
Harrington boys didn’t cry, after all.
—
The fifth time Steve Harrington cried, he was sitting on the cold tile of a mall bathroom floor with Robin Buckley’s hand in his. His whole body was trembling, skin clammy with drugged sweat, teeth aching from clenched jaws. The world was spinning, smeared neon and blood, but Robin’s voice cut through it: low, hoarse, achingly real. I’m not like you, Steve. He’d laughed at first, because of course he had, but then the words came tumbling out, hers and his, tangled confessions they’d both been holding too long. And when she squeezed his hand, really squeezed it, something cracked loose in his chest. He bent forward until his forehead touched his knees, and the tears came fast, messy, unstoppable. Robin only leaned closer, shoulder to shoulder, and didn’t let go.
The fifth time Steve Harrington cried, it was because someone finally saw him and didn’t turn away.
—
The sixth time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, the house was already dark when he came home. His parents were supposed to be back—he’d even bought groceries, shoved beer in the fridge he thought his dad might drink. He’d vacuumed the living room. He’d told himself it would matter. But the hours ticked by, and no one came through the door. The next morning, there was a note in his father’s handwriting on the counter. Just a line: Business trip. Don’t wait up. But Steve wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t fourteen anymore. He knew what it meant, really. No dates. No return. Just absence dressed up like an excuse. He sat at the kitchen table until the coffee went cold in front of him, eyes fixed on the grain of the wood on the unnervingly quiet dining table, waiting for tears that never came. His chest hurt, but he couldn’t crack. Wouldn’t crack. He pushed the mug aside, cleared the table, and drove to work like nothing had happened.
The fifth time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, it was because there was nobody left to hear him if he did.
—
The sixth time Steve Harrington cried, it was in his own goddamn car, parked two streets over from the Wheeler house, hands gripping the steering wheel like it might float him if he let go. The night air still smelled like smoke, like sulfur, like something hell had left behind—but everyone was alive. The kids were alive. Eddie was alive.
Eddie, who had grabbed him after the dust settled, laughing too loud and wild, eyes fever-bright, and kissed him like victory. Just once, quick and messy, their mouths colliding with the force of everything they hadn’t said. Steve had kissed back, just for a second, before the noise of it all—relief, joy, confusion—swallowed him whole.
Now the kiss was replaying on an endless loop in his head, over and over until his chest hurt. Until he couldn’t breathe. His throat felt raw, his pulse too fast. Because it wasn’t just the kiss, not really. It was the truth underneath it: that he’d wanted it, that some part of him had wanted it for a long time, and wanting it meant something.
He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel, breath coming quick and shallow. What the hell is wrong with me? His father’s voice answered in the back of his skull: Crying’s for women. Pull yourself together. Don’t be such a fool. But the words didn’t hold anymore. Not against the tide swelling up inside him.
The tears came hot, blurring the dashboard lights, dripping onto his jeans. Not grief this time, not even anger—something messier, sharper. Shame tangled with longing, terror knotted with the echo of Eddie’s mouth on his. He tried to swallow it back, tried to force himself quiet, but the sobs tore out of him, ugly and unstoppable, until he hated himself for how loud they were. He pressed both hands over his mouth like a kid hiding from monsters, but it didn’t matter. He was already too far gone.
That’s how Robin found him. She tapped on the passenger-side window first, soft, like she wasn’t sure if she should intrude. When he didn’t move, she opened the door anyway and slid inside, the smell of smoke and sweat clinging to both of them.
Steve turned his face away, swiping at his cheeks furiously. “Don’t,” he rasped, voice shredded. “Don’t look at me. I’m fine.”
Robin didn’t say anything at first. She just leaned back against the seat, eyes shining in the glow of the dash. “Yeah,” she whispered after a moment, voice trembling. “Me too.”
And then—God help him—she started crying too. Quiet at first, then louder, shoulders shaking as she laughed a little through it, like it was ridiculous, like they were both ridiculous. Steve stared at her, stunned, until something in his chest cracked wider. Because if Robin could cry, then maybe he wasn’t so pathetic after all.
So he let it come. He cried until his throat ached, until the windows fogged with their breath, until the sound of their sobbing blurred together and it was impossible to tell whose grief was whose.
The sixth time Steve Harrington cried, Robin cried too. And for the first time, it didn’t feel like weakness. It felt like being human. The car went quiet again eventually, both of them hiccuping through the last of it, the kind of silence that felt like ringing in the ears after a concert. Steve scrubbed at his face one more time, raw and puffy, and let his head thump back against the seat.
“Robs,” he croaked, his voice shredded from crying.
Robin groaned, dragging her sleeve across her nose. “Oh my God, please don’t tell me you’re about to confess to me again. I can’t handle a repeat performance right now.”
A weak laugh puffed out of Steve, but it died quick. He stared down at his hands in his lap, fingers twisting so hard he thought he might draw blood from his own palms if he didn’t stop. “No. I just…” He swallowed, throat working like the words might choke him on the way out. “I think I might not be straight.”
The silence after was suffocating. Steve felt it press against him from every direction, heavier than any of his dad’s stares, heavier than the casket lid when he was eight. His chest tightened and he wanted to take it back, shove it back down where it belonged, laugh it off as some messed-up joke—
But then Robin made this strangled little sound, half-gasp, half-laugh, and clapped both hands over her face. “Oh my God,” she whispered, peeking at him through her fingers. “Are you—are you serious? You’re telling me this now?”
Steve’s heart slammed so hard he thought it might bruise his ribs. “…Yeah?”
Robin let out a sound that was way too close to a sob to be just laughter. “Steve. Steve Harrington. You cannot just—God, you can’t just sit there and casually join my club after two years of me being the token gay!”
That startled a laugh out of him, shaky but real, and something in his chest finally unclenched.
—
The seventh time Steve Harrington cried, the gym was strung up with crepe paper and paper stars, folding chairs lined in crooked rows. It smelled like floor wax and sweat and Sharpie ink. Robin’s mortarboard sat crooked on her head, tassel swishing into her eyes, and Eddie’s gown had already lost two buttons where he’d torn at it in impatience. They looked ridiculous and radiant, side by side in the line of graduates.
Steve clapped until his palms burned when their names were called, throat sore from shouting loud enough to echo. Robin shot him a look that meant stop embarrassing me but her smile broke through anyway, wide and crooked. Eddie bowed with all the theatrics of a man collecting an Oscar.
Steve laughed. He really did. He cheered until his voice cracked. And then, when they turned to wave at the crowd—at him, at their parents, at their uncle—something inside him slipped loose.
Because he remembered his own graduation. The empty seats where his parents should’ve been. How he’d scanned the bleachers until his stomach dropped, until he forced himself to stop looking. How he’d walked across the stage to polite applause from strangers, diploma heavy in his hand, and nobody there to clap just for him.
The memory cut sharp. And before he could swallow it back down, his eyes burned, blurred. His vision doubled, the gym dissolving in heat. He blinked fast, swiped his sleeve across his face, the movement quick and practiced.
Robin and Eddie were beaming, alive, triumphant. This was their day, their moment. Steve clapped harder, cheered louder, pretended the tears on his face didn’t exist.
And he felt bad. Because it was supposed to be about them. Because he should have been nothing but happy, and he was happy, so happy he thought his chest might crack open. But the ache tangled through it anyway, ugly and selfish and his.
The seventh time Steve Harrington cried, he buried it under applause.
—
The seventh time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, his house felt like someone else’s idea of a home — all polished surfaces and the faint perfume of a life lived in meetings and airplanes. His parents hadn’t set foot in Hawkins for over a year; their absence had become a kind of furniture, something he’d stopped noticing.
When the phone rang that morning, he almost didn’t answer it. His mother’s voice came thin and tinny down the long-distance line, formal as always. “Steven. Your father and I have discussed it. If you insist on wasting time on athletics and—what is it now—part-time retail nonsense, then you are on your own. We can’t have that reflect on the family.”
His father’s voice cut in for the rest, brisk and bored, like dictation for a secretary: If you leave, don’t expect to come back. Don’t try to call. Long-distance expenses are too high. And then the line went dead. No pause. No space for him to reply.
So he didn’t.
Steve stood in the doorway of his bedroom with the dial tone buzzing in his ear, duffel at his feet, the stale scent of his teenage years around him. He moved through the room with the calm of someone who had rehearsed leaving in private a thousand nights over — a baseball glove, the jacket he’d worn to every home game, a few shirts, one battered mixtape, the photograph of Grandpa Louie with his crooked grin. That was all he wanted and all he needed. He folded the photograph last, tucking it safe next to the picture of him and his kids in his wallet.
He left the house with the duffel slung over one shoulder, the front door clicking shut behind him like punctuation. No theatrics. No dramatic sobbing for the neighbors to witness. The street was ordinary: a dog barking, the hum of a lawnmower down the block, sunlight slanting off the hood of a parked car. He shouldered the small weight and walked.
Part of him was hollowed out, sure. Part of him felt knifed. But another part — a bright, ridiculous part he’d barely let breathe in years — felt oddly light, as if air had been cleaved and more of it was finally getting in. He didn’t cry. He didn’t feel bad. He felt, for the first time in a long time, like he could choose which way to walk.
The seventh time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, the call ended, the house door shut behind him, and he didn’t look back.
—
The eighth time Steve Harrington cried, the room still smelled like sweat and candle wax. Sheets tangled around his hips, cooling too quickly without the press of another body. Eddie’s laugh — breathless, reckless, so alive — still hung in his ears like smoke, except the man himself was already gone.
It hadn’t been quiet. Eddie had half-tripped pulling on his jeans, muttering something sharp and nervous about “this was a bad idea, Harrington, you don’t know what you’re doing” before slamming the door. The echo rattled the picture frames on Steve’s dresser.
For a long time, Steve just sat there, hand pressed to the hollow space Eddie’s weight had left in the mattress. He told himself he’d misread it, that it had been nothing more than curiosity for Eddie and nothing more than… a first-time thrill for him. That it didn’t matter. He was good at telling himself stories.
But the tears came anyway, hot and fast, sliding into the corner of his mouth before he could stop them. He turned his face into the pillow, ashamed of how quickly the dam broke, how stupid it was to be this wrecked after one night. After all, wasn’t this what people always assumed of him? Harrington, the experimenter. Harrington, trying on lovers like coats. Harrington, proving Eddie right without saying a word.
His chest ached like someone had unstitched him, thread by thread. The sound that tore out of him was muffled, almost unrecognizable, half-laugh, half-sob. He clutched the sheets tighter, knuckles white, as if he could wring Eddie back out of the cotton.
The eighth time Steve Harrington cried, no one was there to see it. No one was there to tell him he wasn’t just an experiment. No one but the empty room, and the stubborn beat of his own heart insisting he’d wanted more.
—
The eighth time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, it was over something that should have cracked him open.
He was standing in the freezer aisle of Melvald’s, clutching a carton of eggs in one hand and debating between two different brands of cereal in the other. His cart was half-full of the boring, responsible things he never thought he’d buy — detergent, bread, dish soap, canned beans — when he felt eyes on him.
He turned his head and there she was. His mother. Mrs. Harrington, pearls and pressed blouse even in the middle of Hawkins’ grocery store, a loaf of bread and a bottle of Chardonnay in her cart.
Their eyes locked across the aisle. For a split second, Steve waited for the punch of it — the sudden rush of missing her, or the ache of anger, or the sting of betrayal. Something. Anything.
But nothing came. Not even hate.
She didn’t smile. He didn’t nod. They stood there, two strangers with matching cheekbones and the same slant of eyebrows, until Steve shifted his grip on the cereal box and looked away. The moment collapsed with the sound of a cart wheel squeaking and the low hum of the freezer behind him.
He dropped the eggs into his cart, grabbed the cereal at random, and kept walking. His throat didn’t tighten. His chest didn’t cave. There was no well of grief left to draw from. Just the sterile brightness of the store and the knowledge that he didn’t owe her even the courtesy of a glance back.
The eighth time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, he passed his mother in the grocery store and felt nothing at all.
—
The ninth time Steve Harrington cried, it was over eighty-eight keys.
The piano in the Wheeler basement was a little out of tune, one leg propped up with a stack of mismatched books, but the keys were still smooth under his hands. Dustin had dared him to try—some throwaway comment about how he probably didn’t even know what middle C was. Steve had rolled his eyes and sat down, just to prove him wrong.
And then his fingers remembered. Muscle memory from years ago, dredged up like some artifact he didn’t even know was buried.
He played.
Not the clunky scales Mrs. Cartwright had drilled into his knuckles with a ruler, but the one piece he’d gotten right. The one he’d played for his mom, his dad, and Grandpa Louie when he was nine—maybe a month before Louie had died. He could still see it: granddad’s proud smile, Mom’s polite little clap, Dad’s perfunctory ruffle of his hair—the only real affection he’d ever given him.
He blinked, and the basement dissolved back into now: Robin’s mouth hanging open, Eddie looking like someone had brained him with his own guitar, Nancy’s eyes wide, Jonathan leaning forward like he was trying to see a different version of Steve, the kids all gaping like he’d just sprouted a second head.
And the keys—there were clear drops on the ivory. Teardrops. His teardrops. He hadn’t even felt them fall.
Steve sniffed hard, dragging a sleeve across his face and forcing a grin. “What? Henderson, I don’t just hit shit with my bat. I have hobbies.”
The kids groaned at the joke and Steve felt the tension dissolve, but Eddie… Eddie just stared. Like Steve had cracked open some hidden chest in the middle of the room and let everyone peek inside.
Steve swallowed. Rubbed harder at his eyes, until they were red from the friction. He shoved the well of old memory and newer ache back down, forced it under the surface where it belonged.
The ninth time Steve Harrington cried, the tears fell soundless onto ivory and Eddie Munson watched.
—
The ninth time Steve Harrington didn’t cry, it was at his father’s funeral.
The casket was polished mahogany, brass fittings gleaming under the too-bright lights. They’d rouged his father’s face, too—just like Grandpa Louie’s all those years ago. Only this time, Steve didn’t feel that sting of recognition, that hollow ache of losing someone who’d mattered. This time, the face in the box looked like a stranger, and maybe it always had.
He stood the way he had at nine-and-a-half years old, shoulders square, jaw tight, staring at anything but the body in front of him. The preacher’s words blurred together, just as meaningless now as they had been then. But where once he’d fought tears until his mouth bled copper, now there was nothing to fight at all. No heat behind his eyes. No pressure in his throat.
The only weight pressing on him was memory: a cuff to the back of the head, a slap, a voice saying Harrington boys don’t cry.
When the service was over, he followed the crowd to the cemetery. The dirt was fresh, the earth raw, just like it had been with Louie. Only this time, no one watched too closely.
Steve stepped forward. Looked down at the grave. Tried to summon grief, or anger, or anything. All he felt was the sharp bite of the wind against his face.
So he spat. A single drop of it, soaking into the soil where his father would stay forever.
Then he straightened, the same way he had at nine-and-a-half, and walked away.
—
Steve sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, tile cooling his palms, the rising sun slicing through the blinds in gold bars. Eddie’s music resonated from the living room, and somewhere between his partner scream-singing fucking Metallica at 9:00 in the morning and the grout in the tiles that Steve was supposed to be scrubbing, he felt it—the little pull in his chest that had been waiting years to unclench.
He pressed a palm to his face, blinked once, and the tears came—slow, steady, ridiculous, unstoppable—and then Eddie was there, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle and resting his head gently on his shaking shoulders.
“Alright?” he asked, and Steve could feel the gentle smile in Eddie’s voice as his partner pressed a small kiss to his neck.
Steve nodded. Then sniffed.
He didn’t know what number it would be.
He’d decided, a long time ago, that it didn’t matter so much.