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The thing was, Steve was expecting this call to be from Robin.
Ever since he’d switched the tv on this morning, he’d been waiting for it in fact.
So when his Nokia started up, he was lunging for it over his open suitcase, jamming his thumb into the accept call button before the third beat of Kicks could ring out and wedging it between his shoulder and ear while he continued packing his things.
The call connects. Steve can hear an intake of breath on the other side and the garbled nonsense of cars and passersby in the background.
He doesn’t know what to say really. Congratulations, obviously. Or not, because it still feels so uncertain. Not uncertain bad, probably, but too good to be true almost. Though it is most certainly true and most certainly good. He double checked on Google once his computer booted up. It feels like a lot. A big step in the right direction. But also not enough. But enough for now.
“Hey!”
It comes out louder than Steve expects it to, manically preppy for this early in the day, but he still doesn’t know what else to say. It’s unlike Robin not to immediately launch into a million things.
It’s a strange day though. There’s a buzz under Steve’s skin and it’s like he can feel it through the phone too. It’s the same energy that’s been driving him to get his shit together the last 30 minutes.
The breath on the other side of the call holds for a long moment, before it comes out in one big woosh, words spilling out alongside it.
“Haveyouseenthenews?”
The words are deeper than he expected.
They don’t have the rasp he’s so familiar with from decades of best friendship.
Steve stops balling up his briefs to squish into his suitcase and finally checks the caller ID on the phone screen.
Byers (The Younger)
“Will?” he asks incredulously.
When the reply comes a breath or two later, there’s a wobble to it that Steve hasn’t heard since they were all teenagers.
“Yeah, it’s me.” There’s another pause. “So have you? Seen the news?”
Steve isn’t going to pretend he doesn’t know what Will’s talking about. He knows how important this must be to him. As much as it is to Robin for sure. In fact, he’s surprised they haven’t rung each other.
Why is Will ringing Steve, of all people?
“About Massachusetts? Yeah, I heard.”
Will makes an aborted sound that gets drowned out by the honk of a bus on his end.
“Are you-“ Steve starts, but finds himself struggling too. His quiet suburban house doesn’t have the excuse of background noise for his hesitation though. “How are you feeling?” He asks quietly.
“Scared.” He sounds so earnest. Steve can visualise Will’s big eyes being all shimmery in that way they do when he’s just about clinging to the sane side of overwhelmed. “It doesn’t feel real. Like they’ll rip it away any second.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s silly. I didn’t think I cared for any of it until… well.”
“Yeah, man.”
Steve continues packing with renewed vigour, flicking through his tie collection and wondering if any are special enough for the occasion.
He’s spoken to Will a few times a year pretty much every year since the Upside Down shitstorm of their traumatic youth. Unavoidable given Will and Robin became nearly as close as Steve and Robin are since that final push against Vecna in ‘87. They all meet up, sometimes with the others, especially Jonathan and Nancy for their monthly meetups, but mostly it’s when Robin and Steve head up to Chicago to see an exhibition Will has on, or when Steve goes to Robin and Nance’s over in Boston and Will is already there, the lot of them dragging him out to museums, parks or queer clubs.
So it's not out of character for Will to call him.
They check up on each other, just like Steve checks in on the other kids. Even though they’re all decidedly not kids anymore. Some have their own kids now, and isn’t that trippy? Steve ignores the way his chest squeezes at that. The kids he coaches at Hawkins High are enough for him.
His occasional phone calls with Will however tend to feel different. Will talks to him like they’re in the same room, leaning close on the sofa to be heard over Robin’s snoring and the scratch of Nancy’s pencil. There’s a presence to him that defies distance. Draws Steve in in a way that Dustin’s loud science mumbo jumbo or Mike’s frustrated novel plotting (when he wanted to idiot proof his storylines by seeing if Steve was suitably wowed by all the twists) just don’t.
“Have you called the others? Robin, Max,… Mike?” he asks, spinning to the mirror to remind himself of how the red paisley tie looks next to his burgeoning tan this year. Maybe the blue?
“No. I wanted to wait to see… well- I had something to ask you first, Steve.”
Steve lowers the ties. The light is warm coming through his bedroom window. He’s hoping to be gone before it gets uncomfortable, but there’s something feverish that’s struck him since earlier. He feels too hot but his hairs are on end. It crackles through Will’s voice.
This day just has energy. It’s electric.
“If you want a ride to Massachusetts, Will, I’m more than happy to give you and your guy one. I’m waiting on a call from Robin since I heard about it all. I’ve got Best Man written in my bones, I’m telling you. Being Dustin’s has given me the itch. There’s no way I’m missing out on this if Rob and Nance decide to tie the knot.”
“There isn’t a guy, Steve. Hasn’t been for a while actually.”
Steve is staring at his half-packed suitcase, but his eyes aren’t really seeing any of it. He really ought to get his glasses out, he knows they’re beside the key bowl at his front door, but that’s beside the point. He feels his hands moving, but they’ve been running through the collection of ties mindlessly, letting the silk grain tickle his palms.
“Oh? You could have told us, we could have met up to chat shit about him or something. You’re welcome to come along anyway, you know? Robin would probably love you to be there if they are planning to take this chance. Now that they’ve got the go ahead. Legally or whatever. Not that that would have stopped Nance if she wanted it. Somehow. You know what I mean.”
His mouth is moving at a speed he’s only ever witnessed Robin getting to when they discovered Monster energy drinks to get them through the last New Year’s Eve. He can’t believe they’re both not 40 yet with the way their bedtimes are creeping backwards. Will ribs them about it constantly.
It really is strange that Will is calling Steve first, of all people.
“Steve. Let me ask already.” Amusement is trickling through the nerves in Will’s voice. The line thunders with what might be a passing lorry or taxi cutting by fast. A dog barks.
“It’s like you said, actually,” Will says soft but strongly. “You are the Best Man. That’s kind of why I called.”
Steve wonders if it’s normal to feel your heart in your throat like this. Perhaps he’s coming down with something? He rather hopes not since he’d hate to pass it to his friends on such an important occasion. He dives for his bedside table where last nights water sits and sips. It tastes stale but so good for whatever state he’s in. While the water is room temperature, the glass itself feels cool against his forehead too.
“There isn’t a guy,” Will is repeating his earlier statement. “But I’d like there to be. I want to go to Massachusetts. Today. Of course to see Robin and Nancy if they’re having a ceremony… but also for myself. And well, my first thought when I saw the news this morning was of you, Steve.
“So the question, the big one;
“Will you marry me?”
It strikes him like a bolt and Steve finds himself lit up in the current.
It’s the first time he’s heard those words directed at him.
He remembers them reverberating in his own ears while he’s saying them. A frankly depressing amount of times, if he’s being brutally honest. To Janna. To Rachel. To Robin that drunken time he learnt what a lavender marriage was and could only see the fun and financially positive side to marrying your best friend. To Alice.
To Sophie.
That one had really stung, especially after what they went through with the IVF.
He keeps telling himself to keep going, keep dating, connect with people. That there’s a soulmate out there looking for him. That any of these ladies (and again if he’s being honest, the occasional handsome guy at Pride that shares a lingering glance with him) will see him, properly, and love him, build a life and home with him.
But hope is so hard to hold onto when it’s thrown back at you so often.
“What?” Steve says. “Could you err… be kind and rewind?”
He’s lost control of his face, because usually he’d be wincing at the old reference. He’s surprised he even moved his jaw around to form words at all.
Will, as ever, is patient with him.
“Will you marry me?”
“I- why me?”
A hum rumbles across the line, and it’s all Will. No background traffic breaches Steve’s focus on him.
Steve realises he’s sunk down to hunch seated on his bedsheets amongst the mess of his clean laundry.
“You make me so happy.”
Will says it so simply.
“And you understand me, or try to. Always. I feel so… grounded when we hang out or talk, but you can also light me up, just like a kind of-”
“Electricity,” Steve finishes for him.
“Yeah,” Will whispers. His voice is thick, honeyed with the tears Steve can tell are starting to shine across his vision. Or maybe that’s his own eyes getting wetter with each blink. “I wanted to ask you in person, but the bus to Indianapolis was late and then cancelled, and then I thought about it and worried you might have left already for Robin’s, so I had to ring you. As soon as possible. Just in case there was even the slightest possibility you’d say yes.”
A sniffle. Steve tilts his head back, eyes closed now.
“It’s- there’s no obligation to say yes, of course. It doesn’t have to change anything; I’ve dealt with this before. You’re one of my best friends. I want you in my life forever, however. I just- I think we’d make each other happy, Steve. We’d work it out, found a family of our own. It wouldn’t be legally binding everywhere, not for a while, or perhaps ever, but it would matter to us, to me. It could be everything.”
By the end of it, Will sounds strong again.
Steve has always admired how Will can push through emotions that shake him until he’s steady in the eye of their storm. Steve usually feels the opposite. Like once he senses the winds of anything big, confusing and possibly negative tug at him, he immediately starts running the other way before it can lift him into the air.
Will. Steve. A family.
He runs a hand down his face. Wipes it on the leg of his jeans and sucks in a fortifying breath.
“Are you sure, Will?”
“Sure? I’m certain.”
“I just- I don’t think I’ll be able to do this again, Will. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, I’m not even forty yet. I mean, people get together at all ages, like your parents did, but- There’s just been so many times it hasn’t worked out for me. I’m so tired, Will. And-“ he chokes on the word but it gets past his tongue, “lonely. And today is kind of huge, generally. I understand the rush. Really, I do, I feel it. I’ve been frantically packing for the last half hour, and just feeling so…so … I can’t describe it-“
“Yeah!” Will says wetly. “I- same.”
“Of course! Of course you get it. And the family thing, that’s big. You know what I want, I’ve talked your ear off enough about-“
“Six nuggets, right? Would you compromise for three kids and a dog?”
“That’s two dogs and a cat, if you’re lowering me to three nuggets, Byers. Sure I can’t persuade you to four?”
Will is solemn in his reply. “Three is a good number for a set of siblings, I think. We can adopt some so they can stay together, you know?”
They’re both thinking of her. Of everything.
“Three, two, one it is. Um… so I just- I want to know that you’re all in. No regrets. Because I’m all in. If you are.”
The laugh that reaches Steve through his stupid Nokia brick is so lovely with relief.
“Was my big speech not enough for you? I’m so in. And not just today.”
Will’s voice lowers and Steve can’t believe he’s registering it as coy, but it’s definitely coy. There’s been so many times Will’s sounded like this in their conversations, and it’s only dawning on him in this beautiful silver-lined hindsight.
“I’ve actually been thinking about you for a while now.”
It’s like Steve can see Will in front of him, blinking slow and so goddamn earnest, with that smile pulling his lips apart just so in his best smile. He’s seen Will turn that look on so many guys over the years, but Will wants it to be Steve’s.
Steve wants it to be Steve’s.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They stay in that moment for a long beat.
Electric.
It sparks brighter as Steve slaps his thigh with his free hand and gets back to his feet. He starts shoving the last of his items in his suitcase.
“Well, we better get on the road then, hey? Assuming all that ruckus behind you is the bus station and that you have all your stuff, is there one heading to Fort Wayne soon? I can pick you up there instead of you coming all the way to Indy and onwards.”
“Ruckus?” Will teases. “Not even forty my ass.”
“Hey! Surely, you’re too old to use ‘my ass’ as an insult.”
“Thirty-three is a perfectly ass appropriate age, thank you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Steve is blushing hot, happy and embarrassed in the best way. He’s got the bag zipped up, does a final check of his room, the house. “Buses, babe?”
He’s expecting friction on that one too, but Will makes a cute little pleased sound that he tries to play off by clearing his throat. Steve catches and stores that to fuel him on his journey.
“I’m at the board. It’s… oh my god! There’s one in 20 minutes!”
“Get to it, Will. I’ll be waiting.”
Will doesn’t hang up.
Neither does Steve.
“We’re doing this.”
“Yeah, we are.”
“What a day.”
“Yeah.”
Steve’s phone starts buzzing against his ear. He checks it reluctantly but perks up again.
An incoming call from Robin.
“Robin’s calling, is it cool that I tell her now?”
“Of course. If she’s ringing with the news we think she is, someone’s got to inform her she’ll be attending a double wedding.”
Steve’s eyes widen.
“Double wedding,” he whispers awestruck. Will laughs and Steve is desperate to hear it in person again. Three and a half hours is entirely too long without it.
He remembers that Will left some CDs in his car along with Robin’s collection in the multi-case he keeps in the glove compartment. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough for now.
Three and a half hours verses a lifetime isn’t so bad.
“Bye, Steve. See you soon.”
The chattering in the background of the call is louder, and Steve can hear the street sounds once more. He must be near the ticket office.
“See you soon, babe.”
After bringing himself to hit the end call button, the silence of the house echoes in his ears.
It doesn’t feel tight or oppressive like it did this morning. Like it has done for the last couple years.
Steve breathes.
He’s getting married. To Will Byers. In Massachusetts.
When Robin calls again, he picks up immediately. One note of Kicks in this time.
“Steve, have you seen the news? You need to be over here yesterday already. Nancy got me the shiniest, most dangerous looking rock I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful. You need to be my Best Man, so we’ll wait for you to get here, but hurry up, for the love of the gays, Steven, honestly. And have you heard from Will? He wouldn’t pick up either. He should be here too.”
Beaming, Steve picks up his house and car keys from the bowl, pockets his glasses, and locks the door behind him.
“Robin! I was just about to call you. Turns out I need a Best Man too…”
His ears are still ringing with Robin’s excited shrieking as he drives past the Hawkins sign ten minutes later, art rock tunes filling his car with memories of long drives and a promise of his future.