Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Joyce Byers didn’t have the best reputation. In a small, conservative town like Hawkins, a witch could probably expect that.

Steve knew her pretty well, though. Beyond just her reputation. Enough to see that all that stuff about her was bullshit.

Her youngest was starting to age out of needing a babysitter, but he still asked for rides to school when his mom and brother were both busy. Between those two odd jobs, he’d understood that, underneath the stress of being a single mother (and trying to keep her craft a rumor rather than a known fact) making her look half-mad at times, Joyce was perhaps the most loving person Steve had ever met. She could bake, but couldn’t cook a thing that didn’t come out of the oven with a flaky crust. She knew roughly as much about technology as Steve did, which was to say none at all, but she was emphatically supportive of her sons’ love of cameras and radio equipment. She worked her ass off at a struggling general store to support her kids, she treated any lost soul in Hawkins who found their way to her doorstep as one of her own, and she suffered from a steadily-worsening case of arthritis.

Mostly in her hands. Steve was pretty sure she took something for it, but he still saw her fingers curled into painful-looking claws more than once, and he worried about her when he saw her doing anything that looked like it could make the pain worse.

For instance, weeding her herb garden.

Steve frowned through the window of his car, eyeing Joyce’s front yard. He drove by her house on the way home from Family Video sometimes—just to switch up the route when he got bored—and it wasn’t out of the ordinary to find her kneeling at the edge, thoughtfully choosing the components of her spells. This was more fervent.

“Hey!” Steve stuck his head out through the window, grabbing Joyce’s attention. “Do you want a hand with that?”

Joyce lifted her head to look at Steve, squinting against the sun. “Didn’t you just get off work?” She laughed cheerfully. “I wouldn’t want to wear you out!”

“I’m bored,” assured Steve. And there was truth in that. “Come on. Let me kill some time.”

Joyce looked from Steve to the flowers and shrugged, huffing a submissive laugh. “All right! If you insist!”

Steve pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine before hopping out and joining Joyce at the edge of her flowerbed.

“All right, give me those gloves,” said Steve, holding his hand out. “You’re going to need to tell me which ones are weeds and which ones are supposed to be there, but I can do all the ripping.”

Joyce slipped the gardening gloves off her hands cautiously. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” Steve cheerfully tugged the pink-and-turquoise gloves on his hands. “So what are we looking for?”

“Well, the big problem is lambsquarters.” Joyce held up a triangular leaf from the pile she’d already plucked out. “I’ve been putting off weeding for the past week and they’ve really gotten out of hand.”

“Gotcha.” Steve squinted at the leaf, just long enough to get a good idea of what he was looking for, then scanned the flowerbed for something that looked similar. “Like this?” He lifted up a comparable leaf.

“That’s it,” said Joyce cheerfully.

Steve ripped it out and started looking for more.

In the corner of his eye, he caught Joyce rubbing her knuckles. Steve didn’t know what arthritis felt like, but he imagined it was something like the way he felt in high school at the end of writing out an entire essay by hand, but all the time. He couldn’t imagine trying to do lawn work like that. “Why don’t you, you know, magic your pain away?”

“Oh, I do,” said Joyce, pulling a tiny glass jar on a chain out from under her collar with a thumb. It seemed to be filled some of the herbs from the very garden Steve was tending to. “I do, but it’s a treatment, not a cure. Between this and the bottle in my bedside table, I can do most things. Without it, I don’t think I could move my hands.”

“Ouch.” Steve winced sympathetically as he worked. “So the magic only goes halfway? What, is that a rule, or…?”

“It’s the extent of what one witch can do,” said Joyce. “If I had a full coven, then maybe I could do more, but…”

“But you’re the only witch in Hawkins, right?”

“Not entirely,” said Joyce. “Will has a little spark of magic in him, and so does one of his friends. El.”

“El?” That was a surprise, but Steve supposed he could see it. She always did stand out.

“Yes, but they’re still children,” said Joyce. “And the kind of spell I need to manage the pain is something I have to do every morning. Nothing is going to make it go away forever, and I’m not going to ask them to do something like that for me every day. That would be ridiculous.”

Steve hummed thoughtfully. The kids probably would give Joyce any help she asked for, but if she felt that bad about asking them, the guilt would make her life harder. Steve could sympathize with that. “Okay, well… With Robin in college and Eddie rehearsing for his gigs half the time, I spend a lot of my time bored. If you ever need an extra hand, and I’m not at work, I’d be happy to help.”

“Eddie,” said Joyce thoughtfully. “Is that Eddie Munson? The boy who plays that Dragons game with Will and all his friends?”

“That’s the guy,” said Steve, yanking another weed free. “But I wouldn’t call him a boy.” Not the way Joyce said it, anyway. Like child. “He’s my age. That’s like saying I’m just a boy.”

“Oh, honey.” Joyce’s hand came up to hold Steve’s cheek. “You are just a boy.”

Joyce, it seemed, had taken Steve’s offer seriously, and by the following Tuesday, Steve found himself untying a rowboat from the edge of Charleston Lake. “What’s on this island, anyway?” asked Steve, squinting out into the water where a vegetative dome rose out of the center, its shore maybe half a mile away.

“Wild herbs,” said Joyce. “I have my garden, but I only have so much room in my front yard. That’s where I put the high-maintenance herbs, things I can raise on my own but require a little more TLC. For native plants, the forest out on that water is the place my family’s been relying on for generations.”

“Huh.” Steve undid the last of the knot keeping Joyce’s boat tied to the old, dilapidated dock and gestured for her to climb inside before joining her and grabbing the oars. “So you know what you’re looking for? You don’t need, like, a book or something?”

“Nah.” Joyce smiled, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive. I haven’t needed help finding what I’ve been looking for since I was a little girl.”

“That’s…” Steve raised his eyebrows. “That’s actually really cool. I used to do Boy Scouts— Well. My dad made me. Had to know what local plants were for one of the badges. That was a long time ago, so I think any knowledge I got from that is gone, but I remember liking it a lot. It was like those ‘spot the difference’ puzzles on the backs of cereal boxes, but just…out in the world.”

“You’d make a good witch,” said Joyce pleasantly.

Steve laughed. “Not if I can’t keep any of it in my head.”

“You’d get used to it,” assured Joyce. “If you stick with it long enough, it’s like breathing.”

“Mm.” Steve stole a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were still headed in the right direction. “What’s it like, anyway? Just having a solution for everything right off the top of your head?”

“It’s not a solution,” said Joyce. “More like…a nudge. A helping hand. Like your son’s babysitter offering to help you pick herbs.”

Steve smiled.

“But I know what you mean,” continued Joyce. “It’s nice to have at least some idea of what to do when things go wrong. Even if you have no idea what you can do. That’s why a lot of kids start out with wish magic.”

“Wish magic?”

“Mmhmm.” Joyce leaned back, hands curled loosely in her basket. “Special knots, charms made from herbs, runes carved into wax… Little things, things Will could do when he was ten. They aren’t the strongest magic, not when you do them alone, but they can make life a little easier. Maybe even give you a direction when you have no idea where to go? You just have to want a result, really badly. A wish can get you one step.”

“What’s stopping people from just making a whole bunch of wishes in a row?” asked Steve.

“Their own magic,” said Joyce. “I don’t know if you know anything about the game that Will and his friends play…?”

Steve pursed his lips and shook his head.

“No, I didn’t think so.” Joyce laughed warmly. “But apparently, if you’re a…a spellcasting class in that game, you can only cast so many spells a day, and then you have to rest. Real magic is like that, too. It’s like you get…spiritually tired. You don’t feel it, there’s no muscle to get sore or anything, but you just sort of…push your luck too far and you can’t do anything else for the rest of the day.”

“And one of the spells you cast every day always goes to your arthritis,” realized Steve.

Joyce shrugged. “That’s my lot in life. If something really bad happened, I might have to sacrifice that for my kids, but I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Steve nodded, eyes sliding to the water. He knew Joyce wasn’t just referring to Will and Jonathan when she said that, and he sympathized. He’d do the same, if he could. He’d do just about anything for those kids.

“Wish magic’s really easy, though,” said Joyce. “Even beginners can handle about one wish a day, and you can make them in advance, if you want. Carry a charm around with you just in case you need one on a day when you’ve already used your wish. Or if you want to give one to someone else, even someone without magic at all. It’s easy enough to make a stronger wish, too, if you want it. All you have to do is make sure the person who finishes the charm is the one making the wish.”

Steve frowned. He could think of a few things he could have used some help on. Passing all his classes in senior year. Saving his relationship with Nancy. But if he was still with Nancy, then Nancy wouldn’t have gotten together with Jonathan and, seeing as they stopped a kidnapping in 1983, Will Byers might not have been there. And Steve might not have met him or Dustin or any of the other kids.

“What if something’s just not meant to be?” asked Steve. “I mean, what if you—” He hesitated. “What if you make life worse for yourself?”

Joyce shrugged a shoulder. “You could ask that question about any choice you make. It’s not just magic that makes you wonder if things could have been different.”

Steve supposed there was truth in that, but… “What if— Okay, like, what if I wished a girl was into me? But say she was a lesbian, and I had no idea. Like, if she started liking me, even though she had never liked a guy before… That’d be kind of fucked up, right?”

“Magic can’t make the impossible possible,” said Joyce. “If it could, we’d see a lot of nine-year-olds walking around with wings and laser vision.”

Steve laughed quietly. He could just see Dustin Henderson with a pet dragon.

“But that doesn’t stop us from trying sometimes, if we’re really desperate.” Joyce averted her eyes, thoughtful, melancholy. “I wished, for a long time, that Lonnie would be a better father. But it never happened. It just made him…quieter, about what an asshole he was.” She shook her head, hair bouncing off her high cheekbones. “You can’t change someone’s nature. And that’s a good thing. It is. Because you’re right, it would be…fucked up if someone tried to change your friend Robin. Or my Will.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “But that hasn’t stopped me from wishing I could.”

“Well, fuck Lonnie,” said Steve. “He’s missing out. On a great wife and some pretty great kids.”

Joyce smiled, still pained, and leaned across the boat to pat Steve’s knee. She gave it a squeeze that felt like a hug and met Steve’s eyes with an expression he couldn’t quite place. But there was affection in it, that much he was sure of.

“You’re right,” she said warmly. “We are pretty great.”

They found the shore faster than Steve expected, and he pushed the boat safely onto the rocks before following Joyce into the trees. She told him about what she was looking for, describing flowers and the shapes of leaves, and he helped her with the snippers she brought in her basket, along with any roots she needed yanking out of the ground. Her basket was halfway full before the conversation returned to being about anything besides plants.

“So how did you meet Eddie?” asked Joyce, pushing through some thick vegetation in search of a certain kind of clover.

“The kids,” said Steve simply. “Y’know, I’m basically their chauffeur. When they wanted to go to their Dungeons and Dragons thing, I was the one wheeling them around. We started talking when I picked them up and…at some point, we started talking away from the kids, too.” He grabbed a strip of ivy hanging off a rocky wall and brought it to Joyce’s basket. “I thought he was weird at first. And, I mean, he is, but…good. Good weird.”

“Good,” echoed Joyce. “Weird is always good. Weird is… It’s real. Everyone’s at least a little weird. It all depends on how willing they are to show it.”

“Not everyone,” said Steve, who thought himself boring, who thought of Nancy calling him bullshit, fake, who thought of how little he’d changed since that day.

“Says the boy who’s functionally adopted…how many children at nineteen?” Joyce sent him a smile, a genuine one, not fake at all.

Steve’s hand hovered over Joyce’s basket, hesitating before dropping the ivy in.

Huh. Maybe he had gotten a little weird.

“Tell me something else,” said Joyce, dropping a few delicate clovers into the basket with his ivy. “How did the two of you start spending time together?”

Steve shrugged a shoulder. “Well… I told him I worked at Family Video. He told me he bet my movie taste sucked. He was right—” That got a laugh out of Joyce. “—and he offered to fix it. I offered my house for the night, made dinner, he brought a pack of cigarettes, and we wound up not even watching any of the movies we rented. We just…sat outside and talked. All night. I mean, all night. The sun came up, and I— I didn’t even feel tired. I mean, I had a shift to work that day, so I was exhausted by the time I got home, but… I didn’t even know someone who lived in such a different world could, y’know, captivate me like that.”

Joyce raised her eyebrows, an amused twinkle in her eye. She smiled, mouth open like there was a word on the tip of her tongue.

She didn’t even have to say it. “Am I that transparent?”

“Nah.” Joyce’s nose wrinkled again and she jubilantly turned around to occupy herself with finding another plant. “No, it’s just… The way you looked when you were talking about him, it’s something I’m used to seeing on Will’s face. When he talks about Mike.”

Steve groaned. That might as well have been a yes. “Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway. Like I said, we’re from two totally different worlds. He’s…a dungeon master rock star, and I’m Steve Harrington.”

“Uh-huh.” Joyce didn’t sound impressed. “Well… In my experience, you don’t usually get someone to talk to you until the sun rises unless there’s…mutual interest.” She bent her knees, delivering emphasis with the word “mutual”. “And if you’re friends, you can’t be as different as you think you are. There’s not that big of a gap between friend and friendlier. There’s just…attraction on top.”

“Yeah,” Steve mumbled. “Which I have and Eddie doesn’t.”

“Did he tell you that?” asked Joyce.

“No, but—”

“Then what makes you think he’s not attracted to you?” Joyce grunted a little as she yanked a plant free from the earth behind Steve’s back. “Or are you just assuming?”

Steve felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “I guess I’m just assuming. But so are you.”

“Ah, well…” Joyce’s hand on Steve’s shoulder nearly made him drop the snippers in his hand. “I guess you’ll never know unless you try.”

“Mmh.” Steve turned his full attention to the plants. Or, at least, he tried to. “What else do you need around here? Do we have enough lavender, or—?”

“What’s Eddie doing tonight?” asked Joyce, half-teasing.

Unfortunately, Steve couldn’t be annoyed with her if he tried. “Well, he has a gig tonight. Nothing special, just at The Hideout, except that… It’s some annual themed night? I can’t remember what the theme is, but I know it’s, like, the biggest night of the year. It’s, like, the local music equivalent of a championship game. Like, it’s the night you get scouted for a college team, basically. And Eddie— He still hasn’t graduated.” Which was one of the things that Steve found so great about him. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but all Steve saw in Eddie being a super-super-super-senior was a guy who never gave up. He wouldn’t have been able to do that. “And I think— I think, for all his posturing and swearing that he’s gonna grab his degree and flip the principal off and ‘run like hell’, I think there’s a part of him that doesn’t think he will graduate. Like, ever. I don’t think he’s even thought about what he wants to do when he does because it doesn’t feel like that’s ever going to happen. And music is something he’s passionate about. Like, really passionate about. And I just…”

Steve trailed off, dropping from speaking fast to not speaking at all. He knew the point he was trying to make, he just didn’t know how to articulate it.

“You want him to have hope for the future,” said Joyce. “You want him to know that there’s something he can do with his life, whether he graduates or not.”

Steve let out a breath. “…Yeah.” He shrugged. “Exactly.”

“Okay.” Joyce patted his arm, then rubbed it, almost like she was trying to warm him. “In that case, we have a few more things to pick up.”

“What things?” asked Steve, following close.

“Rough blazing star,” said Joyce. “Also some switchgrass and butterfly milkweed.”

Steve stepped over a fallen tree as Joyce picked up her basket. “For what?”

“Optimism,” explained Joyce brightly. “Just enough for a day, to make sure his nerves won’t get the best of him.”

A slow smile crept across Steve’s lips. “Okay. Yeah. Sounds great.”

They got their rough blazing stars and their switchgrass and their butterfly milkweed and tucked them in Joyce’s basket. On the boat ride back, Joyce told Steve how to bind them together with pure cotton twine and sage and wrap them in a piece of linen cut from a tea towel to make a charm that would fit easily in Eddie’s pocket.

And when they reached the other side, Joyce tugged Steve’s hand and held up the rope used to anchor her rowboat to the shore.

“Check this out,” she said through a grin, folding a section of the rope in half. “This is how I always tie my boat down. It’s a really simple knot that’s more than strong enough to keep it from floating off, and…” She smiled smugly at the rope she wound around in her hands. “It grants one more wish for the day.”

Steve kneeled on the wet rocks beside her, watching her hands work, fascinated. Between learning knots and identifying plants, he really felt like he was back in the Scouts for a day.

He watched the knot twist in her hands until the end result reminded Steve of a butterfly knot, if a butterfly knot looked more like a butterfly. When she was nearly done, she hooked the biggest loop around the pillar that sank deep into the rocks, keeping her boat in place, and she threaded her thumbs through the four loops left remaining.

“I wish,” she said slowly, “for my son’s friend Eddie to catch all the eyes he wants to catch tonight, and for none of them to be able to look away until his performance is finished.” Nodding firmly, she tightened the knot, and winced as it pulled on her hands.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Why’d you put it like that?”

“Well,” said Joyce, pulling back, “if you find yourself unable to look away from him, you’ll know he wants you to look at him.”

Steve scoffed, but there was a smile on his face. “Like that’ll be any different from usual.” His eyes narrowed on the knot. “Hey, is it gonna mess with the spell or whatever if I give the knot an extra tug to make sure it’s tight?”

“Not unless you’re a witch,” said Joyce, smiling wider. “If you’ve got a magic streak in you, then the magic will be more than twice as strong, and it’ll be whatever you wished for instead.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing that I…” Steve tugged the knot tight. “…am wishing for the same thing you are.”

Satisfied, he climbed to his feet, and Joyce stood with him, looping an arm through the crook of his elbow. “Let’s go make that charm. You’ll want to be early if you’re going to give it to him before it starts.”

Steve had been behind the stage at the Hideout before. A few times. Always for Eddie, though usually to congratulate him on a good performance after it was done. Not that Steve…really knew what Eddie’s music was supposed to sound like when it was good, but he at least knew what good showmanship was, what stage presence was supposed to look like, and if there was anything Eddie could pull off, it was stage presence. He really didn’t need a charm to help him with that, but based on the way Eddie was pacing when Steve found him in the green room, it couldn’t have hurt.

He chewed the thumbnail of one hand as he walked back and forth in front of the rest of his band, the other hand twisting anxiously, flapping the heavy chain around his wrist. He hadn’t even noticed Steve at the top of the stairs until the door shut behind him.

His head jerked up, hair flying around his face, eyes wide. He’d probably been waiting for his cue to go on.

Steve waved sheepishly and grabbed the handrail with both hands, leaning his weight into it. “Hi.”

“Steve!” Eddie bounded over the coffee table that separated him from the bottom of the stairs like a spry deer, pushing past Jeff and Gareth and bolting up the stairs, taking two at a time. Steve wasn’t expecting the hug—Eddie usually saved greeting hugs for Dustin—but if Eddie was as anxious as he looked, Steve doubted the hug was for his sake. He hugged Eddie back, squeezing him tight as if he could wring all the nerves out of him like a sponge.

Eddie patted him warmly on the back before letting go, grabbing Steve instead by the shoulders to push him back. “Not that I don’t love seeing you, but I don’t think you’re technically supposed to be back here before a show.”

“Since when do you care about the rules, Munson?” teased Steve.

“I don’t,” said Eddie. “But you don’t make a habit out of sneaking back here most of the time. So why this time?”

“Why do you think?” asked Steve. “I figured you could use a little extra luck.”

Eddie smiled, soft despite his still-wide eyes, and squeezed Steve’s shoulders. “That’s adorable. You know that’s adorable, right? Coming all the way back here before my show just to tell me good luck?”

“Well, that,” said Steve. “Which—good luck, by the way, seriously—but I’m not just here to tell you good luck. I was with Joyce Byers today—”

“Witchy Joyce Byers?” asked Eddie, intrigue etched into his face.

“Yeah, her, and, your show came up while I was making small talk, so…” Steve dug into his pocket and held out the charm. It was small, perhaps the size of both of Steve’s thumbs pushed together, and inconspicuous, just being a little bit of linen tied around some squished flowers with string, but it smelled nice—that’d be the lavender—and it would fit perfectly in the front pocket of Eddie’s battle vest. “This is from us.”

“‘Us’?” Eddie raised an eyebrow as he took the charm from Steve’s fingers. “I didn’t realize you were that kind of magical, Stevie.”

“I helped her get the plants. That’s all.” Steve crossed his arms, feeling vulnerable. “Anyway, it’s supposed to make you more eye-catching. Or, wait, shit. Was it the knot was supposed to make you more eye-catching and the charm was supposed to make you less nervous? Damn it, I can’t remember. One or the other. I mean, not that I think you’ll need it, but—”

“Yeah?” Eddie smirked, shaking the bag next to his face like it held something a lot more illicit than some native Indiana flowers. “Steve Harrington thinks I’m eye-catching?”

Steve rolled his eyes and turned his back to the railing to elbow Eddie in the side. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get a big head about it. I just, you know. I get how important tonight is to you. Figured it couldn’t hurt. Even if I do think you’ll kick ass without it.”

“Uh-huh…” Eddie turned his attention to the charm. “So what do I have to do? Do I have to, like, blow on it or give it a piece of my hair, or…?”

“Just shove it in a pocket, man,” said Steve, shrugging a shoulder. “You just keep it on your person and it’ll do its magic for you. Only works for tonight, though, so don’t, like, keep it after all the plants start to rot and stink or anything.”

“Duly noted.” As Steve thought, Eddie slipped the charm directly into his breast pocket. Maybe it was Steve’s imagination, but he thought he noticed a certain brightness return to Eddie’s eyes as soon as the pocket was closed. Something that had been dulled by anxiety before. “You really did this for me, though, huh? Went through all the trouble of getting your hands on a little magic for Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson.”

“Hey.” Steve sent him a firm look. “What did I tell you about getting a big head?”

“Aw, come on.” Eddie slinked up close to Steve’s side, joining him in putting his back to the railing and resting his hands on the edge. “Are you telling me you don’t think I’m just a little special?”

Steve sighed, doing his best to sound put-upon and not wistful, like his heart rate didn’t pick up with Eddie’s casual confidence. “All right, maybe I don’t exactly hate you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” said Eddie, voice low and warm. “You sticking around after the show? Maybe we could grab a coffee or something?”

“Little late for coffee,” said Steve. “You wanna be up all night?”

“Hot chocolate,” amended Eddie. “Come on, Stevie, I know you want to…”

“Fine,” said Steve. “Give tonight your all and we’ll see if I can work you into my schedule.”

As if Eddie didn’t already plan to.

As if Steve would have actually said no, anyway.

“Oh, that’s a promise,” said Eddie. “I’m gonna give you the best damn show you’ve ever seen.”

“You better.”

Eddie sent Steve one more of his charming, playful smiles and snuck a glance over his shoulder at his band. “All right, I should really be preparing myself to go on. And you should be trying to find yourself a spot at the front.” He leaned away from the railing and held out his hand. “Thus, this is where we part, Your Royal Majesty, though it is such sweet sorrow.”

Steve’s eyes flicked to Eddie’s hand. Weird to go for a handshake, but maybe it was a stage thing. Like telling someone to break a leg when they meant ‘good luck’. Hell if Steve knew. But he wasn’t going to leave Eddie hanging. “Yeah, see you up there, Munson.”

His hand met Eddie’s, but Eddie, instead of shaking it, bent in half and raised Steve’s hand to his lips.

What the touch of Eddie’s mouth did to Steve’s insides was indescribable, though he wondered, if he was a witch, if he could make a wish on a knot like that.

“Au revoir, Monsieur le Roi,” purred Eddie, his breath fanning across Steve’s fingers.

“That—” Steve’s mouth worked soundlessly as his brain tried, with all the desperation it could muster, to understand any of the things he was feeling. “Was that French?”

Eddie stood up straight, throwing his head back to laugh, a sparkle in his eye. “God, Harrington, you really are something. And there’s definitely something wrong with me.”

Steve stared at him, no less confused.

“Go.” Eddie turned him around and pushed him toward the door, still laughing. “Go get your damn seat, you fuckin’ disaster.”

Steve turned around, chuckling as Eddie opened the door for him, threatening to shove him through. But he didn’t want to go. “Can’t I just, you know, stay with you until the show starts? You could just say I’m your stagehand or something, right?”

“Cute, Harrington.” Eddie patted Steve’s chest. “But you couldn’t tell an amp from a jack. No one would fall for it with their eyes closed.”

“Hair and makeup?” offered Steve. He could at least fake being a hairstylist pretty well.

Eddie grinned at him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a little clingy?”

“Maybe,” admitted Steve, unsure of why he was being so honest.

“Find a spot,” said Eddie. “I’ll meet you after the show for that hot chocolate. I promise.”

Steve opened his mouth to protest further, but Eddie closed the door in his face. It shut with a metallic clang, and Steve heard a room full of laughter rise up from the other side, interspersed with Eddie telling his band to shut up.

Steve ran his hands down his face. Now that he thought about it, he was being a little clingy. Where did that even come from?

He shook his head and made his way back to the part of the Hideout where he was supposed to be, quickly finding a seat near the front and trying his hardest not to think about the glint in Eddie’s eye when he gave him the charm.

It was another thirty minutes before the lights went down and Eddie led his band onto the stage, his guitar hanging freely from his shoulders. He grabbed it by the neck, holding it still as his eyes scanned the edge of the stage. At first, Steve assumed Eddie was looking for whoever was supposed to be judging his music for a record label, but instead, Eddie’s eyes landed on Steve’s. He grinned, positively fucking sparkling, and pointed at Steve with all the easy confidence of a real rock star. He also patted the pocket he’d slipped the charm into, but Steve was just trying his best to think about that rather than what Eddie did between those two easy gestures.

He’d blown Steve a kiss.

And Steve was resolutely not going to think too much about that. He was just going to keep his eyes on Eddie.

Eddie, who looked absolutely stunning under the stage lights.

He grabbed the microphone, slender fingers glittering as his rings caught the light, and brought it to his lips.

“Good evening, Indiana. How’re we doing tonight?”

A smattering of applause and cheers rolled across the bar. Steve didn’t bother looking around, but the sound told him that, while he was distracted, it had filled up a little beyond its usual patronage of five-ish drunks.

“That’s what I’d like to hear. All right, since we’ve got a bigger crowd than usual, I think it’s prudent for us to introduce ourselves properly.”

Eddie twirled around, and his band took their cues, starting with Eddie’s curly-haired friend in the back, whose curls bounced as he kicked up a rhythm that shook the stage. “First things first, my buddy Gareth, the backbone of this band.”

Gareth kept time with his right hand while he twirled the other stick in his left. He effortlessly demonstrated a drum fill, one that got their small crowd whistling, before picking the beat back up.

“He’s single and looking to mingle, ladies… Or should I say, he’s single and ready to mingle, Chrissy Cunningham.”

Gareth’s eyes widened and he took a swipe at Eddie with one hand while the other kept in time, earning a few laughs as Eddie dodged out of the way, as well as one excited, feminine, “Oh my god!” from the crowd.

“Yeah, that’s what you get for the shit you gave me in the green room, Gare-bear,” teased Eddie, stepping back and dragging the microphone cord across the floor behind him.

“Over here we have Jeff. Single, yes, but less ready to mingle. He is living the bachelor life to its fullest, and no one can stop him. More importantly, he can do this!”

Jeff played an admittedly impressive riff—was it thrash metal? Hell if Steve could tell—and threw the horns into the crowd, sticking his tongue through his teeth as the Hideout clapped.

“Marvelous, marvelous. Little show-offy, but marvelous.”

Jeff sent Eddie a middle finger for the commentary.

Eddie cheerfully sent one back before moving on to the last member of the group. “And here’s our bassist—”

“I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND,” bellowed the bassist in question, presumably before Eddie could make any commentary on his love-life, and earning a few laughs along with a few cheerful whoops. Personally, Steve was just impressed that he’d managed to get as loud as Eddie without the microphone.

“That you do, my friend, that you do,” said Eddie, patting his shoulder. “And Hannah is a very lovely but scary lady who would happily slit my throat if I were to imply otherwise to a crowd of equally lovely girls. But you might just have to beat them off with a stick regardless the second they hear what you can do with that machine in your hands. Take it away, Grant!”

Grant laid down a bassline that Eddie would likely slit his throat for calling “groovy”. It occurred to Steve, for the first time, that all of Eddie’s bandmates really did pull their weight, that they were all talented with all their own instruments. He might have noticed that earlier, if he hadn’t been distracted at every show by the incredible, wonderful boy who swaggered his way back to the mic stand, hips shifting like water with every step until he slid the microphone back into place, freeing his hands to grab his guitar.

“Last, but not least, we have myself. Singer, guitarist, frontman, and yes, a bachelor, but if the hot date I have lined up for tonight works in my favor, that might just change very soon.”

He winked at Steve.

Steve laughed.

…That was a joke, right?

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Eddie Munson—” Eddie strummed his guitar three times in rapid succession and leaned in close enough to the microphone to distort his voice in a way that Steve was sure was supposed to be cool but hit the mark just a few inches due east at sexy. “—and this is Corroded Coffin.”

Eddie’s head fell forward, hair veiling his face, hiding it from view as the music truly began. No more teasers, no more showing off, no more demonstrations. The real deal. With every fifth dark, disorienting chord, Eddie threw his head forward, hair flying around him like the wings of a massive bat. Steve swore he could feel those wings beat, could feel wind flying into his face, could smell the aroma of Eddie’s shampoo wafting through the air and filling his lungs with every breath, drowning, intoxicating, until Eddie grabbed the mic and breathed lyrics into the air, low and warm and somehow humming into Steve’s knees from the floor, more than even the bass.

“Tenebrous tongue around my neck, seeping, creeping in. Multitudes run as I inflect, boasting every sin.”

Steve’s hands found the edge of the stage, curling around the corner. The way Eddie’s head was bowed, Steve couldn’t make out his eyes, not around all his hair, but it parted into sections as it drew close to his jaw, and through those sections, Steve saw a flash of teeth, a keen smirk, a tongue forming every syllable with the sharp decisiveness of a conductor’s baton.

Steve had seen Eddie perform countless times, but never like this. Not in a way that lured Steve in like a siren’s song to a weary sailor. Mesmerizing. Entrancing.

Eddie really must have been giving it his all; Steve truly couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Steve swore only a few minutes passed, just a few minutes of Eddie’s warm voice and his hypnotic fingers dancing along the frets and that few square inches of bare skin where the seams of Eddie’s vest stopped above the belt of his jeans, exposing a pure pale triangle of his hip to the stage lights. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, not enough time, barely enough to drink in the coffee of Eddie’s dark eyes gleaming down at Steve from high above. Barely enough to memorize the way Eddie’s boots changed the curve of his legs from his usual white high-tops. Barely enough to follow the trails of sweat from Eddie’s temple to his jaw, all the way down his neck to the collarbones jutting out below.

Only a few minutes passed, and Eddie’s entire setlist was over. He took his guitar off his shoulders and bowed so low, so dramatically, that his hair nearly swept the stage floor.

The lights went out to the sound of cheers and applause, louder than Steve had ever heard from the Hideout before, and Eddie’s excited laugh caught Steve’s ear through the din of his audience, mixed with Grant’s and Gareth’s and Jeff’s as they all cheerfully found each other in the dark, shoes scuffing and stage creaking as one of them bounced several inches off the floor.

Eddie. Steve just knew that was Eddie.

The sound disappeared as quickly as it came, drowned out by the audience, by barroom chairs scuffing across the floor by a room of patrons eager to leave, to use the restroom, to buy a drink or have a smoke.

Steve cautiously made his way backstage, trying to blend in with the crowd, to not catch too many eyes on his way to see Eddie.

And he found him. Fast. He found Eddie talking to a woman in a black suit with thin lips and neat, tidy hair. Steve could guess who she was by the way Eddie was bent over a plastic table with his band, all trembling with palpable excitement as they signed papers Steve could barely see, but he was still surprised. First, because Steve hadn’t expected someone who saw concerts for a living to look so damn formal, and second, because he didn’t think it would happen that fast.

He watched Corroded Coffin by the stage door as they all handed over their contracts, slapping each other’s hands and shoving each other’s shoulders in an energetic bliss.

Eddie was the last to hand his over, loose and languid, like he’d had everything figured out from the start and it had all gone perfectly to plan.

The woman straightened out the stack, shook Eddie’s hand one last time, and turned to leave, passing Steve on the way to the door.

Eddie followed her with his eyes until she drew close, then shifted his attention. “Steve!” Beaming, he jogged across, skirting around the table and— Whoa, and picking Steve up to spin him around in his arms. Okay, cool, that was fine, great, good, wow, Eddie was stronger than Steve thought.

Jeff wolf-whistled at them from the table, earning a sharp retort from Eddie that Steve could barely hear through the way his head swam with warm bliss. Something about Jeff’s dad and bending over. Something that made his whole band laugh. Something that probably would have made Steve laugh if he wasn’t distracted by the way Eddie’s sweat-slicked hair stuck to his forehead.

“Was that what I think it was?” asked Steve, trying to take control of the conversation, and his own faculties, back.

“Depends on what you thought it was,” said Eddie, shifting his gaze from over his shoulder at Jeff to Steve’s eyes, in turn getting Steve lost back in his own. “If you thought we were booking a squad of hookers, then no. But if you thought that was a record deal…”

“For real?” whispered Steve, breathless on Eddie’s behalf.

Eddie let his feet return to the floor, where Steve’s face was close enough for Eddie to press their foreheads together, just as blissful as Steve felt. “For real.”

The greasy stage sweat on Eddie’s forehead should have been revolting, but Steve couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything but intoxicated by Eddie’s touch, his breath, the nose sliding across his.

“So, hot chocolate,” murmured Eddie, leaning back just far enough for Steve to mourn the touch and no farther. “Right?”

“Hell yeah,” murmured Steve, eyes dancing across Eddie’s too-close face, trying to commit every feature to memory, to carve out a place in his mind’s eye. “Hot chocolate.”

“Will you hold still?” Steve reached for Eddie’s face, fighting his playful dodging, his feinting back and forth. “God, you’re worse than Dustin. Just—!” He held Eddie’s jaw firmly, earning a laugh as he thumbed away the whipped cream on the corner of Eddie’s mouth, clinging to the wispy hairs of what threatened to become a mustache if Eddie left it alone long enough.

Wanting to kiss Eddie was not a new feeling, so Steve shoved it down and licked his thumb clean before returning his hand to his own hot chocolate and leaning into Eddie’s side.

“Hey,” protested Eddie. He smelled. It wasn’t a good smell, either. At least, not objectively. It was cigarettes and the Hideout and the last vestiges of deodorant trying its best to do its job and failing. But it was nice. It was still nice, because it was a reminder that Eddie was there. Another sense for Steve to take him in. “I don’t think I remember inviting you to steal a taste of my whipped cream, Harrington.”

Steve smirked. “So, what, was your plan to lick it off me instead?”

“Might have been,” said Eddie, “if you didn’t get there first.”

He took another drink of his hot chocolate, earning a brand new whipped cream mustache in the very place his last one had been.

“God,” laughed Steve, too endeared to be frustrated.

“What?” Eddie turned to face Steve, huge clumps of whipped cream hanging to his top lip, enough to make him look like the Monopoly Man. There was no way he didn’t do that on purpose. There was no way he didn’t feel that even if he had. “Is there something on my face?”

“Christ, Munson.” Steve nudged Eddie in the side. “If I knew I’d have to start babysitting you, too, I think I would have turned you away ages ago.”

“And therein lies Steve Harrington’s greatest mistake,” said Eddie, spinning around grandly to walk backward, gesturing with arms wide open in front of Steve, the whipped cream mustache still on display. “Once a man, now the master of a particularly loveable pet. That’s what you get for feeding strays.”

“Feeding strays. Yeah, uh-huh.” Steve huffed a laugh. “Like this is my fault. Like you haven’t been glued to me since the first time you saw me pick the kids up from your Dungeons and Dragons club.”

“I was curious,” argued Eddie, sliding one of his hands into one of his pockets, right under that sliver of exposed skin. “Besides, you didn’t have to indulge my begging. Watch out, Stevie…” He raised his eyebrows, turning his head to send Steve a pointed look, albeit one that didn’t have any pretense of being serious. “If you’re not careful, you might make me think you don’t like me.”

“I don’t. You’re a nightmare.”

“You know, you could say that with a little less love in your voice—”

“Hey, careful—” Steve reached out to stop Eddie before he could walk into the bench behind him, but Eddie bumped into it regardless. Not too hard, though. Not enough to make him spill his drink. Just enough to make him scowl at the bench as if him walking into it was its idea.

“See, that’s why you’re a nightmare,” said Steve. “If you were paying attention, maybe I wouldn’t have to look out for you so much.”

“You love it.” Eddie licked his whipped cream mustache off and, in true Munson fashion, climbed over the top. Who the hell needed the Hideout? Eddie Munson could make a stage out of anything. “So, how did—” Eddie spun on his heel to face Steve, too close to the edge of the bench, and slipped, causing him to come crashing straight down. He didn’t tumble, thank goodness, but he did land hard on his ass, causing some of his hot chocolate to splash out of his cup and onto his hand, earning a pained hiss.

“Jesus!” Steve rushed in, sliding the napkin around his cup out from under his hand and bringing it to Eddie’s hand while Eddie took his cup into the other. Steve set his own cup down on the bench, freeing his hands to dote on Eddie’s. “You really are a disaster, you know that?”

“Nightmare, disaster—” Eddie sucked a breath in through his teeth as Steve wiped down his gently burned hand. “Got any other sweet little petnames for me, pretty boy?”

“Does dumbass count?” asked Steve, looking into Eddie’s eyes. Dark and intense, wide and wild. Coffee. Just as searing, just as electrifying.

Eddie batted those coffee eyes, all fluttery and cutesy. “But I’m your dumbass, right?”

Steve chuckled warmly. He couldn’t help himself. “Yeah. You’re my dumbass.” He pressed his lips to Eddie’s burn, holding his gaze all the while.

Eddie’s smile softened. “Kissing my boo-boos for me now?”

Steve shrugged a shoulder. “You know, as long as I’m babysitting you. I might as well do my job right.”

Eddie chuckled, deep in his chest, low and warm and inviting. His eyes darted down, barely more than a degree, then back up. “Hey, Steve?”

Steve shuffled closer, knees still bent from where he crouched in front of Eddie to get to his hand, the soles of his shoes scraping across the pavement. “Yeah?”

Eddie opened his mouth to say something, though what he was going to say, Steve wasn’t sure. Before he could speak, the clock tower high above them chimed, so loud it was almost deafening as close as it was, announcing the arrival of midnight in Hawkins, Indiana.

Steve looked up at the clockface, though he could barely make out the numbers from such a severe angle and didn’t really need to see them to know what time it was regardless. He blinked with a wince, eyes suddenly tired, as if he hadn’t blinked in hours. Or at least, not enough. “Shit, that’s loud. Don’t they know people are trying to sleep?”

Eddie didn’t respond.

Concerned, Steve lowered his gaze to look him in the eye.

No luck; Eddie had turned away. He pulled his burned hand out of Steve’s and pulled his hair shyly in front of his face.

“You okay?” asked Steve.

Eddie cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, just…that witchy Byers magic is definitely something.”

“You could tell a difference?” asked Steve, reaching for his hot chocolate.

Eddie nodded slowly. “I can sure as shit tell now that it’s gone.”

Cautiously, Steve lowered himself onto the bench beside Eddie and set a hand on his leg. When it earned a flinch, however, he retracted the gesture, returning his hand to the cup with the other. “Is that…a bad thing? I mean— Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Okay, sure,” mumbled Eddie. “Just a little embarrassed.”

“I didn’t know you got embarrassed,” said Steve.

Eddie muttered something unintelligible and noncommittal behind his hair, then shrugged a shoulder and took a drink from the cup that burned him. A big drink, a drown-your-sorrows kind of drink. When he lowered it again, he took a deep breath and tipped his head back. “I’m usually not that overconfident, is the thing.”

“You didn’t seem that different to me,” said Steve.

“There’s a difference,” said Eddie, voice shaking. “There’s a difference between faking until I make it and actually being super optimistic that everything is gonna go my way. Because that first thing? Oh, that first thing I could do in my sleep. It’s controlled, and it’s careful, and I know where to jump and what’s gonna send me plummetting to my death, you know? And when I don’t know the difference, it’s just… Just splat. Hopping down a few stairs versus jumping taking a running fucking leap off the edge of a skyscraper with no parachute.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. He still didn’t see much of a difference. At least, in the results. Although… “Was that why you, you know…fell?”

Eddie whipped his head around to stare at Steve, wide-eyed and pale, like a cornered animal. “What?”

“...When you spilled your hot chocolate?” asked Steve, feeling vaguely like he missed some kind of context. “Like, would you have been more careful, or what?”

“Oh.” Eddie let out a heavy breath and rolled his head back over his shoulders, past the back of the bench. “Oh, god, that. Yeah.” He ran his hand down his face, eyes screwed shut, rubbing his eyelids and down his cheek. “Yeah, fuck. Probably. Shit.”

Steve frowned and hit Eddie’s arm gently with the back of his hand, demanding his attention. “You sure you’re okay, man?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m great.” Eddie sat up straight and let out another shaky breath. “Another five minutes of that stuff and I probably wouldn’t have been, but no, I’m good.” He reached into his pocket, into the angular black vest he’d been wearing on stage that he’d covered with his battle vest before they left the Hideout, and plucked out the linen charm. “This shit’s definitely potent. Or it was. I am all sobered up now. Like a splash of cold water to the face and a well-placed kick to the balls at the same damn time.”

Steve cleared his throat. “I, uh… I guess I shouldn’t have given it to you. I just… I thought it would help.”

“Christ, Harrington, it’s not your fault.” Eddie set his drink aside and picked at the twine holding it all together. “It’s not Witchy Joyce Byers’ fault, either. You didn’t force anything on me, you just offered. I was the one who took it, all right? I was desperate enough for the extra help and I took it without thinking.”

Eddie undid the knot and flung the charm open, letting its contents scatter across the street in front of their bench and leaving him with just a wrinkled cut of cloth.

“Shit. The second my band starts recording, they’re gonna realize something’s off,” muttered Eddie. “Someone behind some pane of glass in some recording studio is going to realize we’re nothing special and drop us like a bag of unwanted kittens into a river.”

Steve winced. “Eddie, that’s not going to happen.”

Eddie ran his hand down his face again, harsh and desperate and running heavily over every feature like he was trying to physically shove down the urge to cry.

“Joyce told me the magic doesn’t, like, change your nature. It just kinda…brings stuff out, I guess. If that record label chick liked your music—” Steve reached for Eddie’s shoulder, yanking his hand back only when Eddie flinched. “If she liked what you played up there, that’s because she liked your stuff. And you weren’t…not Eddie up there. You were just a little less worried, I guess. But it’s not like you were dishonest. You were just in a good mood, or something.”

Eddie let out a huff. “Yeah, sure. Totally honest. That’s part of the problem. I told the whole damn room about Gareth’s crush on Chrissy Cunningham and he’s gonna be so fucking pissed—”

“He didn’t look that mad backstage,” said Steve. “And Chrissy didn’t sound that upset in the audience.”

Eddie shot upright, stock still. “Shit. She was there?”

“Pretty sure,” said Steve. Not that he could take his eyes off Eddie’s lips long enough to turn around and look. “Eddie. Eddie, it’s okay.”

Eddie pursed his lips and shook his head, quietly vocalizing, speechless but not incapable of making a pained sound, frustrated and self-directed angry, maybe a “no” if Eddie had parted his lips. He clenched the linen in his hands and brought them to his forehead, digging the heels of his hands into his brow.

“Somehow, I think Gareth’s going to forgive you,” said Steve. “Who knows? Maybe this could get them together.”

Eddie laughed bitterly. “Yeah, sure. Queens like Chrissy don’t wind up with the kind of gutter rats Corroded Coffin spits out, Steve. That’s not how the world works.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” said Steve. “I think you need to update your Munson Doctrine, because I know for a fact that you could get anyone you wanted. And I might not know the rest of the guys that well, but if they’re cool enough to hang out with you, I figure they have to be just as great.” He hesitated. “Or, well, almost.” He couldn’t really picture anyone being as great as Eddie. The planet would explode.

Eddie bit out another bitter laugh and pinched the inner corners of his eyes. “Yeah, we’ll see how cool Gareth thinks I am when we meet up to record and the whole goddamn band falls apart.”

Steve rolled his eyes and threw back the rest of his hot chocolate before crushing his cup in his hand and standing up, offering Eddie the other.

“Get up.”

Eddie lifted his head, eyes wide and red around the corners as they darted from Steve’s eyes to his hand and back up.

“Get up,” repeated Steve. “I’m tired of your wallowing. We’re gonna find a payphone, we’re gonna call Gareth, and he’s going to tell you that you guys are great.”

“At midnight?” asked Eddie, a tense laugh on the tip of his tongue.

“At midnight,” confirmed Steve. “What, you think he’s going straight to bed after a night like tonight? Fuck no. Let’s go, Munson.”

Eddie pursed his lips into a thin line, still clearly skeptical, but despite that, he reached out and grabbed Steve by the wrist, allowing him to grab Eddie’s and pull him to his feet.

They didn’t have to go far to find a payphone, not when they were right under city hall. Eddie pretended to not have change for the coin slot for all of twenty seconds before Steve reached into his pocket and shoved a dollar’s worth of quarters and nickels into his hand.

“There,” he said sharply. “Now you have no excuse.”

Eddie looked at Steve’s face with an exhausted expression, somewhere between exasperated and pained, and dialed Gareth’s number.

He held Steve’s gaze while it rang, something like doubt in his eyes. Something sad and resigned and, at the same time, like he was waiting for the chance to say “I told you so” once the call ended.

Then his eyebrows shot into his bangs and he turned away from Steve, shoulder shrugged like a wall.

“Uh, hi? Is, uh… Is Gareth there?”

Steve raised an eyebrow, leaning into the side of the phone, listening politely to Eddie’s side of the conversation.

“Hey, bud…” said Eddie slowly. “Is that…who I thought it was?”

Steve slid his hands into his pockets, agonizingly curious. Was who who Eddie thought it was?

“Shit. Good for you, man.” Eddie paused, eyes flicking briefly toward Steve. “No, it’s not really a… It was just hot chocolate. I was just saying shit. You know how it gets onstage. That’s kind of why I called. That wasn’t the only thing I said while I was up there. I just wanted to make sure we were, you know…cool. After I spilled the beans about Chrissy.”

Eddie bowed his head, nodding as if Gareth could see it.

“Yeah. Yeah, no I— That makes sense, yeah, I was just kind of worried about it and… Harrington, actually. It was his idea.” Eddie’s eyes darted back to Steve. “…Just hot chocolate, Gare-bear, remember? You weren’t distracting from a damn thing.” He rubbed his forehead, rings bouncing light back from the orange streetlamps. “Yeah. Have fun. Be safe.” He snorted at something Gareth said. “I said be safe. I didn’t say a damn thing about condoms. Good night, you fuckin’ dweeb.”

Eddie returned the phone to the hook, but his gaze didn’t budge from the cord.

Steve took that as his cue to take the initiative. “That didn’t sound too bad.”

“No, uh…” Eddie reached a hand into his hair, shaking his bangs out as he pushed through his messy curls. “No. Chrissy was there. He sounded…really fucking happy.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “So the exact opposite of him being mad at you. You know, exactly like I thought, you piece of shit.” He kneed Eddie in the hip, earning a soft laugh.

“All right, you got me this time.” Eddie dropped his gaze to the sidewalk. “Guess I was a little too anxious, Stevie.”

“Good thing I’m here, then,” said Steve, crossing his arms.

Eddie looked back up, at last, and his eyes softened, in a way they never did. His gazes were always so wild, so sharp, like he was deliberately trying to show off every last drop of his irises. This was nothing like that. Steve didn’t know what to do with the look Eddie was giving him. “Yeah. …I’d hate to lose you.”

Steve laughed, not sure how else to respond. “Why would you lose me?”

Eddie shook his head and tipped it back, his hair falling over his shoulders. “Guess I don’t have to worry about that tonight, huh?” Smile returning, he offered his elbow to Steve. “Shall I escort you back to your horseless carriage, milady?”

With a roll of his eyes, Steve gave Eddie’s arm a playful shove, trying not to think too hard about how it would actually feel to walk arm-in-arm down the street with Eddie, hanging off him like eye candy for the rock star he was bound to be. “Sure, Munson. Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“And he just…stared at me.”

“Stared at you?” Joyce grinned, nose wrinkling. Steve was really starting to like the way it did that. It made him feel loved, in some strange way. “You mean he gazed longingly at you?” she whispered, wary of the other shoppers around them, careful to keep Steve safe.

It didn’t make Steve feel any less nervous about what she said, though. “He didn’t gaze longingly at me,” he insisted, sliding another apple into the plastic bag with the others and twisting the bag around to create a seal before setting it in Joyce’s cart. Steve wasn’t convinced Joyce actually needed him for grocery shopping; he was pretty sure she just didn’t want to do it alone. But he didn’t mind it. He liked having the company. Liked having someone to talk about boys with in Robin’s absence.

And god, it was a middle-aged woman. She was right. He was weird.

“He just gazed,” insisted Steve. “There was nothing charged about it. I know what sparks feel like. There were no sparks here. No electricity. Just…looking.”

“Hmm…” Joyce pushed the cart around the apples, making her way to the kale. “And…you’re sure it’s not just… Well, it’s not like I have much experience in something like this, but maybe you’re used to electricity from a girl, but you don’t know what it’s like from a guy. Eddie’s your first, right? So…all I’m saying is maybe they call it AC/DC for a reason. Different currents.”

“No.” Steve crossed his arms. “No, it’s not that. He looked almost…sad.”

“Sad?” Joyce frowned. “Why would he be sad?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Steve lowered his voice further, and his head along with it, all but whispering in Joyce’s ear. “You don’t think he figured out I liked him? I mean, he’d never hate me for liking him. He’s not that kind of guy. But if he thought he had to figure out how to let me down…”

“You’d know him better than I would,” whispered Joyce. “But is that really what you think is going on? Or do you think that’s you being anxious?”

The way Joyce said that, and her encouraging nod, suggested rather clearly that she had an opinion on which it was. Steve wasn’t as sure.

“Go back over it,” said Joyce. “Just one more time. Let’s try to follow his train of thought.”

Steve took a deep breath. Right. Approach it rationally. “Okay, well… The show went great. He was still happy then. But the magic was still happening then, so that could have just been the, you know…induced optimism.”

“Right…” Joyce chose a bunch of kale and added it to her cart, glancing at her list one more time to make sure she had everything before turning her full attention back to Steve. “And did the sadness hit the second it turned midnight?”

“Not really,” said Steve. “But he definitely changed when the clock went off. Like, he was freaking out. He thought his friend was going to hate him for telling the girl he liked about his crush on her—”

“Was it the friend’s crush, or Eddie’s?”

“His friend's.”

“Hmm...”

“That turned out to be bogus anyway,” said Steve. “The girl wound up liking his friend back and they got together by the end of the night.” He hesitated. “But he did get sad after that phone call. You think Eddie could have liked her, too? Or his friend, I guess?”

“I don’t think so,” said Joyce. “If he brought it up while he was feeling optimistic, he was probably rooting for them to get together. Unless you think he’d try to be mean on purpose…?”

“No,” said Steve. “Definitely not.”

Steve thought, for a moment, that Joyce would call him out on being too lovesick to be objective, but she didn’t. “Okay, so he was in a great mood at the show, everything went really well, he signed a contract right away… Actually, that seems odd, now that I think of it.”

“That’s just the magic, though, right?” asked Steve.

Joyce hummed thoughtfully. “And how were you at taking your eyes off him?”

“About the same as always,” said Steve. “Maybe a little harder than usual, I mean… He was hot, you know?”

Joyce smiled, but there was something sympathetic about it. “Back to the timeline. Eddie signed the contract—”

“Yes.”

“—then you went out for—”

“Hot chocolate.”

“—hot chocolate, right. And you were talking, couldn’t take your eyes off him, everything was happy, you were laughing together, and then the clock at City Hall chimed, and then what? Immediate panic?”

“Exactly,” said Steve.

“And what was he saying to you?” asked Joyce, gesturing with wide open hands in front of her chest, forcing Steve to slide in and grab the cart. “Did he say anything in…maybe a happy tone that sounds a lot sadder with the tone removed? The answer to a question, maybe?”

Steve thought, hard, trying to recall everything Eddie said. Not that hard when he’d been hanging off every word, but still. “He spilled hot chocolate on his hand, I think I teased him for it, I kissed his hand—”

“Oh, you’re really good at hiding how you feel about him, huh?”

Steve rolled his eyes at Joyce’s grin. “Yeah, shut up, it’s not like he thought it was weird or anything. He just teased me back about being a babysitter and then…he was going to say something else, I guess? He said ‘Hey, Steve,’ and then it was midnight.”

“And he started panicking,” said Joyce.

“Then it was midnight,” confirmed Steve.

“And I’m guessing he was too scared to circle back around and tell you what he was going to say.” Joyce set one of her hands back on the cart, humming thoughtfully again. “Well… I wonder if that was on purpose.”

“On purpose?” pressed Steve.

Joyce nodded. “I think he might have been about to tell you something that he thought at the time would go well, but he started to rethink it the second the charm lost its power. You said he was freaking out about how his friend would take having his crush exposed?”

“And how the record execs would feel about his music without that extra magical boost,” said Steve.

“Mmhmm…” Joyce rubbed her knuckles. “Well… Well, what if all that worrying was all just…amplified by some other worry? Like whatever he was going to tell you, he thought, ‘Wow, I sure dodged a bullet there,’ and then he started to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been stopped, and then he thought about the other times he really hadn’t stopped.”

Steve winced. He hated to think about it, hated to think about what could be going through Eddie’s head to make him that scared, but…that made a lot of sense. “But what would he have been about to say that would have made him freak out like that?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Joyce patted Steve’s cheek, smiling like she was smiling at a child. “I couldn’t imagine.”

Yeah, bullshit.

But Steve respected Joyce too much to call her out.

“Back to the show,” said Joyce. “You said you walked backstage basically as soon as the lights went down, right? And they were already signing contracts?”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Right on the spot.”

“Mmm…” Joyce shook her head slowly. “I don’t think… Well…” Her eyes slid to Steve as he pulled the cart to the end of the checkout line. “Steve? Can I see your hand for just a moment?”

“My hand?”

“The non-dominant one,” said Joyce, holding out her own.

“Uh… Sure?” Steve laid his left hand, palm up, in Joyce’s.

She smiled. “Water. Should have guessed.”

Steve wasn’t sure by her tone if he was supposed to be offended or not. “Uh.”

“You’re responsible as hell,” said Joyce, pushing a thumb into the fleshy bit of Steve’s hand just under his middle finger. “I could have already told you that, though, with how you take care of those kids.” Her thumb moved to the base of Steve’s own. “And a lover, of course. A hopeless romantic.”

Steve averted his eyes. He wasn’t about to deny that.

“Brave and strong, naturally,” said Joyce, poking the center of Steve’s palm. “And…” She prodded the space under Steve’s pinky, close to his wrist, a soft smile on her face.

“What?” asked Steve.

“I’m not done yet,” said Joyce, peeking up at Steve through her bangs, a playful smile on her face. “I’ll tell you once I am. Now, let’s see…” She traced a line on Steve’s hand with her thumbnail. “Not the longest head line I’ve ever seen, but nice and wavy. I always love to see that. And here…” She pointed at a break in the line and lowered her voice. “I’m guessing that’s where you started questioning your sexuality.”

Steve had no goddamn clue.

“One of the longest and deepest heart lines I’ve ever seen,” said Joyce. “You’ve had your heart broken before, though, I’m guessing?”

Steve nodded slowly. “Nancy Wheeler.”

“Nancy Wheeler,” echoed Joyce softly. “I hope you don’t hold too much of a grudge against Jonathan.”

“Nah,” murmured Steve. “I’ve…shifted my focus.”

“Mmhmm, as we both well know.” Joyce squeezed Steve’s hand together from under his palm to the base of his pinky. “Now, your life line—” She flinched and took her hand from under Steve’s, shaking it out with a grimace.

Steve winced sympathetically. “Like this?” He held his left hand with his right, compressing the way Joyce had.

She smiled warmly. “Perfect. See here?” She traced a line along the center of Steve’s palm, near his thumb, which hadn’t been as easy to see until Steve squeezed his hand. “See how short your life line it is?”

Steve tensed. “Does that mean I’m gonna die or something?”

“No!” Joyce laughed softly. “No, it just means you’ve spent a lot of your life alone. And if you compare that to your heart line, it’s easy to see that’s not what you want. You’re lonely, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” muttered Steve.

“Well, I guess that explains why you’re spending all this time with an old woman,” said Joyce.

“What old woman?” asked Steve. “The only woman I’ve been hanging out with since Robin left for college is in the prime of her life.”

Joyce scoffed and gently hit Steve’s arm with the back of her hand.

“So, what do you think?” asked Steve. “You think I’m gonna stop being lonely anytime soon?”

“I think you might,” said Joyce. “But that’s just my intuition.”

“My palm doesn’t tell you anything about that?”

“I’m afraid not. Our palms don’t tell us everything.” Her nose wrinkled in another smile. “Where would the fun be in that?”

“I just…” Steve shrugged a shoulder, looking at his palm as if he could see anything Joyce hadn’t, or even anything she had. “I figured that was why you were looking, since we were talking about…” He stole a glance at the woman with way too many goddamn groceries ahead of them in line. “You know.”

“Not quite,” said Joyce. “Actually, I was looking at this.” She pointed to the space under Steve’s pinky again. “This extremely prominent Mount of Luna.”

“Luna?” asked Steve. “What, like lunatic? Am I gonna go crazy or something?”

“No, not at all!” The line moved ahead of Joyce and she stole a look over her shoulder before leaning in toward Steve, baring her teeth in a playful grin as she whispered, “It means you’re a witch.”

“Uh.” Steve mouth-fished. “…What?”

Joyce smirked and pushed her cart in front of the cashier so she could unload her groceries onto the conveyor belt, cheerfully ignoring the broken state she’d left Steve’s brain in.

“Joyce, what?!”

“This is crazy,” said Steve, pacing back and forth in Joyce Byers’ living room while she cut out segments of string and laid them out across her coffee table. “You know this is crazy, right? Like, I think I’d know if I was a witch.”

“Well, Steve, I wasn’t going to say anything, but people usually find out that they’re witches from their parents,” explained Joyce. “It’s usually a little bit harder for latchkey kids to find out. There’s no one there to put together all the strange things that happen to them and come up with the only logical solution. But you have me now, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Joyce patted the spot beside her on the couch.

“Sit!”

Steve rounded the edge of the coffee table and fell into Joyce’s couch, heavy as stone. “You really think I’m like you and Will?”

“I know so,” said Joyce. “This isn’t for me, Steve. It’s to prove to you that you’re who I swear you are. To…get rid of any doubts in your mind. If you decide not to study the craft after this, that’s going to be your decision, but I want you to make that decision with all the facts. Okay?” She patted Steve’s hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and looked him straight in the eye. “No matter what you choose, I want you to know that being a witch doesn’t make you any more or less special than you are. No matter what happens, you’ll always be the same Steve who takes care of all the weird, nerdy kids in Hawkins like they’re his own and willingly spends time with a woman over twice his age just so her hands hurt a little less. You’re a sweet and kind and brave boy, with or without magic. This will only ever be something you could do if you want, like learning a language or playing an instrument. And I won’t take it personally if you choose not to continue your studies past learning this one knot, okay?”

Steve pursed his lips. “…Well, say you’re right, and I am a witch,” he said cautiously. “What do I—? I mean… How would I even start learning about this stuff? I mean, you wouldn’t…”

Joyce raised her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t…?”

“Well—” Steve hesitated. “I mean, you wouldn’t teach me, would you? I mean, you’ve got your own stuff to deal with, so—”

“Steve.” Joyce brought Steve’s hand into both of hers. “If this is something you want, I could think of nothing that would make me happier than to teach you magic.”

“Really?” asked Steve, skeptical.

“Absolutely,” said Joyce softly. “Will enjoys magic, at least enough to learn the basics, maybe a few more advanced protection charms after everything he’s been through, but he’s more of an artist than a witch. El, she’s interested, but she already struggles so much with school and making friends that I’m waiting until she’s grown up a little more before loading all of this onto her. But you, if you really want this— I mean, there’s really no greater honor for a witch than to pass the craft on to someone else. I would happily make you my apprentice, if that’s what you really want.”

Steve averted his eyes. Apprentice. He loved the sound of that. He hated how much he loved the sound of that. He was getting his hopes up, and if it turned out Joyce was wrong… “Let’s just try this knot thing before we get too excited.”

“Of course,” said Joyce, letting go of Steve’s hand to reach for one of the sections of string she’d cut free from her spool of twine. “Grab a string! Come on!”

Steve did as he was told, pinching the remaining rust-colored string between his thumb and the side of his index finger, the way Joyce held hers.

“Copy my movements,” she said softly, grabbing the loose end of her string and bringing it to her right hand. “Start by looping it around in a big circle, hold the loop here… Make a slipknot… Good…”

Steve mimicked Joyce’s every motion, slow and cautious and trying to memorize how the knot was made just in case—just in case—he needed it for the future.

“Don’t finish the knot yet,” said Joyce softly. “Not unless you already know what you’re wishing for.”

Steve stopped, just one tug away from done, and frowned at the knot. “Uh… What do I wish for?”

“It can be anything you want,” said Joyce. “But since we’re testing to make sure you can grant wishes, I’d recommend something that’s going to be granted by the end of the day. Something…specific, so you can recognize it when it happens. But nothing impossible. Think…finding a penny from a certain year on the sidewalk. But don’t be that boring. Have fun with it. It’s your first real wish.”

Steve furrowed his brow. That…wasn’t all that helpful. Something specific. Something he wanted. If he could think of something like that, would he be working at Family Video? It just brought to mind how he used to date. Lonely, like Joyce said, he would grab any girl who’d look at him twice and take them out, only to realize they weren’t what he wanted and try someone else the next day. That went on for over a year before…

Before that night with Eddie.

Shit, that was something specific he wanted, wasn’t it? Eddie. But Joyce said he couldn’t wish for the impossible or change someone’s nature.

Maybe he couldn’t make Eddie fall in love with him—he wouldn’t want to force that, anyway—but there was something else. Something a little more feasible.

“I think I’ve got something,” said Steve. “But I don’t know if it would work.”

“You could tell me what it is,” offered Joyce. “Then I could tell you if it’s a good idea or not.”

Steve winced. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

“We’re all a little embarrassing,” said Joyce, setting her knot down. “Will it make you feel better if I promise I won’t laugh?”

Steve sighed. Unfortunately, it did. Just enough. “Eddie left in a bad mood last night, you know? Like I said, he seemed quiet. Way too quiet for him. And I don’t know what I’d say if I called. I feel like drawing attention to it wouldn’t help, so… Maybe if I just…bumped into him somewhere…”

“You want to see him in person,” said Joyce. “Before the end of the day. Good! I think that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah?” Steve leaned back into the couch behind him, fingers still poised to finish the knot.

“Yeah,” assured Joyce. “It might get him out of the house, too, if he’s moping or something. I think that’s a great idea.”

Steve looked at the knot, then back to Joyce. “So I should just…?”

“Go ahead,” said Joyce. “Let’s see how it turns out.”

Steve nodded, returning his full attention to the knot.

He took a deep breath, made his wish, and pulled.

Steve immediately threw the finished knot onto the table and buried his face in his hands, as if he could hide from what he had just done.

Joyce rubbed encouraging circles into his back. “There’s really no reason to be embarrassed. You could have wished for something way more embarrassing.” She leaned in toward his ear and stage whispered, “You could have wished for him to kiss you.”

Steve jolted upright. “Would that even work?”

“It might!” said Joyce. “Even if he didn’t have a single bone in his body that wanted to kiss you, he could, I don’t know, trip next to you and his lips could bounce off your arm—”

Steve groaned and returned his face to his hands. God, Joyce and Robin would really get along. They could make fun of him all day and never get bored.

“Okay, enough kicking yourself.” Joyce smacked Steve’s leg gently. “I’m going to teach you how to make something else now.”

Steve cautiously lifted his head. “Shouldn’t we wait until we’re sure the last thing worked before we get into more witch stuff?”

“We are,” assured Joyce. “I need someone without hooks for hands to slice apples for apple pie.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. A warmth stirred in his heart, something he didn’t recognize. It took a few seconds for him to realize what it was.

All those years of childhood spent listening to other kids talk about baking cookies with their moms, and he was finally getting a look into how that felt.

“Yeah.” The smile that rose to Steve’s lips came all on its own. He stood slowly, leaving the knot and all worries attached to it behind. “That sounds great.”

A lot more went into apple pie than Steve realized.

The crust involved a lot of rushing around and doing things quickly, before butter could melt or cold water could warm up or the crust could…shrink? And Steve had expected that to be the hard part, but then there was the filling. Steve had to do anything that hurt Joyce’s hands from chopping up the apples to stirring the pot, but the number of things Joyce mixed into the filling blew Steve’s mind. And it occurred to Steve that, really, despite what Joyce had told him, this didn’t feel any less like witchcraft than her making the charm for Eddie the day before had. It all seemed like the same basic thing to him, combining different pieces of something in a specific order into one whole, complete result that felt like it couldn’t have possibly come from any of that. Cornstarch and lemon shouldn’t have been able to make apple pie any more than lavender and rough blazing star made optimism. But it did. It all worked. It was all seamless. It was just a matter of knowing the recipe and the technique.

With a contented sigh, Joyce set the apples into the pie crust from the refrigerator and showed Steve how to make a lattice out of the top crust—which was way more fun for Steve than it had any business being—before sliding the pie, unbaked, back into the refrigerator.

“Okay, we’ll bake that when we get back,” said Joyce. “For now…” She moved into the living room and took her keys off a hook by the door. “How about I treat you to lunch?”

“You don’t have to do that,” assured Steve.

“I’m a mom,” said Joyce cheerfully. “You can’t stop me.”

Joyce drove him to a restaurant in town Steve had never been to, though when he walked in and saw the clientele, he figured out why pretty quickly; aside from him, Joyce was maybe the youngest person there.

“This place has the best chicken,” said Joyce as she led Steve inside, bell jingling under the doorknob. “But if you like roast beef, it has really good sandwiches.”

“What’s cheaper?” asked Steve, sliding his hands into his pockets.

“That,” said Joyce, “is not relevant. We’re celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?” asked Steve.

“Do you really have to ask that?” Joyce nudged him with her shoulder. “You found out something pretty new and exciting about yourself today! I think that’s worth celebrating, even if you decide not to pursue it.”

“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” said Steve, feeling small. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see anything coming out of that wish.”

He’d barely felt those words leave his lips before the bell under the doorknob rang again. Steve turned around, attention drawn by the sound, and he came face to face, eye to eye, with an Eddie Munson who looked just as surprised as he felt.

“Harrington,” breathed Eddie, hand still on the doorknob. “Didn’t think this was your scene.”

“Didn’t think this was yours,” said Steve, feeling lightheaded. There’s no way…

Eddie just shrugged, completely unaware of the spinning of Steve’s head. “It’s got good chicken.”

“I told you,” said Joyce, digging her elbow into Steve’s side. He wasn’t sure if she was talking about the chicken or Eddie.

Eddie raised his eyebrows, eyes darting toward Joyce as if noticing her for the first time. “And who’s this pretty flower? I didn’t realize you were on a date, Stevie.”

“You’re as bad as he is,” chastised Joyce, fixing Eddie with a pointed look.

Steve cleared his throat. Breathe. Breathe. “Eddie, this is Will’s mom. Joyce, Eddie Munson.” Of course, he had the feeling she knew that already.

“I have the pleasure of meeting the Joyce Byers?” gasped Eddie, dramatic as always, pressing a hand to his chest. “The famous witch of Hawkins? And me in this dusty old vest. How embarrassing. I knew I should have gotten dolled up.”

Steve let out a breath. He hadn’t realized part of his nervousness came from a worry that Eddie wouldn’t want to be around Joyce after his crisis the night before. Not until he’d already accepted her. It seemed he really did consider accepting her charm as his own responsibility.

Eddie held out a hand, and Joyce, taking the hint, grasped his, not in a formal handshake, but like a queen greeted by a knight.

“Enchanté.” More French? Sounded like French. “It’s an honor, Ms. Byers.”

As he had the night before, Eddie swept a leg out behind him and bowed low, but unlike the night before, rather than kissing Joyce’s hand, he just brought his forehead to her knuckles.

Huh… Steve supposed the charm did affect his personality a little.

“You were right,” Joyce stage-whispered jubilantly, easily loud enough for Eddie to hear. “He is weird.”

Eddie raised his head and his eyebrows with it. “You know, I’d normally assume that was an insult, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone call me ‘weird’ with that much fondness before.”

“Really?” Joyce’s grin widened into something mischievous.

Oh, no. No, Steve could tell what she was about to say and he was not a fan. No, no, no-no-no-no-no-no-no—

“Well, you should have heard the way Steve said it when he told me about you.”

God damn it, Joyce.

Eddie’s eyes slid from Joyce’s face to Steve’s, pulling that mischievous gleam with them. “Stevie… I didn’t know you talked about me.”

Steve shrank under Eddie’s gaze. God, what was he supposed to say? “I— Uh. You know—” Man, Joyce really threw him under the bus. “It’s just—”

“If you’re worried about what he’s been saying, don’t be,” assured Joyce, looping her arm through Steve’s and holding him in place, like she was scared he was going to run off. It might not have been that unreasonable of a worry. “It’s all good things.”

“Really?” Eddie spoke slowly, his eyes sliding from Joyce to Steve and back again with languid, syrupy slowness that made Steve’s heart feel as though it had to make up for lost time, like the world had slowed down and it needed to compensate. “Even the part about me being weird?”

“Especially the part about you being weird,” assured Joyce, nodding as she spoke. “Actually, the way he talks about you, I think he worries he’s not weird enough for you.”

Eddie’s eyes darted back to Steve’s face. He’d softened again, the way he had the night before, after his phone call to Gareth. “Is that so, Harrington? I gotta tell you, I wasn’t expecting that. Who knew Steve Harrington would ever want to impress Eddie Munson.”

“I think you’re cool,” snapped Steve, defensive to hide the vulnerability in those words. “So sue me. What do you want, a trophy?”

Eddie threw his head back and laughed, his shoulders relaxing and his hands slipping into his pockets. “Why? Are you offering to be one?”

Steve fought the heat in his cheeks long enough to roll his eyes.

“I’d love to get to know you better,” said Joyce, rescuing Steve for once. “After everything I’ve heard from Steve and Will, I can’t help being curious. Why don’t we all sit together?”

“Ah, no can do, Lady Joyce.” Eddie shifted his weight back. “Unfortunately, I’m grabbing lunch to go. Uncle Wayne’s back at home waiting for me.”

“Rain check,” said Joyce, jabbing a finger in his direction. “It’s spring break for you this week, isn’t it?”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. Steve hoped it wasn’t because he was that surprised to have someone comment on the fact he was still in high school without any derision in their voice, but he had an unfortunate feeling that was exactly what it was. “Yeah.”

“Doing anything on Wednesday? Around noon?”

“Uh, no?” Eddie sucked in a breath, stealing another quick look in Steve’s direction. “No. I am not.”

“Then that’s perfect,” said Joyce. “You, me, Steve, and the boys. How does that sound?”

“The boys,” echoed Eddie. “So Will and Jonathan Byers?”

“That’s right!”

Eddie clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth a few times, thinking it over. Steve wasn’t sure which side he was rooting for, whether he wanted Eddie to come up with an excuse or whether he desperately wanted Eddie to have lunch with him and the Byerses. All he knew was that his tongue felt too heavy in his mouth, and it felt heavier for every second that passed with Eddie looking into his eyes.

“I guess I can mark that on my schedule,” said Eddie, his attention turning back to Joyce. “How can I say no to the reasons my career began?”

There was bitterness in those words. Eddie clearly still thought he was screwed, that the record label was going to find him out somehow.

Steve grabbed him by the arm before he could get too tongue-tied to speak again. “You’re gonna do great, man. Don’t freak out on me again, okay?”

Eddie sent Steve a pitying smile. Almost the same damn smile Joyce gave him earlier that day when he wanted to know what Eddie had been about to say before midnight the night before. The same look Steve’s southern great-grandmother had on her face the one time he met her when he was little, when she’d taken one look at him struggling to tie his shoes before turning to his mother, patting her on the hand, and saying, “Bless his heart.”

“Wednesday at noon, Stevie,” said Eddie softly. “I’m meeting my producer on Tuesday.”

Steve knew what that meant. “So we’ll be celebrating.” And not trying to make you feel better about whatever disaster you think’s going to happen.

“Sure.” Nice try. “I’ll talk to you then, Steve.” Eddie tipped an invisible hat in Joyce’s direction. “Ms. Byers.”

“Joyce,” she insisted.

“Joyce,” amended Eddie.

“Don’t forget!”

“You have my word.” Eddie turned to walk past the tiny foyer with vending machines and old photographs and toward the front counter where the diner’s elderly clientele lined up to pay after their meals.

Steve sucked in a breath and slid out of Joyce’s hold to follow him. “Hey, Eddie?”

Eddie spun around on his heel, sneaker squeaking against the waxed floors, hands still in his pockets, soft surprise etched into his features. “Stevie?”

Steve took another breath. He wasn’t even sure what he’d wanted to say to Eddie so badly. He just wanted to say more. “…If you’re late for lunch, I’m going to your trailer and dragging you to Joyce’s place. And don’t act like you don’t know where it is. I know you do.”

Eddie smirked and took a step back. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to escort me, officer.” He waved his hand lazily and turned back toward the line.

Joyce caught up with Steve and took his arm again, giving it an encouraging rub before tugging him inside. “Let’s go find a seat.”

“Yeah…” Steve’s eyes lingered on the back of Eddie’s head for just a moment longer before Joyce pulled him along and he dragged his feet into the restaurant.

“I’ve never been that—that flustered in my life. Did you see that? I was a mess!”

“It wasn’t that bad,” hushed Joyce.

“It was bad,” said Steve. “I couldn’t even talk. I know people talk about being tongue-tied, but it really felt like something was tying my tongue to my lower jaw with little wires, like that story about all the tiny little people tying that guy to the ground because he’s like a giant to them.”

“Gulliver’s Travels?”

“Sure, I don’t know.” Steve pecked at his mashed potatoes with the end of his fork. “All I know is that I made a fool out of myself.”

“You didn’t make a fool out of yourself,” hissed Joyce through a smile, reaching across the table to slap Steve’s arm. “He was very charmed. I could tell.”

“You don’t have to mom me,” sighed Steve. “I know it was awful.” He pressed his forehead into one hand and speared a green bean into his mouth with the other. “I’m good with girls,” he mumbled. “Why am I such a mess with him?”

“Well, like I said, you weren’t a mess,” said Joyce. “But if you’re more nervous around him, that might be because, you know…” She shrugged. “You care more about the outcome.”

“So what you’re saying is, because I want him to like me, he’s less likely to like me,” mumbled Steve. “Yeah, that figures.”

“I never said that,” chided Joyce. “You really do like him a lot, though, don’t you?”

“Yeah, pretty obvious. I know.” Steve sighed and set his fork down. “Glad to know I magically gave him a chicken craving just so I could stand in front of him like an idiot and say nothing.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” said Joyce. “He seemed pretty shy himself. The second he saw me it was like he found a shield to hide behind. No wonder you couldn’t think of anything to say. You were barely a part of that conversation. It seemed to me like he was too nervous to talk to you.”

“Yeah, after I gave him a whole crisis with that charm. That makes me feel better.”

“You’re so stubborn.” Joyce shook her head. “One of these days he’s going to sit you down and have a long talk with you about your feelings and you’ll see I know what I’m talking about. But since you obviously don’t want to talk about that…” Joyce kicked Steve gently under the table. “Let’s focus on what we wanted to prove today. You did happen to bump into Eddie. And you know what that means.”

Steve combed his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “I guess. Yeah.”

“Do you believe me yet?” asked Joyce. “At least about that?”

“That I’m a witch?” Steve huffed a laugh. “I guess I don’t have a choice. Unless I’m going to say that was a coincidence. But I guess anything I could wish for would be something that could be explained away as coincidence.”

“It’s really the reliability that proves it,” said Joyce. “There’s something about the scientific method… Something has to be repeatable for a…a theory to be proven? Something like that. Will could explain it to you better than I could. He’s the science whiz in the family.” She waved her fork. “But that’s not important. What’s more important is what you want to do with this. I know you seemed excited about the idea earlier, but I understand if…if seeing Eddie again and wondering if the charm you gave him really helped might have given you second thoughts.”

Steve met Joyce’s eyes across the table. He wasn’t going to lie, there was truth in that. He did have a few doubts after seeing Eddie. But…honestly, he just liked spending time with Joyce. And sure, he’d happily keep helping her with chores, and she’d probably still treat him the same way no matter what, but there was something about the idea of learning magic from her, about being passed down some kind of familial tradition that tugged at Steve’s heart. Made him want to take anything she could give him.

“…If I decide I don’t want to keep doing it once we’ve started,” he began warily, reaching for his fork once more, “then…can I just drop it? Go back to being boring if I decide it’s too much responsibility or whatever?”

“You’re not boring,” said Joyce. “But yes, of course you can stop at any time.”

Steve nodded slowly, eyes narrowed at the table. “…Then this is what I want.”

“‘This’?”

“Magic,” said Steve. “Witchcraft. Whatever you want to call it. I want— I want to learn how to be a witch. Or I at least want to try.”

He waited for Joyce to say something.

She never did.

Steve looked up with a frown, some irrational part of him worried he’d somehow misunderstood everything she’d told him about teaching him, or that he wasn’t really a real witch and he’d just assumed she meant something she hadn’t. But she wasn’t looking at him like he was stupid. She didn’t seem confused or offended.

She looked like she was about to cry.

“Steve…”

Without warning, Joyce climbed out of her seat and moved around the edge of the booth to climb into Steve’s seat on the other side and yank him into a hug.

“You’ll be a great witch,” she whispered, rocking him back and forth like he was her own son.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” mumbled Steve.

Joyce pinched his ear.

“Ow—!”

“And we’re gonna work on that self-esteem, too,” she mumbled. “You’re too good to be so down on yourself.”

Steve closed his eyes. With a hesitant hand, he reached up behind Joyce’s back and pulled her closer, returning the embrace. “Sure. Yeah. Whatever you say.”

Chapter Text

Steve blew a puff of air over what was left of his wooden pendant after all the carving he’d done. The wood shavings left on Joyce’s kitchen table beneath him rolled across, into Will’s space and onto his sketchbook.

Will looked up at him from where he sat and raised an eyebrow pointedly.

Steve tapped the handle of the chisel Joyce had given him into the table, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Will just smiled, brushed his sketchbook off, and continued drawing in silence.

Steve frowned at the symbol he’d etched into the little wooden circle Joyce had given him. It was about the size of a quarter, with a hole in the middle. Joyce had shown him the symbol he had to carve, made him draw it twenty times on a piece of paper like he was writing lines for cursing at the teacher, and sat with him through his first carving the day before. This time, she wanted to see if he could do it on his own, so while she was in the living room behind Steve folding laundry, Steve was in the kitchen with a picture to copy, a chisel, and a prayer.

Well, and Joyce, he supposed. It wasn’t like she was out of earshot. They just had their backs turned to each other and a couch between them.

The symbol on the coin mimicked the knot Joyce had shown him the day before. Fine little loops Steve was supposed to be able to carve out of the tiny little wooden coin in a recognizable pattern.

Joyce had assured him that it would become second nature to him eventually, like writing the alphabet.

Steve wasn’t quite there yet, though. He definitely wasn’t there yet.

He glanced across the table at Will’s sketchbook, the page he was drawing on a great deal fuller than the last time Steve had looked.

“Is that Mike?”

Will jumped, startled, and warily met Steve’s eyes. He shrugged, like he was performing nonchalance and oh. Oh, gotcha. Well, that answered a lot of questions. “I mean, it wasn’t supposed to be. I guess it kind of looks like him, though.”

Steve returned to his own artwork. “Right. Sure, kid.”

When Will tensed at that, clearly unaware that Steve was safe, Steve lowered his chisel, aimed, and flicked a tiny wood chunk at Will’s face.

Will flinched, surprised rather than scared, and looked across the table at Steve just in time to earn another tiny crumb of wood between the eyes.

Steve grinned and flicked another piece of wood, only for Will to block his attack with his sketchbook. “What are you doing?”

“Annoying you,” said Steve simply, flicking another piece of wood at him. “Is it working?”

“Yes,” said Will through a laugh. “You can stop now.”

“All right, all right.” Steve grabbed his chisel again. He just had a little bit left to do. “Hey, do you wanna know a secret? Well. Not that big of a secret. I mean, your mom figured it out pretty fast.”

Will cautiously lowered his sketchbook back onto the table. “…Sure? What is it?”

“I’m bi,” said Steve, a lot more casually than he had the last time he said those words, when Robin had had to deal with his initial panic. “Bisexual. You know what that is, right?”

“Oh.” Will’s eyes flicked between Steve’s face and the sketchbook, like he was thinking about picking it up to pretend like Steve coming out wasn’t as big as it was. “No, yeah, I, uh, I know what that is.”

“And you’re cool with it?” asked Steve.

This time, Will did pick up his sketchbook again. “…Duh.”

Steve smiled. Okay, so they weren’t pretending they didn’t know why Will was drawing Mike anymore. “Good.”

He returned to his wooden coin to file down some of the rougher edges but made little headway before he felt a hand at the back of his head.

When he looked up, he found Joyce smiling at him from above, gratefulness in her eyes. An unspoken thanks for making her son feel a little less alone.

“Your charm’s coming along well,” she said softly. “No mistakes in the pattern… Looks like you’re almost done, too.”

“Close,” said Steve.

“Good.” Joyce moved her hand from his head to his shoulder. “I feel like getting out of the house and doing something fun. Maybe going window shopping. What do you boys think?”

“Sounds good to me.” Steve looked across the table. “What do you think, Byers?”

“Uh…” Will surreptitiously closed his sketchbook. “Sure.”

“Great.” Joyce ruffled Steve’s hair, shamelessly disrupting his best feature. “I’m going to put this laundry away, and by the time I get back, you should be just about finished with your charm.”

Steve watched Joyce pick up her laundry basket from the living room and disappear down the hallway before returning his attention to the edges of the pattern he was filing down. It wasn’t long before he was satisfied, and he picked up the leather cord Joyce had left with him to finish the charm.

The little wooden pendant was the important part, or so Joyce had said. That was where the magic was. The leather cord was part of it, but unlike with the knot Joyce had shown him before, it could be fashioned into any knot, as long as it fit around the wrist. It didn’t even matter who tied the knot. The magic came from who did the carving.

And Steve was relieved about that, because despite Joyce showing him how to tie the cord around his wrist in a way the was easy even for her, the knot she’d shown him wasn’t ingrained into his mind any more than the carving was yet, and Steve was struggling.

“Here.” Will pushed his chair out, its feet scraping across the linoleum, and moved around the table to take Steve by the wrist. “It’s like this.”

He pulled the cord through the hole in the center of Steve’s pendant and twisted it around, securing it firmly before looping the slack around the back of Steve’s wrist and securing it.

“Thanks,” said Steve. “I’m gonna get it one of these days.”

Will just smiled. “Be careful with these, though, okay? They’re not as…smart, as the butterfly wishes?” He winced. “One time, when I was little, I was singing this Cat Stevens song called ‘I Wish, I Wish’ when my charm broke. Have you heard of it?”

Steve shook his head.

“Well, there’s this line about…wanting to know the difference between heaven and hell or something, and…” Will spoke through a grimace. “Before I knew it, I was cornered by some Bible thumper in town who didn’t let me leave until my mom rescued me.”

“Yikes.” Steve mirrored his grimace.

“Like I said…” Will crossed his arms. “Be careful. Don’t…say anything you don’t mean while you’re wearing that. Especially anything with the words ‘wish’ or ‘want’ in it.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Despite Joyce’s insistence that they were just window shopping, Steve found himself fishing for his wallet more than once. Not because Will or Joyce said anything, but because he’d caught Will’s eyes lingering a bit too long on a yellow gingham shirt that Steve agreed would look good on him, or because Joyce had said something in passing about her sneakers wearing out while admiring a pair of shoes. Steve couldn’t resist the urge to show them the kindness they showed him, no matter how flustered Will got or how Joyce smacked his arm before she’d given in and pulled him down by the shoulder to kiss his cheek.

It was nice. It was fun. More than Steve expected it to be. He understood the stereotype about girls liking shopping, suddenly. If more guys gave it a try, if they went out with friends rather than grabbing whatever they felt they needed off the racks whenever their shirts got too threadbare to keep, he had a feeling the “it’s a woman thing” stigma would wear out in no time.

Besides, it wasn’t as if they were just looking at clothes and shoes. Joyce showed Steve a cute shop on main street he’d never paid much attention to that sold miniature statues. Some of them were chintzy things like pastel angels and Santa Clauses in every color, but Will’s eyes widened appreciatively when he’d caught sight of a royal purple dragon, and Steve was sorely tempted to buy what looked like a zombie baseball player swinging a bat before he realized that he was, on some level, only really getting it because it seemed like something that Eddie would laugh at. Embarrassed, he put it back.

Then there was the record store.

It was brightly lit, but oddly cozy inside in a way Steve struggled to explain. It was like the musical equivalent of stepping into a toy shop around Christmas, but with more…sunshine. Curtains framed displays of music paraphernalia. Stickers were scattered across cassette tapes, leaving personalized critiques and recommendations on the backs of various albums. Each aisle in the store was decorated with silk flowers of colors that seemed to echo the feeling of the music in that aisle. A dusty orange for country music, blue for jazz, pink for pop…

Steve stopped at the end of one aisle decorated with black and red roses. He knew without looking at the sign what was in that direction, and his feet took him there before his mind had the chance to catch up.

Metallica, Pantera, Slayer… Steve recognized more than a few of the names he caught along the spines of the casettes. Hell if he’d be able to recognize any of them by sound, but he knew what the album art looked like, and he knew that Eddie had talked his ear off about an album he’d wanted but hadn’t had the chance to pick up yet. And if Eddie was worried about his career, Steve doubted that had changed.

Steve’s fingers found the title under a painting of a man labeled “In Loving Memory of Clifford Lee Burton February 10, 1962 - September 27, 1986” which Steve was pretty sure was the guy Eddie told him died in a bus crash or something, who was from…shit, was it Metallica or Megadeth? Steve swore he was listening when Eddie told him, but he couldn’t keep the bands apart in his head.

He remembered Eddie being excited about an album dedicated to him, though. Among the Living. He remembered thinking the title was sort of ironic. And he remembered the song Eddie showed him that was supposed to be on it. Remembered how he never paid attention to drums in songs, but how he’d paid attention to the drums in this song because they were hard to miss. Hard to forget. And then there was that part that Steve swore sounded exactly like Master of Puppets, which Steve would be able to recognize anywhere thanks to how often Eddie played it.

Man… If he could hear himself just a year ago, Steve would probably think he’d learned a new language.

“What did you find?”

Steve lifted his head when he heard Joyce. “God, you’re like a cat. How are you so quiet?”

Joyce just smiled at him in answer and tilted her head to look at the casette Steve had picked up from the shelf. “‘Anthrax’?”

Steve might have been embarrassed if anyone else over thirty found him with an album like that in his hands, but he trusted Joyce. “Not the kind of stuff I listen to, but, you know…”

“Eddie,” said Joyce knowingly.

“It’s something he’s wanted for a while,” said Steve. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have it yet.”

“And you’re thinking about buying it for him,” said Joyce.

Steve sighed. There was no point in denying it.

Joyce grinned up at him and leaned into his side. “Go ahead! I think it’s sweet.”

“You don’t think it’s too forward?” asked Steve.

“Not unless you’ve been flirting with me and Will today,” said Joyce.

Steve turned the tape over in his hands, looking from the spine to the front. “That was a pair of shoes and one shirt. This is different. This is more personal. It’s one of his bands, you know? It’s Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and these guys. And I shouldn’t know that, but I do, because I listen too closely, and he talks so passionately about them, and I just get lost in the sound of his voice—”

“We’re talking about Eddie, right?”

Steve turned his head and found Will at the end of the aisle.

“I mean…” Will drew closer, quiet and cautious. “I can’t think of any other reason you’d be looking at metal.”

Steve grumbled noncommittally. He didn’t really want Will to know all about his dumb crush, but he did ask Will who he was drawing earlier when they both knew damn well who it was and why. Steve supposed it was only fair.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m talking about Eddie.”

Will must have heard something in Steve’s voice when he said that, because his eyes softened in understanding, and he leaned around Steve’s shoulder to look at what he was holding.

“…You know he’d love you forever if you got that for him, right?”

Steve laughed quietly. As if it was that easy. “I don’t know if I want him to know I want that, though.”

He turned the tape over again. One of the yellow, oval-shaped stickers showing the record store’s opinions covered most of the back of the case. Steve tilted his head to the side, squinting at the red marker, trying to make out the questionable handwriting. He murmured the writer’s thoughts under his breath, as if that could help him read it easier.

“‘I wish everyone could hear—’”

“Steve—” Will grabbed Steve’s arm. “Steve, wait—”

“‘—their music the way we do.’”

Something bounced off Steve’s shoe. When he looked down to see what it was, he found the wooden pendant he’d carved earlier that day lying on the floor, its two broken halves still attached by the leather cord Will had tied onto Steve’s wrist.

“Oh.” Steve felt sick. “Oh, shhhhhhh—”

Joyce burst out laughing.

“Mom!” hissed Will. “It’s not funny!”

“‘I wish everyone could hear their music the way we do,’” repeated Steve. “What does that even mean? What did I wish for?”

Joyce shook her head, tears of mirth in her eyes. “I have no idea!” She patted Steve’s arm sympathetically. “But accidentally evoking something you don’t want is something we’ve all dealt with! It’s official! You’re really a witch now!”

Steve sank to the floor, squatting just inches above the green carpet, his head in his hands.

What the hell had he signed up for?

Steve wound up buying the tape. If it was going to give him trouble no matter what, he wanted something to come out of it. Even if it was just Eddie being happy for a while.

The tape burned a hole in the pocket of Steve’s vest. He ran his thumb anxiously over the sticker, the one that he’d read aloud. The one he’d accidentally changed his fate with. Steve had been going nuts trying to figure out what the hell those words could mean. Like— Maybe everyone in the world liked Anthrax just a little more. But there was that ‘we’. If Steve had made the world like Anthrax a little more because Eddie liked them, or because whoever wrote that sticker liked them, then surely his own total indifference to Anthrax would have canceled that out. So maybe, maybe, nothing had happened at all. After all, Joyce said that the magic came from the witch who had done it, and that it was like a muscle that got stronger the more it was used, and that overdoing it didn’t make the muscle sore or anything, but instead just…didn’t work. Like trying to pick up a barbell when your arms already feel like they’re about to fall off. So maybe nothing would happen at all. Maybe Steve wasn’t strong enough of a witch yet. Maybe the charm tried to work, which was why it broke, but nothing actually happened. Maybe Steve was totally fine.

Or maybe something awful was about to happen to Eddie because he was thinking about Eddie when he’d made that wish and he had no idea what to do to stop it.

Steve had been thinking about it all night. It kept him up. Barely let him sleep even a wink. And it was what had him pacing in Joyce Byers’ front yard as he waited for Eddie to arrive for lunch.

Steve stopped, frustrated, and kicked up a few fallen leaves.

Eddie had already been through enough because of Steve’s magic. He didn’t want to put Eddie through more shit.

What if the magic was attached to the tape somehow? What if giving Eddie the tape cursed him? Maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe Steve should just keep the tape. Listen to it on his own. Take the brunt of whatever curse he’d caused. Learning all the words to Eddie’s favorite songs was sort of like a gift in its own right, wasn’t it?

Maybe…

Maybe he shouldn’t have started learning magic at all.

Groaning, Steve took both hands out of his pockets and ran them through his hair. What the hell did he do?

The crunching of gravel under tires stole Steve’s attention from his own panic and forced it onto the van rolling into Joyce’s driveway.

Well, he couldn’t cancel lunch anymore. Not that Joyce would let him, anyway.

Eddie shut the door behind himself as he climbed out of his van and half-jogged to Steve, hands buried deep in the pockets of his denim vest. “Jesus H. Christ, it’s cold as balls out here. My nipples are like fucking diamonds. What happened to the sun?”

Steve didn’t know what Eddie was talking about; he actually felt a lot warmer, suddenly. “Maybe if you wore jeans without vents.” He kicked Eddie’s bare knee playfully, his panic stashed away for the time being. “I’m glad you showed up.”

Eddie gave a full-body shiver. “Yeah, well, someone threatened to kidnap me if I was late, so I really didn’t have a choice.” He bounced in place, feet shooting inches off the ground. “Can we please go inside before I decide to hold a lighter to my shirt to stay warm?”

“Like you’d get anywhere near that close to fire in your battle vest,” said Steve, already leading the way to Joyce’s front door.

Eddie smiled at him, peculiarly soft.

“What?” asked Steve, half-laughing. “I got something on my face?”

“No, I just…” Eddie elbowed Steve’s arm without taking his hands out of his pockets. “I didn’t think you knew what a battle vest was.”

“Of course I do,” said Steve. “You told me.”

“Yeah, but…” Eddie shrugged. “Doesn’t necessarily mean you listened.”

“I listen,” said Steve, offended. “I always listen. Or…” He hesitated, conceding. “I mean, I try. Some of it goes over my head, I mean… I still don’t get the difference between glam metal and thrash metal.”

Eddie laughed, shaking his head. “God, Harrington…”

“But the concept of a vest you cover in stuff you like?” asked Steve. “That you sew all these patches and stuff onto as a way of saying, like, ‘This is who I am’? I totally get that. And I get why you’d want to take care of it. Why it’d mean so much to you. I mean, how many hours did you put into that? How much of yourself did you put into that?” He held the door open for Eddie to enter first. “I just— I know for a fact that if your trailer was on fire, you’d go for— Well, you’d go for your guitar first. Then you’d save your vest.”

“Vest third,” said Eddie. “I’d save my uncle first.”

“Well, obviously,” said Steve. “I figured that went without saying.”

Eddie sent him a smirk as he made his way inside, then started bouncing from foot to foot, shaking all the cold out of him. “Thank god the heater’s on. I might actually survive this.”

Steve let the storm door close with a clang, chuckling as Eddie tipped his head back.

“I smell pie,” he said softly, almost urgently. “I definitely smell pie.”

“Yeah, you do,” said Steve. “It’s cherry. I should know, I took out every pit myself.” Not that he’d been complaining at the time. It was something to do with his anxious hands. “But that’s for after lunch, you got it? I don’t care how much you’re looking forward to it. Keep your gremlin hands to yourself. Here—”

Steve spun Eddie around and grabbed his leather jacket, battle vest and all, sliding it down Eddie’s arms before hanging it up on the hook by the door.

Eddie turned back around with a smirk, sliding his hands into his back pockets. “Well, well, well, Harrington… Taking my coat like a proper gentleman. You sure know how to treat a girl.”

Steve felt heat crawl up his neck as he slid his own vest off. That had been automatic. Some stupid part of him wanted to be on a date with Eddie so damn bad that he just started running the date script. “You’re a heathen and I know you would have kept that coat on the whole time if I didn’t grab you right away.”

“Ooh, a heathen.” Eddie leaned into Steve’s space, grinning. “Big word for you. And once again, not something usually said with so much fondness.”

“W—” Steve started floundering. He felt like he was drowning, like he was underwater and Eddie’s face was the surface, so close and yet nothing he dared to get any closer to. “I w—”

“What’s for lunch?” asked Eddie, taking pity on Steve to lean back and put some space between them. “Gotta know what I’m holding out on that cherry pie for.”

“Potato soup,” said Steve quickly. “And, uh, grilled cheese sandwiches. Joyce thought we should make something for the cold.”

Eddie half-moaned and Steve half-lost-his-mind.

“Potato soup sounds like fucking heaven right now.”

“Well, my mashed potatoes always turn out runny, so I decided I might as well commit to that. You know, instead of fighting the inevitable.” Joyce appeared around the corner with a playful smile. “Thanks for coming, Eddie. The pie’s still in the oven for another fifteen minutes, but everything else is almost done if you want to join us in the kitchen.”

Eddie spun around, hands still in his pockets, and sent Joyce a blinding smile. “I’d be happy to, Ms. Byers—”

“Ah-ah…” Joyce fixed Eddie with a pointed stare.

“Joyce,” Eddie corrected, pointing at her. “Forgot how cool you were for a second.”

Joyce smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen and Eddie turned his smile on Steve briefly before following.

Steve reached the doorway and found Eddie happily making his way to Will, greeting him with a boisterous “Will the Wise!” He’d barely started his conversation, something about their latest Dungeons and Dragons session, when a flash lit up the kitchen. Jonathan lowered the camera Steve had given him a few years prior—an apology for getting off on the wrong foot when the drama with Nancy was at its peak—and joined the conversation, warmly welcoming Eddie into their home.

There was so much warmth in their gathering. Though definitely mismatched, there was no denying that there was something familial stirring between them, and something…something almost “Christmas in July” about the whole gathering. Just…turned on its side. Thanksgiving in April.

Eddie rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, showing off his bat tattoos, posing for another picture with his arm flexed and his tongue out, earning a laugh from Will. And something about it, something just felt right. The same sort of right Steve felt when he watched Mike and Lucas argue over something superficial knowing that none of the smart remarks would turn into anything more than a lighthearted, sarcasm-filled rivalry. The same sort of right Steve felt when El and Max started whispering things into each other’s ears and looking at him from across the room and giggling, and Steve knew they were making fun of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The same sort of right Steve felt when Dustin and Robin had gotten into heated debates about movies Steve had never seen and Robin pulled Dustin into headlocks for honest-to-goodness noogies when he asked too many questions.

It was satisfying, like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and finally finding the piece that fit into that hole that had been bugging you since you started putting things together.

This is what I’m supposed to have, he thought, watching the man he adored grab the younger brother of his ex-girlfriend’s new man from behind and pull him into a startled, flailing hug that lifted him off the ground and nearly knocked a chair over in the process. Surprised screams from Will, assurances from Eddie that he’d never be too big to pick up, and agreeing laughter from Jonathan.

It was weird, it was perfect, it was right. Eddie fit right into the Byers’ kitchen the same way Steve felt himself fitting in, and, god, Steve wanted. He wanted all of it.

All his life, he’d dreamed of a big family. When he was a kid, it had been postcard-perfect. Wife, kids, dog, picket fence. Robin had teased him, for ages, about realizing he was bi but still yearning for the cardboard cut-out of the American Midwest sitcom life, the life of a straight, white, middle-class man. It had been a shield, Steve knew. An ideal given to him by his parents, the model of what he was supposed to be. If he could just get as close to that as possible, maybe he wouldn’t be a failure.

But that was the thing about having parents that were never there, that never…bothered trying to raise Steve. That just gave him rules and a goal and told him to get his ass across the finish line by whatever means necessary. Letting go of his parents, of what they wanted from him, was a process. It had been a process, for years. Something Robin had tried to teach out of him from the moment they met—hell, something Dustin had been trying to teach out of him just by virtue of being a weird kid who needed to be protected, who had met him running from stupid school bullies that mirrored who Steve used to be. Thanks to them, and all Dustin’s weird little friends, and Nancy, and Joyce Byers, and eventually Eddie Munson, all banding together and influencing Steve bit by bit by bit in ways Steve’s parents had never done, challenging him, supporting him…his parents’ grip on him, their ideas about who he was supposed to be, gradually loosened, and Steve fell into loving arms instead.

Steve still wanted a big family. That came from him, not his parents, who had barely even wanted one son, who had barely even wanted each other. But the shape… The shape was different. Less conventional, less nuclear. More…weird.

Joyce had told him, “Weird is real.” And Steve got that. He really did. Because the second he stopped worrying about what the perfect family looked like, he realized…he had one. Seven kids, a witch mom, a lesbian with too much energy, his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, hell, the Chief of Police when he was around, and a metalhead with long hair, dark eyes, and a playful grin that made Steve’s toes curl, and…

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, Steve kind of wanted to marry him.

Not like he was about to throw caution to the wind and pick up an engagement ring after dinner or something. Even in a world where Eddie did feel the same, that’d be nuts. But Steve couldn’t stop picturing it once it entered his head, and the beautiful thing was… Shit, the most amazing part is that it changed almost nothing.

The picture of Steve’s perfect family would look exactly the same as it did, just with a couple more rings in the picture. He’d just…moved on from his old dream and into a new one, one that worked for him, where he didn’t have to hammer jigsaw pieces that didn’t fit into place because everything already did.

And between magic and black leather and family ties made from love instead of blood, among black kids and agnostic kids with no collar bones and gay witches and everything Steve’s parents would be horrified to know Steve made part of his life, there was Eddie fucking Munson.

And Steve was in love with him.

Eddie, in the middle of talking to Jonathan about how stage lighting affected photographs, glanced at Steve over Jonathan’s shoulder, catching the way Steve had been staring.

Eddie winked, smiling, before turning his full attention back to Jonathan.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat, then pounded twice as fast to make up for lost time.

Yeah. Shit, he was in love.

From the corner of Steve’s eye, he saw Joyce struggling with the pot of soup. There were potholders lying in the middle of the table, so Steve could tell where she was headed with it, but why she’d decided to try to carry the whole heavy pot by herself, Steve had no idea.

Her hands started to shake around the potholders.

Realizing what was about to happen, Steve yanked the sleeves of his long-sleeved t-shirt down over his hands, barely catching the bottom of the pot before it spilled.

“I gotcha, I gotcha—” Steve winced. His sleeves were thin and not meant for holding hot pots of soup, but at least it was better than catching the pot with his bare hands. Certainly better than letting it spill all over the kitchen floor after all the work Joyce put into it.

“Oh— Oh, Steve—” Joyce gasped, noticing Steve’s grimace. “You shouldn’t—”

“I got it,” said Steve. “Let’s just walk it to the table.”

“Mom.” Jonathan sighed, exasperated, and grabbed a pair of bright red oven mitts off the wall, which he used to quickly join Steve under the pot and help him steady it on the way to the table. “You have to stop doing things on your own.”

“I know, I just—” Joyce echoed Jonathan’s irritated sigh. “We have guests, and I didn’t want—”

The pot hit the center of the table with a dull thud, Steve quickly jerking his hands out of its path just short of where it landed and shaking them out, hissing against the mild burn.

“Steve, let me see.”

Steve hadn’t noticed how close Eddie had gotten until he’d taken Steve’s hands in either of his own and turned them over, showing the red around his palms. He winced sympathetically and rubbed the sides of Steve’s wrists with his thumbs, which would be soothing if Eddie’s warm, calloused guitar hands didn’t send sparks shooting up Steve’s arms with every touch. “That’s not too bad…”

“I have some balm,” said Joyce quickly, her voice shaking just a touch. “In the bathroom. It’s— I mean, it’s not normal balm, so it works instantly. You just put it on and rinse it off under the sink.”

“I’ll get it,” said Will, rushing from the room.

Steve dragged his eyes away from Eddie’s hands to look at Joyce. She’d gone pale.

“I’m okay, Joyce,” assured Steve. “Really. I just wanted to make sure this awesome lunch you made for us didn’t wind up on the floor.”

“Smells great, by the way,” said Eddie, taking Steve’s relay baton and running with it, smiling over his shoulder.

“I know, right?” countered Steve, doing his best to show Joyce what his priorities were, to assure her that the burn didn’t matter half as much as the soup did. That the burn was nothing. Even if it did suck. “It’s fucking fantastic.”

Besides, how was Steve supposed to complain when Eddie was holding his hands?

“Got it!” Will returned from the bathroom, holding up a small, round container.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Is that Vicks?”

“It’s just what we keep it in.” Will unscrewed the top and showed Steve the contents, which were purple and speckled as opposed to the translucent white that was usually found inside. “Reduce, reuse, recycle. Right?”

As Will came close, one hand reaching two fingers into the balm, the oven beeped and Jonathan turned around. “I’ve got it, Mom. I’m wearing the oven mitts anyway.”

He pulled open the oven door and Steve was so distracted by the overwhelming aroma of cherries that filled the room, mixing perfectly with the homey potato scent already present in a way that made Steve’s knees weak, that he didn’t realize Will was already there with the balm until a sudden cold shocked his hand, so intense that he might have flinched away if not for Eddie holding him in place.

“Easy there, big boy,” hushed Eddie. “You’re doing great.”

Steve swore he felt the burn travel from his hands to the tips of his ears. He cleared his throat, preemptively keeping his voice from cracking. “You don’t have to baby me.”

“Aww, but Stevie…” Eddie leaned in close over Will’s hands, close enough to press their cheeks together and send fireworks off in Steve’s gut. “You are my baby.”

Steve froze. His lips parted. He felt lightheaded, like he was about to pass out and the only things keeping him upright were Eddie’s hands on his own.

Eddie pulled his face back, hair brushing over Steve’s neck as he pulled away, a playful, shit-eating grin on his face like he knew damn well what he’d just done to Steve’s insides, painting them technicolor with a million exploding butterflies.

“Wow,” whispered Will, reminding Steve that he was right there, smearing a balm on Steve’s hands while that happened. His eyes met Steve’s, a secret mirth dancing in them, and he capped the ointment. “Okay. I’m done.”

“Well, Steve didn’t laugh, which was my goal, but he also didn’t flinch again,” said Eddie, dropping his hands, “so I think we can call that a successful distraction either way.”

Right. Yeah, totally. Eddie was being outrageous and trying to make Steve laugh. Yeah, that made more sense than whatever Steve thought was happening there.

“Feel better?” asked Will.

No, thought Steve, allowing himself to be a little disappointed. But he tentatively curled his hands into fists, and he marveled at the complete lack of stinging. “Huh. Wow, yeah. They feel great. I mean, aside from feeling all gross and oily.”

“Wash it off here,” said Joyce, patting the sink, fingers twitching like she itched for a cigarette.

Steve half-jogged to the sink, eager to scrub off the purple slime as fast as he could. Once he had, he turned to Joyce, held up his hands, and grinned. “Totally fine.”

Joyce smiled back, but there were still tears in her eyes.

Steve laughed, somewhere between sympathetic and exasperated. “Mom, I’m okay!”

Eddie snorted.

It took Steve a half-second to realize why. And he only did once he saw Joyce start to grin, for real this time.

Steve groaned and pressed his face into his hands. Wow. Wow, Steve hadn’t done that since he was in kindergarten. “Uh, okay, so. Little embarrassing—”

“Just a little,” teased Joyce, and when she grinned, her nose wrinkled in the way Steve had quickly grown to love. “It was also very cute.”

Steve groaned, still half-laughing as he pressed a hand to his face. Eddie laughed louder from behind him.

Joyce just wrapped him up in her arms and rocked him back and forth like he was five years old and not nearly a head taller than her. “I’m never going to be opposed to having another kid. Especially not one so sweet.”

“Please, stop.” Steve felt himself turn a brighter red, but hearing Joyce laugh, well… At least she’d stopped feeling guilty.

“Okay.” Joyce pulled back with a sniff and patted Steve’s cheeks. “Crisis averted, so…” She turned and brought her hands together in a loud clap. “Who’s hungry?”

The chairs around the table filled one by one, Will choosing to sit on Steve’s left while Eddie found his right. The sandwiches were already laid out, and had already cooled a bit, but Steve was perfectly happy dipping the corner of his grilled cheese into his soup to warm it back up.

“So, Eddie!” Joyce passed the pitcher of iced tea across the table, smiling warmly, the worry in her face already forgotten. “Steve tells me you’re a big metal fan.”

“Oh, so he really does talk about me,” said Eddie, leaning out of his chair to pour his drink and swishing his hips as he did, his handkerchief swaying in his back pocket like a flag trying desperately to draw Steve’s attention to his ass. Steve was stronger, goddammit. He swore.

“I think most of us in this house listen to punk,” said Joyce, looking between Will and Jonathan.

“Well, that’s a shame,” said Eddie, lacking any real disgust. Jonathan rolled his eyes. “At least it’s better than Corey Hart.”

“Hey!” Steve kicked Eddie’s ankle under the table, earning a laugh as Eddie sat back down.

Joyce didn’t let them distract from her question. “What’s your favorite band?”

The way Eddie perked up was hard to see. It was subtle, the slightest deepening of his dimples, the faintest brightening of his eyes. But Steve picked up on it instantly. “Metallica,” said Eddie easily. “Shit, if you wanna talk heavy metal, that is heavy metal. I mean, I’ve got a special place in my heart for the classics—Judas Priest, Black Sabbath—but Metallica are the kings of thrash. Or at least they were. Their bassist died last year and they haven’t…”

Steve’s chin hit his hand.

He knew that there was a dreamy look in his eye, that Jonathan and Will were bound to clock it for what it was if they ever looked in his direction, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when Eddie spoke so animatedly about his favorite bands, not when he was so carefree, so open to be himself, so…Eddie.

Steve ate slowly, more interested in Eddie’s conversation with Joyce than his meal, as good as it was.

Eddie’s knee started bouncing under the table as he spoke, entertaining his hosts, happily answering their questions, asking some of his own, dragging Jonathan into an argument over whether Black Sabbath or The Ramones were more influential over rock music as a whole.

He’d been talking about Anthrax when it happened.

“No, man— Listen, listen to me, Byers. You don’t know what you’re talking about, okay?” Eddie stabbed his spoon in Jonathan’s direction with a dramatic flourish. “You like punk because you don’t know better.”

“Oh, come on…” Jonathan rolled his eyes, not as enthralled with Eddie’s rambling as Steve was.

“Listen to Anthrax,” said Eddie. “I swear—”

“Spare me.”

“Anything you could possibly like about punk music,” said Eddie. “The fast pace, crazy fuckin’ drums, the political messages? Anthrax has all of it. But it’s better. It’s evolved.”

“Evolved?” Jonathan scoffed. “So, what, punk is primitive?”

“If—” Eddie stood from his chair, all his attention focused so intensely on Jonathan that Steve thought, for a second, that Eddie was going to climb across the table to grab him. Not helped by Eddie actually lifting a leg and pressing it into the corner of the table. “If you just listened to ‘Indians’, for, like, five seconds, you wouldn’t even have to ask—”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie…” Steve grabbed Eddie by the arm and pulled him down, trying to coax him back into his chair.

Eddie held up a hand, not looking at him. “Stevie, I’m trying to educate here.”

“Yeah, well, you can do that from your chair.” Steve yanked him down by the forearm and Eddie landed with a scowl, one pointed at Jonathan rather than him, although he did pat Steve’s hand soothingly, like he was trying to assure him he wasn’t going to strangle Joyce’s son.

“Fine, sure, I’ll behave, whatever.” Eddie pointed his spoon at Jonathan again. “But you don’t know what you’re missing.”

He scooped a spoonful of potato soup into his mouth.

And that was when it hit.

Joyce, Will, and Jonathan all flinched. Steve was sure he must have, too, because he definitely heard it.

Eddie, however, didn’t react at all when guitars and drums started banging around from what sounded like the inside of Steve’s skull.

FORCEDOUTBRAVEANDMIGHTYSTOLENLANDTHEYCANTFIGHTITHOLDONTOPRIDEANDTRADITIONEVENTHOUGHTHEYKNOWHOWMUCHTHEIRLIVESAREREALLYMISSINGWEREDISSINGTHEM

Steve watched Eddie bob his head, pausing only to take a bite from his sandwich.

His knee was still bouncing. Steve felt it brush against his own on every beat.

He was keeping time with the music, but he didn’t seem to think there was anything odd going on. Not compared to the way the Byerses were exchanging tense looks.

Steve had read the back of Eddie’s tape over and over again to try to figure out what that writing could possibly mean. He didn’t have to look at it to know what it said anymore.

“I wish everyone could hear their music the way we do.”

They were hearing Anthrax the way Eddie did.

They could hear the song in his head.

ORIGINALAMERICANTURNEDINTOASECONDCLASSCITIZEN

“Oh, Byers!” Eddie snapped his fingers and pointed across the table. “Sorry. Three Byerses here. Will. I came up with this idea for a future campaign—”

Steve could barely hear Eddie over the music in his head. Jonathan seemed close to tears, head bowed as he glared holes into his soup.

Jonathan lifted his head, eyes dark as they connected with Steve’s.

Steve smiled sympathetically and mouthed, ‘Sorry.’

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it,” said Eddie. “Like, if it’s too much— I don’t normally go the captive maiden route, but if it is too much—”

“No, it—”

SOMEFOLKSHAVENONEOFTHISHATREDANDPREJUDICE

Will cleared his throat and stole a glance in Steve’s direction. Steve wondered how Eddie could hold a conversation so easily with music this loud playing in his head.

“It’s fine!” assured Will, maybe a little too loud, based on the way Eddie flinched this time. “I’m okay with it! Really!”

“Uh…” Eddie shrank in his chair a bit. “All right. Good to know.”

ONRESERVATIONSAHOPELESSSITUATION

Jonathan jumped to his feet, chair screeching across the linoleum behind him. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Eddie watched Jonathan leave, the smallest look on his face. Like he’d been slapped.

The music in his head stopped playing.

He swirled his soup around with his spoon and shifted in his chair, uncomfortable, nervous. He cleared his throat. “Guess I, uh…pushed him too far, huh?”

“Oh, honey, it’s not that.” Joyce reached across the table and set her hand on Eddie’s.

Eddie pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nah, man, I— Music’s personal. I know that. If someone called Judas Priest primitive to my face, getting up and leaving would be, like, the mildest thing I could do.” He laughed bitterly.

“Jonathan’s not upset,” said Will emphatically, leaning over his bowl. “I know what he looks like when he’s mad, and this isn’t it.”

Eddie sighed, sharp and anxious.

“I promise he’s okay,” assured Joyce. “If one of my boys wasn’t okay, do you think I’d still be sitting here with you?”

“Exactly,” said Will.

Steve wished he could bring himself to say anything at all. Something besides— “It was my fault.”

Eddie’s head snapped up. He looked at Steve, skeptical, intense.

Steve sighed. “It’s my fault, so…if anyone’s going to talk to him, it’ll be me. You…” He made eye contact with Eddie and stood from his chair. “Keep eating. I’ll go.”

“Steve—” Eddie climbed to his feet.

Steve held out a hand, like he was trying to teach a dog to stay. “Down, boy.” He offered Eddie a smile. “I’ll be back.”

He felt Eddie’s eyes on his back all the way into the hall.

The bathroom door was predictably left open when Steve reached it, so he kept walking to the end of the hall, where a door was closed, and knocked on it. “Jonathan?”

Jonathan must have been right on the other side, because Steve heard no footsteps before it opened.

Jonathan sent Steve an unreadable look through the crack in the door.

Steve leaned his shoulder into the doorframe. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cast that spell and I had no idea what it would do. It just sort of…happened.” He shrugged. “The song’s stopped playing, though, if you want to come back to dinner.”

Jonathan looked over Steve’s shoulder, then back to his face. Steve had no idea what he was looking for, but whatever it was, he must not have found it. “You haven’t told him, have you?”

“Told him?”

“That you’re Mom’s apprentice.”

Steve faltered, suddenly feeling off-balance, like he was about to pitch forward and roll into Jonathan’s room. “Uh. No.”

Jonathan opened his door wider and beckoned him inside.

Steve cautiously followed.

The door made a quiet click as Jonathan closed it behind him. “Why not?”

“Why not,” echoed Steve, uncertain. “Why— Why haven’t I told Eddie about having magic?”

Jonathan nodded.

“Well, uh, because…” Steve crossed his arms, shielding himself, and scratched his chin. “Eddie’s first experience with magic nearly gave him a heart attack, and, you know, that was because of me, so…”

“What?” Jonathan shrugged, already obviously frustrated with him. “Do you think he’s going to hate you because of magic, or magic because of you?”

Steve shrank into himself. “I don’t know, man. Maybe both?” Why the hell was he talking to Jonathan about it, anyway?

Jonathan shook his head and flopped down on the edge of his bed. “Steve? I know we haven’t always gotten along—”

“You got that right.” Steve scratched the side of his nose.

“—but my mom cares about you,” said Jonathan pointedly. “And you obviously care about her. And you can give her something that I never could. You can carry on family traditions that I can’t. And you can help Will in ways I can’t, too. You can be the gay older brother who knows what it’s like to love someone the world says you’re not supposed to love.”

Steve paled. He somehow doubted Joyce told him. Which meant he really was that obvious. “Technically, I’m bi.”

“Whatever!” Jonathan sighed. “My point is that you…fit, into this family—”

Steve felt that warmth from earlier stir in his chest again. Oh, shit.

“—which is really weird to say,” continued Jonathan. “But it’s true. Maybe we’ll never be best friends. Maybe what happened with Nancy is always going to make things weird. But you make Mom and Will happy, so I want you here. And you’ll still be wanted here, no matter what happens with Eddie. But you can’t—”

Jonathan leaned forward, steepling his fingers together and pressing them into his brow, breathing a heavy breath into his hands.

“You can’t take this for granted, okay?” He lifted his head. “You don’t…get to be a witch and spend all this time with my mom, learning how to use magic like she does, and be ashamed of it. Okay? You don’t get to be a Byers and be ashamed of it.”

“I’m not! I’m not,” insisted Steve. “I think it’s cool as hell, okay? I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t think it was awesome. All of it. The magic and Will and your mom and you—all of it.” He looked away. “I just— Give me some time, okay? I told your mom I was only doing it if I could drop it if I decided it wasn’t what I wanted, and she was okay with that. If I tell everyone I can do magic but I don’t want to, I feel like I’m not going to have a choice anymore. I mean, think about Dustin. He’d never shut up about it.”

Jonathan sighed again, put-upon. “Okay. Fine. I— I guess that makes sense. I just…”

He shrugged, tense and exaggerated, like that said enough.

It certainly said something. “…Whoa, wait.” Steve held up a hand. “Are you jealous?”

Jonathan closed his eyes, grimacing.

“Holy shit,” said Steve. “You are.”

“I’m trying not to be,” said Jonathan.

Ow. Okay, that cut Steve’s excitement short. There he was, getting all pumped about Jonathan being jealous of him instead of the other way around for once in his life, and Jonathan had to go and be mature.

“Like I said.” Jonathan rubbed his hands together, staring down into them. “You’re the witch son my mom wants and the…bi older brother Will needs. And I can’t be that for them.”

Steve crossed his arms tighter over his chest, almost in a self-hug. If Jonathan could be mature, so could he. “Yeah, but you’re the Jonathan they need. I can’t be that. I wasn’t there when Will was a kid to tell him he was perfect the way he was. I mean, do you remember who I was back then? I mean, you reshaped my nose for calling you…something I really shouldn’t have called you, which, by the way, was totally deserved, especially knowing what I know about Will now. And don’t get me started on myself. And, I mean, your mom needs you. And she loves you. I know she has a tendency to adopt kids, but no one’s ever gonna take your place. Take it from someone who’s just as quick to adopt kids as she is, Lucas and Mike and Dustin and Erica and Max and El and Will, they’re all their own people and I’d lose my fucking mind if anything happened to any of them. And none of them could ever be replaced. Ever.” Steve took a deep breath. “Besides, you’re actually her kid. She’s watched you grow up and change and become your own person from the time you were born. And, because she’s Joyce, she’s loved you for every second. What, am I supposed to get in the way of that? Just insert myself and take your place? Not happening. Ever. Are you shitting me? No.”

“Yeah, well.” Jonathan shrugged a shoulder, eyes averted. “I guess. But you’ve gotten a lot better, you know that?”

Steve looked at the carpet. “Not enough to make your mom stop loving you. No one’s that good. And that’s from someone who’s pretty sure his parents never loved him, so… You know, it’s not some kind of ‘your parents have to love you, it’s biology’ bullshit. It’s ‘your mom loves you, and she always will,’ and that’s a promise.”

Jonathan laughed softly. “Well…as someone whose dad never loved him, I appreciate that.” He took a deep breath. “And…if you need some time to figure out how to handle being a witch…I guess I can get that. If I can understand why Will hasn’t told any of his friends he’s gay—except you, apparently—I can understand why you wouldn’t want anyone to know you’re a witch. At least yet. Just don’t—”

“Don’t take it for granted, yeah, I heard you.” Steve leaned into the door behind him. “I’m not going to. Not any of it. Trust me, if you could hear my thoughts instead of Eddie’s earlier, we wouldn’t even need to have this conversation. This family? You guys and the kids and Robin and Eddie—hell, even Nance and Hop—it’s all I’ve ever wanted. The magic sort of…cements my place in it, I guess, but it’s more than that. I’m not going to stop wanting this out of the blue. No way.”

Jonathan nodded. “Good.” His shoulders, for the first time since their conversation began, relaxed. “Okay.”

Steve pushed himself away from the door and held out a hand.

Jonathan took it, first to be helped to his feet, then to yank Steve into a hug.

It was a stiff, stoic sort of hug, like the kind Steve used to share with the guys on the basketball team. Clasped hands and a thump on the back.

But it was more from Jonathan than he thought he’d ever have, so it was nice.

“Oh, and don’t tell Eddie,” said Jonathan warily as he pulled back. “But that song actually wasn’t bad.”

“He’d never let you live it down if he knew,” said Steve.

“Yeah, I got that.” Jonathan rubbed the back of his neck. “Which is why I said don’t tell him.”

“So am I the reason you left?” asked Steve. “The whole…jealousy thing?”

“Nope.” Jonathan winced. “It was just…loud. I listen to loud music, but that was too loud. I’m glad it got quieter when I left the kitchen. I don’t know how I would have handled it if it wasn’t about who was in range of Eddie’s thoughts.”

Steve laughed fondly. “Yeah. Somehow I’m not surprised that’s what the inside of Eddie’s head sounds like.”

Jonathan smiled and shook his head. “I get the feeling that music wasn’t the only thing in his head.”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Just saying.” Jonathan opened the door and led them back into the hallway. “It’s probably even louder in there. More screaming.”

“Screaming?”

“Shh.” Jonathan smiled, like they had a secret.

Steve, having no idea what it could be, stepped into the hallway and quickly changed the subject. “By the way, is that, uh, permanent?” he whispered. “The whole everyone-can-hear-it-when-Eddie’s-thinking-about-Anthrax thing?”

“Nah.” Jonathan shook his head. “You’re not that powerful of a witch.”

“Thank fuck.”

Jonathan laughed.

When they returned to the kitchen, Eddie looked more relaxed. Steve supposed, while he and Jonathan were having their heart-to-heart, Joyce, Will, and Eddie must have been having one of their own.

Eddie’s eyes found Steve’s as he passed through the archway. A split second of nervousness passed through them, something Steve barely caught, but his eyes flicked to Jonathan and back, and whatever anxiety Eddie must have had was dispelled. “About damn time. We were about to start on the pie without you.”

“No, you weren’t,” said Steve, returning to his seat with a roll of his eyes. “You like me too much.”

Eddie sighed and leaned into his arm. “That I do, Stevie. That I do.”

Steve had offered to help with dishes. It only made sense, seeing as he’d spent more time pacing in Joyce’s front yard than helping with dinner.

Jonathan, after assuring Eddie that everything was fine between them, had left early to catch some golden hour photos. To clear his head and calm down after his talk with Steve. Will, however, was glad to help Steve with the dishes, meaning they both stood in front of the sink, with a front-row seat to Eddie and Joyce’s smoke break.

That shouldn’t have been of note, and for most people, it wouldn’t have been. But this was Eddie, and everything he did was animated. They leaned against the fence separating the Byers’ back yard from the trees beyond it, Eddie’s arms sweeping in gestures so grand he might as well have been dancing. Steve couldn’t have guessed what story he was telling if he had a gun to his head, but that didn’t make it any less entertaining to watch as Eddie held up a hand with his finger and thumb less than an inch apart, perhaps demonstrating something small, and Joyce threw her head back with a hearty laugh that carried across the grass and through the wall.

With a grin, Eddie pushed himself off the fence and brought a hand to his heart, clutching his shirt through his open jacket. Joyce shook her head at whatever he was saying, leading him to spin in front of her and press his cigarette between his lips, freeing his hands to clasp them together, like he was praying, or begging.

Joyce felt comfortable enough to knock him over with her foot, gently tipping him back by pressing the sole of her sneaker into his shoulder.

He fell over, his laugh carrying the same way hers had.

“Are you actually going to help, or are you going to stare at him all day?”

Steve stole a look through the corner of his eye at an amused Will and quickly ducked his head to focus on the dishes he was supposed to be rinsing. Dishes that had piled up on his side of the sink. “Right. Yeah. Sorry.” He reached for a cup.

Will handed him a fork as he set the cup on the towel Joyce had stretched across the countertop. “We know what your wish did now.” He looked at Steve with a sheepish smile. “That wasn’t so bad, right?”

“No,” agreed Steve quietly. “Not so bad.”

“So…” Will handed Steve a spoon. “Are you giving him the tape?”

“I—” Steve was so distracted by Will’s question that he pushed the spoon under the running faucet without thinking and got splashed for his trouble. He quickly turned it over, spluttering. Wet shirt. Wonderful. That was charming. “…I haven’t thought about it. Past…”

“Past overthinking and worrying it might kill Eddie or something?” offered Will.

Steve ran a saucer under the water. “You were the one who said the magic is stupid and could have done anything.”

“Anything that would have fit,” said Will. “I don’t think something about hearing music could kill someone.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” mumbled Steve. “The whole album is dedicated to that Metallica guy he was talking about earlier. Maybe it could have been, like…a wish for him to listen to the music the way the Metallica guy was. So from the afterlife. Or something. I don’t know.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” said Will. “So what’s stopping you now?”

“What kind of a question is that?” muttered Steve. “‘What’s stopping me now?’ You know damn well what’s stopping me now. What’s stopping you from calling Mike and asking him out to a movie?”

Will’s smirk disappeared.

Steve felt mad immediately. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to rush you or anything.”

“No, you’re right.” Will’s scrubbing slowed to something thoughtful. “I shouldn’t have been rushing you either. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Well…” Will shrugged. “I think you have a chance.”

“And I think you have a shot with Mike.” Steve placed a cup aside. “He cares about you so much—”

“He cares about El, too,” mumbled Will. “And she’s basically my sister. She’ll be my step-sister if Mom and Hop ever get married, which is totally likely—”

“But they broke up,” said Steve.

Will shrugged. “They’ve gotten back together before.”

“I don’t know…” Steve rinsed off Joyce’s pie server and set it down with the forks and spoons. “I think they’re done for good. El seems pretty happy to be single. And it’s been a few months, anyway. Mike seems to be moving on just fine. It’s been a lot longer since they broke up than Nancy and I were before she got together with your brother.” He rinsed out another cup. “Maybe Byerses and Wheelers were just meant to be together.”

Halfway through rinsing out the pot from the soup, Steve realized Will wasn’t answering. With a smirk, he reached into the water at the bottom of the pot and flicked it into Will’s face.

Will flinched back, alarmed, and sent Steve an affronted scowl.

“You’ve been hanging out with Eddie too much,” he grumbled, flicking a splash of soapy water back.

“Hey—!”

“Speaking of which, that’s exactly why we’re supposed to be talking about you.” Will went back to washing out the glass in his hand. “I’m not saying you should…” He shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. “…make some grand confession or anything. Even if you did confess, I think that’s more Eddie’s style than yours. I’m just saying you bought that tape for a reason, and I think Eddie would be really happy if you gave it to him.”

Steve watched the water from the faucet slide over the soapy insides of the pot. “That was why I got it…”

“And he’s going to love it,” said Will. “Maybe so much he won’t even think about why you gave it to him.”

Steve tipped out the pot and set it on the far side of the towel. “I don’t want to freak him out.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Are you looking at the same Eddie I am?” He nodded pointedly through the window, to where Joyce was picking leaves out of his hair and Eddie, grinning, slipped some into hers only to receive a good-natured slap on the arm when she noticed. “If you want to freak him out, I think you’re going to have to do something a whole lot worse than love him.”

Steve flinched. “Who said anything about loving him?”

Will twisted around to send him a pointed stare. The kind of stare that, without words, said, “Are you kidding me?”

There was no denying it. Will saw right through him. Steve was in love, and he wore it on his sleeve, just like he had with Nancy. He couldn’t have hidden it if he tried.

And, well… Eddie hadn’t run from him yet.

“Okay.” Steve breathed in through his nose. “Yeah. I’ll give it to him.”

Will didn’t let him put it off. The second they were finished with the dishes, before their hands were even done drying, he’d gone to the coat rack, grabbed Steve’s vest, and held it up in front of his face.

Steve frowned past the vest, at where Will stared at him expectantly, and yanked it out of his hand. Anxious. Grumbling.

“I’ll, uh…” Steve kept his eyes far from Will’s face as he slid his arms through the armholes. “I’ll be back.”

“Don’t rush it,” said Will.

And, yeah, Steve knew that.

He stepped through the door that led from the kitchen into the back yard and traipsed across the lawn, the tall grass beneath his feet rustling with every step. The sky overhead was a dull, unsaturated pink-purple, clouds dampening any oranges and reds that might have come from the sunset, and turning Joyce and Eddie’s figures to mere silhouettes at the edge of the woods, their outlines blending in with the trees.

Their low conversation halted as Steve drew close, Eddie’s head spinning toward him fast enough to kick up the twisted, endearingly scraggly ends of his long hair.

“Are you heading home?” he asked, casual and warm.

“Not yet.” Steve stuck his hands into his vest pockets. The plastic case in his left dug into his hand. “I was…actually kind of hoping I could talk to you about something.”

Eddie turned toward Joyce, his expression impossible to read in the low light that reached through the trees behind him. Joyce’s smile, however, was visible, and she answered Eddie with a shrug. She squeezed Steve’s arm as she walked past and leaned up toward his ear. “I’m going to go put what’s left of the pie in Tupperware containers for you boys to take home.”

Steve’s heart skipped a beat. Shit, did that mean she thought it was going to go poorly? Like he’d need some comfort food after giving Eddie the tape? Or, shit, that Eddie would? That was almost worse. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense,” said Joyce simply.

She headed for the house without another word, leaving Steve alone with a nervous-looking Eddie.

Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Eddie got there first.

“Is this about how I acted after the show the other day?” he asked, his voice tight. “Should I, like—” He hopped backward, shifting his weight back. “Should I be running? Because if I freaked you out—”

“What? No.” Steve knew he was making a face, brow furrowed and lip curled. “Why would you—? You didn’t even do anything.”

“I dunno, Stevie…” Eddie shook his head slowly. “I was acting pretty weird…”

“I didn’t think so,” said Steve. “How did the, uh, meeting with the producer go, by the way?”

“Fine,” said Eddie, no less cautious. “He seemed kind of surprised that we knew what we wanted out of the album. Like we wouldn’t. We wrote the songs, right? We know how they fit together. We know what they’re supposed to sound like.”

“Was it, like, a bad kind of surprised?” asked Steve.

“No,” said Eddie. “He was, like… Impressed.”

“See?” asked Steve. “I told you it’d go great.”

Eddie took a cautious step closer, crossing his arms over his chest. “So what’s this about?”

Steve let out a breath. He couldn’t put it off any longer. “I got you something.”

“Got me something,” deadpanned Eddie, skeptical.

“Yeah. A present.” Steve reached into his pocket. Rip the bandaid off, rip the bandaid off… “Here.”

He pulled the cassette out of his pocket and tossed it at Eddie, forcing him to uncross his arms and catch it with clumsy slaps that almost sent it into the grass. He’d only caught it inches before it hit the ground, bending down almost in half, his rings clacking loudly against the hard plastic.

Eddie straightened his back slowly, lifting the cassette to the light so he could see the album art. “Is this…?” He looked between Steve and the album lightning fast, hair whipping around his face like it was caught in a wind storm.

“It’s just a tape,” said Steve. “You don’t have to act like I got you Kirk Hammett’s autograph in solid gold or something.”

“Yeah, but…” Eddie lowered the tape slowly. “This is Among the Living.”

Steve’s shoulders tensed. “Yeah…?”

“You got me—” Eddie lowered the tape. “Wait, did you just say Kirk Hammett?”

“Uh.” Steve shrank further into his shoulders. “Yeah. If you think I said that because I’m secretly hiding his actual autograph on me somewhere, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“No, it’s not—” Eddie raised his hand in front of his face, took a deep breath, and lowered it, his dark eyes catching what little light was left in the sky. “You know who Kirk Hammett is.”

“Yeah, Metallica.” Steve laughed tersely. “It’s your favorite band. Of course I know who Kirk Hammett is.”

There was a soft click as Eddie brought the tape to his chest. “You know who Kirk Hammett is.” He lifted the tape. “And you know I’ve been dying to listen to Among the Living since February.”

Steve swallowed. Screw what Will said. Eddie was getting dangerously close to asking some really big questions. Questions Steve was scared to answer. “Yeah, so?”

“Steve…”

Eddie took a step closer.

Steve didn’t like that “Steve.” That “Steve” was the same sort of “Steve” that Robin gave him when she told him she was a lesbian. When she rejected him. Steve had never taken that rejection personally—it was just the fact of the matter, right? She didn’t like guys, Steve was a guy, they became best friends that night and that was as good as, if not better than, winding up as a couple—but it was still a rejection. And Steve couldn’t see Eddie’s face. All he had was that “Steve,” that “You should know better,” that “You know what I’m about to say,” that gentle sympathy that something went without saying. Eddie was about to tell Steve that he got it, he got what that gift really was, that he didn’t feel the same way but that they could still be friends because Eddie would never turn away a fellow weirdo.

But Eddie didn’t push him away. He didn’t take Steve by his little hands and pat them like he was talking to a child as he explained that he didn’t want Steve the way Steve wanted him.

He just moved in close, and he wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, and he buried his face into Steve’s neck.

Steve couldn’t breathe.

But Eddie could; Steve felt it. He felt that warm and soft sigh over the pulse in his neck and felt like his knees were about to give out beneath him.

“You’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Steve swallowed, hard. Remembering how to move, he wrapped his arms around Eddie, tempted to clutch onto him with all the desperate neediness he felt but choosing instead to lock his arms loosely around the small of Eddie’s back, one hand tight around the wrist of the other. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” Eddie scoffed, lifting his head off Steve’s neck. “What do I fucking—? Do you really need me to spell it out for you? I mean, if I was given, like, magic clay, and I was told to make the perfect guy, and I put every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears I had into it, I wouldn’t get anywhere near you. You’re way above anything I could ever dream. I—”

He froze, pulling back, eyes shining, hands on Steve’s shoulders, the Anthrax tape trapped in one, pinned to Steve’s arm.

“You listen to me,” said Eddie.

“Of course I do,” said Steve. Like it was obvious. And it should have been. He couldn’t imagine anything being more interesting than Eddie in the middle of a rant. He couldn’t even fathom getting distracted by any other thought when Eddie was right there, being his truest self.

“No. No, man, you—” Eddie held a finger up to Steve’s face, every other finger on that hand only loosely curled. “You actually listen to me. You remember things, just bullshit I spew out—”

“It’s not bullshit,” said Steve. “It matters to you.”

“See, that? Mm—!” Steve didn’t have to see Eddie’s face any clearer to know he had his lips pursed in that cute, pouty way he did, and God, if the Steve from the day before he and Eddie first talked could hear him— “You’re driving me fucking nuts here, Steve. Out of my goddamn gourd.”

Steve swallowed again. “…Sorry?”

“‘Sorry.’” Eddie pulled himself out of Steve’s arms and turned away, running his free hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “‘Sorry,’ he says.”

Eddie looked at the tape he held, brought it back to his chest.

“I’m never going to be able to listen to this without thinking of you,” he muttered, his voice barely carrying across the mere few feet between them. “Even if we’re not friends anymore, even if you decide you don’t want anything to do with a freak like me anymore, I’m still going to think about how goddamn incredible you are every time I pop this into my stereo.”

“Hey,” snapped Steve. “Maybe I like that you’re a freak. Have you ever thought of that?”

Eddie spun toward him, hair kicking up again. Steve wanted to drag his fingers through it. “I’m sorry, fucking excuse me?”

“You heard me,” said Steve. “I like that you’re a freak. And for the record? Anyone who’d walk away from someone as great as you just for being yourself wouldn’t be incredible. Whether it was me or anyone else. They’d have to be a moron to throw you away.”

The cold breeze, the last vestiges of winter, tugged at the ends of Eddie’s hair, dancing his black silhouette across the periwinkle clouds. No other piece of Eddie moved. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t speak, he didn’t shift from foot to foot in that anxious way Steve was used to seeing from him. He just stood there, frozen, staring at Steve without a word until something came over him and tugged him forward.

“Out of my gourd,” he repeated, charging closer, shoving the tape Steve got him into the pocket of his vest with a visibly shaking hand. “Out of my goddamn gourd, I’m telling you.”

For a split second, some stupid, hopeful, optimistic part of Steve wanted to believe Eddie was going to kiss him then and there in Joyce’s back yard. Unfortunately, he didn’t, but Steve didn’t mind being pulled back into Eddie’s arms. Didn’t mind being held as Eddie moved his face from Steve’s shoulder to his hair and back to his neck, like he was searching for the perfect place to belong. He didn’t mind standing there in the cold, warmed by Eddie’s chest and his breath soaking into Steve’s collar. He didn’t mind being given the chance, the time, to memorize everything about Eddie’s smell, like cigarettes and box macaroni and cheese and weed and acrylic paint and some combination of shampoo and deodorant and shaving cream that Steve couldn’t quite pinpoint but knew he’d be able to piece together if he was left in the personal hygiene aisle of a grocery store for long enough because it was etched into his heart.

It wasn’t until the sun had completely set that Steve ran his hands up and down the back of Eddie’s t-shirt, under his jacket, and said, “How long do you think we can get away with standing in Joyce’s back yard before it counts as loitering?”

Eddie laughed. It sounded…wet. “I don’t know.” He sniffed. “Gotta be at least five more minutes, though, right?”

“Hey.” Steve pulled his head back, heart lurching in his chest. “Hey, are you okay? It sounds like you’re—”

“I’m good,” said Eddie, pulling out of Steve’s arms again to wipe at his face. “I’m good, I’m fine, I am great.” He sniffed again. “Let’s, uh, go thank the Byers household for their incredible hospitality and get out of here before we piss them off.”

“You’re not gonna piss anyone off,” said Steve. “You were out here with Joyce for, like, twenty minutes. I think that’s long enough for you to know that she’s not that kind of person. And Will, I mean… Look at him.”

Eddie laughed weakly. “Got a point, Harrington.”

Steve led Eddie back to the house, across the overgrown lawn to the warm, golden glow from the window and the warmth within.

The dishes Steve had left drying on the countertop were all put away. He wondered if Joyce and Will had watched them through the window while they were cleaning up the same way Steve had watched Joyce with Eddie.

“Hey, Byers Number 1, 2, and 3!” Eddie cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted loud enough to be heard anywhere in the house. “We’re leaving!”

“Jesus,” muttered Steve, rubbing his ear.

Eddie grinned at him, playful as ever, and—

Yeah. Yeah, he’d been crying.

Joyce appeared in the archway, Will not far behind. “Hey, kids. Did you have a nice talk?”

She fixed Steve with a pointed stare.

Steve pursed his lips and shook his head, knowing damn well what she was asking with that look.

Eddie, on the other hand, reached into his pocket for the tape Steve had given him. “Did you know about this?”

Will smiled. “I’m glad he gave it to you. He almost didn’t.”

Steve sent him a scowl.

Eddie just raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

Will shrugged, his smile widening. “He was shy.”

“Shy?” Steve put his hands on his hips. “I wasn’t shy, I just…”

Eddie turned his eyes on Steve, and Steve grew self-conscious. He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“Anyway, like Eddie said, we’re leaving, so…”

“Oh, right!” Joyce shuffled cheerfully to the refrigerator and pulled out two yellow containers. Ah. The pie. Steve had almost forgotten.

He took the top container from Joyce’s hand and looked down at it. There was a list on the top, a shopping list taped to the lid with something that was definitely not groceries written on it.

Luck, strength, health, clarity, peace…

“What is this?” asked Eddie. When Steve looked over, he found Eddie had the same list taped to his own lid.

“Every year, after school lets out, the kids get together and we make jam,” said Joyce. “I just like to put a little something extra in everyone’s jam to make it special. Something they feel like they’ll need for the next year, so if they feel like they’re going to have a hard day, they can put a little jam on their toast in the morning and it’ll give them a little boost. All you have to do is bring your own fruit, but you’ll need to tell me what you’d like the jam to be enchanted with ahead of time so I can make sure I have that side of things prepared. It’s a long process.”

“Huh…” Eddie drummed his long fingers down the list as he read it.

“I’m sure you can just make normal jam if you don’t want to have anything magic in yours,” said Steve pointedly.

“Yes, of course,” said Joyce. “But based on what we talked about earlier…” She leaned in toward Eddie. “I figured you’d probably want either peace or prosperity.”

Steve had a protest on the tip of his tongue, an assurance that Eddie didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do after his first run-in with magic, but Eddie spoke first.

“Fuck yeah,” he said emphatically, eyes gleaming. “I’m gonna have to think about this, though. Do I have time?”

“Of course!” Joyce pointed at the bottom of the list. “I wrote my number here, so…whenever you decide what kind of jam you want, or if you have anything else you’d like to talk to me about, just give me a call.”

Steve squeezed the corner of his Tupperware container.

Huh. Maybe Eddie wasn’t as put off by the magic as he thought. Maybe it was just specifically the confidence part.

“I might just take you up on that,” said Eddie. “Thanks, Joyce.”

Joyce, beaming, pulled both Eddie and Steve into a hug. She kissed Eddie on the cheek, then Steve before pulling away.

“Drive safe, boys,” she said, squeezing their hands. “And if you see Jonathan somewhere on the way back, tell him to get his butt home, would you?”

“Will do,” said Eddie. “See you around, tiniest Byers.”

Will smiled at them from the archway. “See you at school, Eddie.”

“Remember that thing we talked about,” said Steve, sending Will a look of his own. “About that chance I think you have—”

“Please be quiet,” hissed Will, turning red.

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve shoved his arm playfully as he passed by on the way to the front door. “Take care of yourself, Byers.”

Eddie followed him to the driveway, but as they drew near to their cars, Steve halted. It was silly—it wasn’t like they weren’t going to see each other again anytime soon—but he didn’t want to say goodbye. He didn’t want the night to end. He wanted to hold Eddie again and just stay there, in his arms, until the sun rose. Until he died. Until the end of the world.

It was silly. It was unreasonable. That didn’t change that it was what he wanted.

“Hey, Eddie?”

Eddie stopped at the hood of his van, halfway to the driver’s side door. “Yeah?” It was easier to see his eyes in the porch light than it had been on the edge of the woods. There was something hopeful there.

Steve crossed the short distance between them. “I’m glad you came. I had fun tonight.”

Eddie’s eyes softened, the same way they had the night they went out for hot chocolate. That indescribable, sad sort of way. “Me, too,” he breathed, barely more than a whisper.

Steve sucked in a breath and drew closer, close enough to—to grab Eddie’s hand. To indulge in at least a little of that desperate desire to stay close.

It was warm. Calloused. Strong. Eddie squeezed Steve’s hand back. A tiny, cautious smirk played at his lips. He took a breath, hesitant, and licked his lips.

“Is this the part where you kiss me?”

Startled, Steve yanked his hand back, like he’d been burned. “What? No, I wasn’t going to—”

Eddie laughed. He laughed and he shook his head, and that sadness was still there, despite the smile on his face. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He flicked Steve’s hair, or…that’s what Steve told himself it was. A playful flick. Not tenderly sweeping a lock of his bangs back from his forehead. “I’ll see you around, Steve.” He took a step back, farther away from Steve and closer to the door of his van. “Okay?”

Steve swallowed for what felt like the millionth time that night, a desperate losing battle against the dryness in his mouth that seemed to get worse at everything Eddie did. “Yeah. I, uh… I’ll see you later, man.”

Eddie waved at him one last time before disappearing into the cab of his van, turning on the headlights and driving away.

Steve lingered in Joyce’s driveway until the last echoes of Anthrax faded from Eddie’s open windows, cursing himself for being too much of a coward to risk turning that teasing into something else (or maybe for falling in love with Eddie Munson in the first place; it was hard to tell) before taking a deep breath, throwing open his car door, and driving home.

Chapter Text

“Holy shit…”

Joyce’s house looked so normal from the inside. At least, most of it did. The parts Steve had seen. But he’d never gone to the attic before.

But Joyce wanted to teach him something new. Wanted to give him a hands-on experience with learning how to make everyone’s jam.

And that meant seeing her stores in the attic.

“Okay, this is way bigger than I thought it’d be,” mused Steve, standing on the top of the ladder, gaping at everything around him that screamed witch.

One wall was made entirely of shelves, shelves with jars that held endless spell components no doubt collected in part from Joyce’s garden and in part from the island Steve had rowed her out to. Some shelves carried books instead. Some displayed cloches with stones and feathers and bones inside, arranged into curious figures, no doubt as part of some kind of magic Joyce planned to teach Steve later on. He hoped he didn’t have to find the bones himself.

Flowers hung up on strings like clotheslines from one end to the other to dry. Chests lined the walls not occupied by shelves. At the center of it all sat a table with a mortar and pestle, envelopes, twine, and scraps of linen all attached to the edges on hooks and dispensers.

On the farthest wall sat what looked to be a hay loft door, which Joyce cheerfully pushed open to let the sun in.

“Holy shit,” repeated Steve.

Joyce turned around to face him, grinning, as he pulled himself up the rest of the way. “This was what I was looking for the most when I first moved into this house,” she informed him, dusting her hands off. “Jonathan has his dark room in the basement, and, well, I have my light room in the attic.”

Steve smiled as he pulled himself the rest of the way up. He could see the appeal, with or without the magic.

“Okay, go to where those books are on the shelf and pick out the book that says Traditional Herbal Magic.”

Steve did as he was told and brought it to the desk in the center of the room. Joyce followed him, pulling a piece of folded notebook paper out from the breast pocket of her flannel shirt.

“Let’s see, Lucas wants strength. Max wants health. Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan, and El all want clarity. But not Will this year. He usually wants clarity. This year, he wants courage.”

“Courage,” mused Steve, leaning his hips into Joyce’s desk and twisting around to look at her list. “Gee, I wonder what he wants that for.”

“What do you mean?” Joyce lifted her head and looked at Steve with big eyes.

“Uhh…” Steve scratched his neck sheepishly. He could have sworn she knew. “Not saying I know. Just wondering.”

Joyce’s face split into a grin and she shoved Steve’s arm. “I’m just joking. I’ve been here for Will’s entire crush. I’m just glad it seems like he’s finally trying to do something about it. I feel like Mike deserves to know by this point.”

The knot of tension in Steve’s shoulders untied itself. He knew Joyce was aware Will was gay, at least, but he didn’t want to throw the poor kid under the bus if she didn’t know about his…fairly obvious crush. “You think he’ll take it okay?” asked Steve. “I’m not above giving him a talk if he freaks out.”

“I think he might faint,” said Joyce, flipping toward the end of the book. “But I think it’d be a good faint.”

“You think he likes him back?” asked Steve. “I mean, I do, but…”

“Pretty sure,” said Joyce. “Honestly, it surprised me a lot when he started dating El. But I guess he needed some time to figure stuff out. He’s still just a kid. No one can blame him for that.”

Steve shrugged. He knew what that was like. He and Mike might not have gotten along that well, but he’d be one hell of a hypocrite if he held that against him. He was a dumb, closeted teen pretty recently himself. “So he’s been pining just as long, or what?”

“Well, you never know unless you ask,” said Joyce. “But he’s always been protective of Will, in a way he’s never been with Dustin or Lucas or Max. He always held Will’s hand while he was sick and got in fights when the kids at school called him names. He cried all night with Will the night Jonathan and Nancy saved him from that—that Brenner. Will wasn’t even hurt, but I guess the idea that he could have been, it just…scared Mike. As much as it scared me and Jonathan. He stayed the night and he just…wouldn’t let him go until the next morning.”

“Geez,” murmured Steve. He couldn’t even picture it. The Mike Wheeler he knew was constantly sneering and complaining about every stupid little thing. “No wonder Will’s such a mess. If anyone treated me like that, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“It is awfully sweet,” said Joyce. “Mike started pulling away when he began dating El, of course, and… I know Will was hurt by that. But Mike’s been getting better at spending more time with him.”

“Yeah,” mused Steve. “Yeah, I noticed them getting a lot closer lately.” He wouldn’t have suggested Will had a chance if he hadn’t clued into that. “Anyway, back to—” He waved a hand over the book. “This. What does everyone else want?”

“Well, Erica…” Joyce chuckled. “You know her. She wanted prosperity.”

“Of course,” mumbled Steve, who still owed her ice cream. She kept track of stuff like that for life. He wouldn’t be surprised to see her grow up to be an accountant. Or a lawyer. “And Mike and Eddie?”

“Luck,” said Joyce. “Both of them.”

“Luck?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that sort of…vague?”

“It is,” admitted Joyce. “Which means it’s harder to apply to specific situations. You could eat a spoonful of jam in the morning before a big multiple-choice quiz you didn’t study for, hoping you’ll be able to get enough correct guesses, and wind up failing the test but meeting someone who’s going to be your best friend for the rest of your life.” She sent Steve a sharp look. “Actually, that’s sort of how I wound up with Hop. My last boyfriend—Bob—got this crazy job offer the day I performed some luck magic. His dream job… Something to do with NASA? And we broke things off so he could move to D.C. and start a new life there. Of course, I wanted the best for him, so it wasn’t a bad breakup or anything, but I was still upset, and I kept wondering how a luck spell could wind up like that. But then, a couple of weeks later, I ran into Hop for the first time since high school, and we hit it off, and…” She shrugged. “Now he’s basically part of the family.”

“That makes the magic seem almost…smart,” said Steve. “Like it knows your fate better than you do.”

“It depends on the method,” explained Joyce. “As a general rule, the more effort you put into your magic, the better it will be. Sometimes that means you’ll get something another spell wouldn’t be strong enough for, and sometimes that means the magic will be more…” She rocked her head back and forth as she searched for the word she was looking for. “…accurate.”

“So that thing that happened with the wooden pendant and the tape I got for Eddie,” said Steve. “The magic was dumb, but the trade-off was that—”

“The trade-off was that the magic was stored,” said Joyce. “You may have used that wish the day you made it unintentionally, but it could have granted a wish on a day when you had run out of energy, or you could have handed the bracelet to someone else and granted their wish instead.”

“Right.” Steve followed Joyce’s gaze to her book, where she’d turned to some kind of table listing off types of plants and what they were often used for. “So I’m guessing this magic is one of the less accurate kinds, if it’s just giving stuff like courage.”

Joyce nodded. “And you’re right!” She pointed at one of the trunks lined up against the wall to Steve’s right. “If you open that up, you’ll find a bunch of cigar boxes labeled with different flowers. Bring me the alliums for Erica, echinaceas for Max, snapdragons for Lucas and Hopper, aquilegia for Will, bells-of-Ireland for Mike and Eddie, and clematis for, well, everyone else.” She hesitated. “Oh, and of course, your rose petals.”

Steve’s ears burned. He was weak. So what? Besides, based on what he gathered so far, his stupid strawberry love jam was just as likely to help him move past Eddie and find someone who was actually in his league as it was to help him the way he wanted it to. He wasn’t that desperate.

The snaps keeping the trunk sealed gave soft, metallic clicks as Steve thumbed them open. As he pushed the lid up, however, rather than revealing rows of cigar boxes, he found…yarn. A lot of yarn.

“These aren’t flowers,” he told Joyce, reaching for a nearby blue yarn ball and holding it up for her to see.

“Oh!” Joyce laughed. “Sorry. Next one to the right.”

Steve nodded and set the yarn ball back into place before reaching for the trunk he was really after. “What’s all the yarn for?”

“You can use it to weave some more complex magic,” explained Joyce. “Knitting certain patterns can lead to different effects. Like runes, I suppose, but you can…make a shawl that protects you when you wear it, or a blanket that can keep you warm in any weather, or a ward against bad dreams you can hang above your bed.” She kneaded her knuckles. “I used to prefer yarn magic to basically every other kind, but…you know.” She held up her hands helplessly. “Hard to hold knitting needles for too long. The wishing knots you’ve been practicing are actually the same type of magic, but…simplified.”

Steve pulled the box of snapdragons into his arms and stacked the alliums on top of it. “Would it hurt too much to teach me?”

“Teach you?” Joyce raised her head, eyes twinkling. “How to knit? Are you sure you’re not too—” She deepened her voice playfully. “—macho for that girly stuff?”

“A pack of sophomores follow me around like ducklings and call me ‘Mom’,” grumbled Steve. “I think we’ve left that bus a long time ago.”

“That’s gotta be awful,” teased Joyce. “Some teenage boys who aren’t actually your sons calling you ‘Mom’.”

Steve hid his face behind the boxes in his arms.

“I’d be happy to teach you how to knit,” said Joyce. “Actually, I’d be more than happy. Like I said, it was always my favorite. I’ve missed not being able to do it like I used to. But if I saw you doing it and I knew I was the one to teach you, well… It might—” She sighed. “It might feel like all that time I spent learning meant something.”

“What?” Steve huffed a surprised laugh as he stood, boxes in hand, and carried them back to the desk. “Of course it meant something. You don’t need to teach me anything for that. I mean, you knitted for probably—years, right? That’s not gonna go away just because you can’t do it much anymore.”

He bent over to set the boxes down and hadn’t even stood back up before he felt Joyce’s hand on his cheek.

He met her dark eyes and found her smiling back at him, eyes red around the edges.

“Anyone ever tell you how sweet you are?” Joyce’s other hand joined her first on Steve’s face, thumbs pushing at his cheeks like she was wiping away invisible tears.

“They don’t normally make a habit out of it,” admitted Steve.

“Then I’ll just have to fix that,” said Joyce. “You are a sweet boy. And I’m going to teach you how to knit.” The smile in her eyes disappeared, replaced by something serious, something determined. “It might take some time when I can’t demonstrate much at once, but if you’re patient—”

“I am,” assured Steve. “Trust me, if I can put up with Dustin for all this time, I can wait as much as I need to for you to teach me without hurting yourself.”

Joyce’s face brightened. “You know, when you offered to help me with my garden, I never expected it to turn into all this.”

“Me neither,” said Steve. “But I’m glad it did.”

True to her word, Joyce started Steve’s knitting lessons as soon as they’d sectioned off everyone’s components for their jams. As Steve had already learned, the basics in any form of magic always had to do with wishes.

She’d taught him how to make a basic circle, something that carried wishes from one day to the next the same way Steve’s carved pendant had, and sent him home with a ball of yarn and the order to practice.

Which Steve was all too happy to do during his phone call with Robin.

“I leave you alone for, like, a month—”

“Yeah, I know,” grumbled Steve, picking at a knot in the yarn.

“You turn into a witch and you nearly kiss Eddie, like, three times?”

“I didn’t nearly kiss him.”

“Oh, my bad,” said Robin. “He nearly kissed you. Three times!”

“Where are you getting Eddie kissing me?” asked Steve. “Because the only way you’re getting any of this is through me, and I didn’t see him get anywhere near kissing me…anywhere!”

“Okay, well, exhibit A,” started Robin, “there’s the thing when you were walking around City Hall and he went ‘Hey, Steve.’” Robin deepened her voice. “Newsflash, Stevie, he wasn’t going to say something—or maybe he was before it happened but—he was going to kiss you!”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Steve. “Why would you think he was going to kiss me?”

“Uh, because he was under a spell that made him more confident and you were kneeling in front of him and looking into his eyes—and he got all embarrassed after the magic wore off!”

“He was upset about Gareth and Chrissy!”

“Which turned out to be fine and he was still upset!”

“You don’t know that,” mumbled Steve, still picking at his yarn, phone pressed hard into his shoulder as he grew more and more frustrated with the knot. “You can’t read his mind, Robin. You weren’t even there.”

“Exhibit B!”

“Jesus Christ.”

“When you gave him the tape—”

“He hugged me!” said Steve.

“Yeah!” said Robin. “Yeah! He hugged you! Because he got all bashful at the last minute! Bashful and—and worried that he was reading into it!”

“How do you know that?”

“Do you know how many times that’s happened to me?!” snapped Robin. “Exhibit C! When you were getting into your cars and Steve— Steve, he literally asked if you were going to kiss him.”

“As a joke,” said Steve. “You’ve met Eddie, right? He does that. He jokes around. A lot.”

“Nuh-uh. Nope. He left room for you to interpret it as a joke,” said Robin. “He gave himself a back door in case you didn’t respond the way he wanted you to. And guess what! You didn’t!”

“Robin—”

“Every single time you didn’t kiss him, he was upset about it,” said Robin. “You said he keeps getting sad, or—or crying for reasons you can’t figure out, right? That’s him being sad that you don’t want him the way he wants you. Or at least that’s what he thinks!”

“He doesn’t think that,” said Steve. “I doubt I’m even on his radar. Even if I was, even if he did wonder if I might like him, he wouldn’t be sad about me not liking him. Maybe he’d be a little disappointed that I didn’t feed his ego or something, but…it’s not like it’d matter. And it wouldn’t make him start…crying.”

“Steve.” There it was, that tone again, that pitying “please don’t make me say it” tone.

“No, Robin, for once, just…listen to me.” At least the knitting in Steve’s hands gave him something to do, gave him a way to work through his nervous energy. “Okay, Eddie doesn’t like me like that. He wasn’t going to kiss me, and he’s not, I don’t know, listening to the tape I got him and thinking about how in love he is with me or imagining our lives together or whatever. The only person here who’s got agonizing doomed obsession is me. I’m the one in love here. I’m the one with all these stupid feelings I don’t know what to do with. And I wish—I wish—I could do something with these stupid feelings I have for Eddie. But they’re not going anywhere. It’s just me and my stupid heart getting me in trouble again so I can spiral downward into hell and crash and burn and pick up the pieces so I can find someone else to fall apart over. Because that’s my life. That’s all my life is ever going to be. Just doomed love until the day I fucking die.”

He threw his completed spell circle onto the bed, discarding it with the needles he’d borrowed from Joyce and pulling his legs onto the bedspread with him.

“You know that, right?” he mumbled into the receiver. “You know that’s all this is ever going to be, right? I’m not finding my happily ever after. Not with Eddie or anyone else. I don’t even know why I bothered asking for love when Joyce asked me what kind of magic I wanted in my jam. She already told me it can’t do the impossible.”

“Steve,” shushed Robin, her voice soft and consoling like a cup of tea with milk and sugar at just the right temperature. “It’s not impossible. And I don’t think you should give up. On love or on Eddie. I don’t even think you have. I just think you’re scared.”

“Scared,” mumbled Steve, combing his fingers through his hair. “At least that’s true.” His eyes dropped to his blankets and slid back to his abandoned yarn, to the blue circle he’d just finished knitting.

The…magic, wish-granting circle he’d just finished knitting.

Steve’s mouth went dry. “Hey, Robin?”

“What’s wrong?” asked Robin, immediately cluing in on Steve’s panic.

“Tell me I didn’t say anything about wishing for something at any point in that rant.”

“Uh…” Steve could hear the grimace in Robin’s voice. “Do you want me to lie to make you feel better, or…?”

“No.” Steve pulled his hair. “Shit, no, just— Just tell me what I said. Tell me what I wished for.”

“…Steve, you weren’t doing magic while you were talking to me, were you?”

Steve laughed bitterly.

“Steve!” Robin screeched in his ear, loud enough to hurt.

“I know, I know!” Steve leapt up from the edge of his bed and began to pace. “Just— Just tell me what I said. I really need to know, in exact words, what I just wished for in the middle of that rant about Eddie.”

How the hell had it happened again? How the hell had he dragged Eddie into his amateur magic shitstorm again?

“Uh, you said—” Robin whined. “You said, like, ‘I wish I could just do something with these feelings I have for Eddie.’”

“‘Do something’?” Steve blanched. “‘Do something’? What the hell does that mean? ‘Do something’!”

“I don’t know, Steve! Why are you yelling at me?! It was your stupid mouth that said it! What was I supposed to do?!”

Steve planted his face into his hand, fingers splayed across his eyes, a groan rolling through him like nausea. “Robin, I gotta go.”

“What? Go where?”

“I need to talk to Joyce,” said Steve. “If there’s any way to stop or—or undo this wish—”

“She would have done it last time,” said Robin. “Steve, it’s, like, midnight, and Joyce is, like, forty or fifty, I don’t know. I don’t think she’s going to be awake. Can’t you talk to her tomorrow?”

“What if there’s a time limit?” asked Steve, spinning on his heel, cord wrapping around his middle. “What if there’s something she could have done, but it’ll be too late tomorrow?”

“It’s magic, not poison!” said Robin. “Does anything you’ve learned about magic suggest to you that it works like that?”

Steve let out a stressed sigh. “Robin, I don’t know what else to do!”

“Talk to her tomorrow,” said Robin.

“I have work tomorrow,” said Steve.

“So talk to her afterward.” Robin softened her voice. “I know this is, like, totally hypocritical coming from me, but you need to calm down. I don’t think freaking out is going to help you here. But you know what will help? Going to bed and getting enough sleep for you to not feel like a zombie tomorrow.”

Steve screwed his eyes shut. Robin was probably right, but that didn’t make it easier. “Jesus, Robin, what if I just fucked everything up?”

“Well, the last two wishes didn’t turn out so bad, right?”

Robin’s voice cracked at the end of her question.

That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Steve didn’t make it through his work day before breaking.

The store was empty, so he reached for the phone and made a personal call, to the general store where Joyce worked.

She’d barely greeted him before he spilled everything.

“That’s not exactly specific, sweetheart,” she told him gently. “I think…out of all the things you could have asked for from a spell, ‘do something’ is actually the least helpful thing you could say.”

“I know,” said Steve. “And it was ‘do something about—’” He took a cursory look around Family Video as if a customer could appear out of thin air. “‘—about my feelings for Eddie.’ I don’t know how to— I mean, what if he gets hurt?”

“I could make him a protection charm, if you think it would help,” said Joyce. “But…I don’t know, Steve, I’ve never heard of using magic for anything this vague. Maybe it won’t do anything at all.”

“The protection charm can’t do any more harm, right?” Steve ran his hand through his hair. “Outside of that… I don’t know, maybe— Maybe it’s just best if I don’t talk to him for a while?”

“Steve…” Joyce let out a sympathetic sigh. “Sweetie, I don’t think that’s going to do anything except break both your hearts.”

“What, like he’s going to die if I lock myself in my house for a while?” Steve scoffed.

“No, but I think he’s going to miss you.”

Steve leaned over the counter, pressing his palm into his forehead. “I feel like I’m a bomb that could go off any minute. If I can just put off seeing him for as long as possible…”

“How long?” asked Joyce.

“How long,” repeated Steve. “Uh, well… Maybe until the jam thing? I mean, that’s just a few weeks away, right?”

“Sure, but…” Steve heard a quiet clank on the other side of the line. He wondered if she was doing inventory while she was talking to him. Maybe on speaker. “I just think you’re putting yourself in pain for no reason.”

“It’s probably less pain than whatever this spell’s about to do,” mumbled Steve. “I just keep thinking about all the ways it could go wrong. If it’ll ‘do something’ about my feelings for Eddie by…pushing him in front of a moving car, or…making him start a relationship with someone else. Making him move away like Bob did with you.”

“Oh, honey—”

“You know what the worst thing is, though?” Steve laughed bitterly, feeling pitiful. “The worst part is that I think the idea that scares me most is if it made me stop loving him.” He took a step back and lowered himself into the seat in front of the computer. “And that’s— I mean, I have to be terrible, right? There’s gotta be something wrong with me if Eddie getting killed is on the table but I’m worried about just…losing these feelings. But I think it’s because, the more I think about it, the more I think that’s probably what the magic’s going to do. I mean, it makes sense, right? I was talking about how I wanted to do something with these feelings so I wouldn’t feel them anymore. But when I said that, I mean… What I meant was that I wanted to be able to shove them in a box and not look at them for a while. I don’t want to let go of them completely. Maybe that makes me some kind of…masochist or something, but… I don’t know, I like being in love. Even if I know I don’t have a chance with him, even if it hurts, I just… I want to hold onto this. I don’t want to be…numb. I love loving his smile. I love loving it when he talks about nerd shit I don’t understand. I love loving the way his hair falls over his shoulders. I love loving how looking into his eyes is like looking into two full cups of black coffee. I love his stupid dimples and his voice and the way he laughs when he’s rough-housing with Dustin and the way he sticks his tongue out when he’s concentrating, and I don’t—”

Steve clenched his hand into a fist.

“I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to stop loving him.” He turned around in his chair. “Maybe— Maybe someday, if the pain starts to outweigh the good parts enough, but…not yet. I’m not— I’m not ready.”

“Steve…” The phone made an odd noise on Joyce’s end. “It’s okay. Whatever happens, I’ll be there with you. Eddie won’t die, okay? I’ll make that charm, and… I’ll make sure he stays safe. But if you do lose the way you feel for him, I promise it won’t be as painful as it seems right now. And we’ll have cocoa— Tea,” she corrected quickly, maybe remembering what recent memory Steve might associate with that cocoa. “We’ll have tea, and… And we’ll get through this together.”

Steve shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put any of this on you—”

“No, baby,” chided Joyce, her voice kind. “No. We’re family, right? We look out for each other.”

Family.

Steve sniffed. Everything he wanted.

“Right. Yeah, I…” He swallowed. “Thank you.”

Steve took to compromise.

Afraid of what might happen if they saw each other in person, Steve decided to take a smaller risk and turned phone calls with Eddie a near-daily occurrence.

Steve wasn’t sure if it would work at first. He refused to interact with Eddie at all until Joyce told him she’d given him the charm. Even then, Steve was reluctant. But when the first phone call ended and nothing bad happened, Steve decided it was safe. Or at least safe enough.

And he couldn’t keep himself from Eddie altogether. Not even for just a few weeks.

They talked about prom, which Eddie wasn’t going to for a multitude of reasons he was all too happy to share with Steve. They talked about the record deal, how Eddie’s trip went the weekend he drove to Indianapolis to record his album. They talked about his grades, how Eddie was nervous about failing again despite how hard he worked. How Steve had unfailing faith that, if nothing else, everything would turn out okay regardless of whether he passed.

And they stayed up late—late—after a radio station picked up one of Eddie’s songs. Just talking, waiting for Corroded Coffin’s song to come on.

Steve lay in bed, his head flat on the mattress, a pillow in his arms, half-tucked between his legs.

“Thanks, Harrington,” said Eddie.

“How many times have you said that?” murmured Steve, half-asleep, but refusing to cross the rest of the way until he heard Eddie’s song.

“Lost count,” Eddie muttered back, hardly wide awake himself. “Still doesn’t feel like enough. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“Bullshit,” huffed Steve through a smirk. “I basically gave you the magic equivalent of patting you on the back. And Joyce still made the thing. All I did was bring it to you.”

“Maybe,” said Eddie. “But you still brought it to me. She wouldn’t have known I could use some extra support without you talking about me. And you must have said some really nice things if she wound up inviting me to dinner.”

“Of course I did,” said Steve. “I mean…you are pretty great.”

“Am I now, Harrington?”

The confident, smoky purr in Eddie’s voice sent goosebumps rolling up Steve’s spine. Fuck. He pressed his face into his mattress. Eddie was going to kill him one of these days.

“Yeah,” mumbled Steve, half-muffled by his blankets. “You are.”

Eddie chuckled.

Steve turned his face away from the bed. “So…I didn’t fuck everything up by getting you involved in magic?”

“Look, I told you, it was my choice to take the charm,” said Eddie.

“And what about the other part?” asked Steve. “You know, the part you weren’t there for. The knot.”

“It turned out fine,” assured Eddie. “The record deal’s obviously going great or we wouldn’t be here, I’ve walked in on Chrissy and Gareth making out on his couch more than once—to my great embarrassment—” Steve laughed. “—and I didn’t say anything else that would have gone down like whiskey on fire, so I’m in the clear.”

Steve looked past the edge of his bed to the window, to the inky black surface reflecting his lamp.

Exhibit A, said a voice in the back of Steve’s head that sounded a lot like Robin.

“What would you have said?” asked Steve. “You know, that would have gone down like whiskey on fire.”

Eddie didn’t answer.

“…Eddie?”

“I’m here, don’t worry, just…” Steve heard Eddie swallow. “Just thinking. I mean… It could have been anything.”

Steve slid his hand along the top of his bed and pinched the corner of his top sheet between his thumb and index finger, rolling it thoughtfully back and forth. “Yeah. I guess.”

Eddie went quiet again.

Steve didn’t push him again.

He didn’t have to.

“I wish you were here.”

Steve’s heart ran into the inside of his ribcage, slamming into it like a cannonball. “What?”

“I just mean…” Steve heard a squeak on the other side of the line. Eddie must have been lying on his bed, too. “Wayne’s gotta work. Half the band has shit to do in the morning, so we couldn’t make it a band thing. And the phone’s nice and all, but…”

Steve’s mouth went dry fast. Faster than spilling a teaspoon of water on a summer sidewalk. In Arizona. “I didn’t want to get you sick. I told you that.”

“You don’t sound sick.”

Steve tried to say that was because he sounded tired instead, but Eddie was quicker.

“Did I say something or…do something, at Joyce’s place, to make you mad at me or something?”

Steve swallowed. “Eddie, why would I be mad? Do I— Do I sound mad? I talk to you basically every day. Why—”

“Not in person,” said Eddie. “You just call me. I just—” He sucked a sharp breath in through his nose. “I need to know, man—do I make you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Steve shot straight up, suddenly wide awake. “Why the fuck—”

“You’re fine with talking to me on the phone, but I can’t do anything to you on the phone, right?” Eddie laughed in a way that Steve was sure was supposed to sound bitter, but wound up just sounding sad. “I can’t touch you or hurt you from here, right?”

“Dude, I don’t think you’re gonna hurt me,” said Steve, anger and frustration and confusion coming out in laughter as he spoke. “I trust you—”

“You trust the freak?”

“Yes!” Steve dragged his hand through his hair, tense, pulling. “I told you! I like that you’re a freak!”

“Maybe not all the freaky shit about me, though, huh?” Eddie scoffed. “Maybe I did something that made you rethink some of the nice shit you said about me. Like maybe when we were getting into our cars and—”

“Shut—” Steve sucked a breath in. Shitshitshit— “Shut the hell up, Eddie. I’m not fucking scared of you touching me. I’ve spent half this conversation hugging my pillow and wishing it was you.”

No response came from Eddie’s side of the line.

Steve let his hand drop to the pillow that had fallen to his lap when he sat up. He may have overcorrected. “Uh… Eddie?”

“I’m here,” said Eddie softly. “I, uh… I’d ask if you were serious, but I can’t think of a single reason you’d say that if you weren’t.”

“Yeah.” Steve ran a hand down his face. God, there was actual sweat beading on his forehead. That was embarrassing. “That’s, uh… That’s because I wouldn’t have said that if I wasn’t serious.”

“So…” Another squeak on Eddie’s end. “So you’re saying you miss me.”

“Would I call you every damn day if I didn’t?” asked Steve.

“Shit,” mumbled Eddie. “So I probably seem pretty dramatic right now.”

“When aren’t you?” asked Steve. “It’s just part of your freak nature.”

“A bad part?”

“A good part.” Steve hesitated. “Most of the time. Kinda gave me a heart attack this time. I don’t want you to think I don’t like you or something. I worked pretty hard to get you to like me.”

“Hell knows why.”

“Did you miss the part where I just said I liked you?”

“No.” Eddie groaned. “But fuck. You really are just sick, huh? And I made an ass out of myself by getting defensive. Shit.”

Steve closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose. He should have kept the lie going. He really should have. But— “No, if anyone’s the ass here, it’s me. You’re right, I’m not sick. And I have been avoiding you. But it’s not because I don’t like you.” Steve laughed to himself and pinched the inner corners of his eyes. “It’s definitely not because I don’t like you. Kind of the opposite.”

Yet again, Eddie fell silent. All Steve heard was the sound of his breathing.

The sound of his shaky, unsteady breathing.

Shit, what did Steve do this time?

“What do you mean?” asked Eddie. “Steve?”

There was something off about his tone. Something in it Steve wasn’t used to hearing. He couldn’t quite place it, but it sounded an awful lot like…fear. “Is there a wrong answer to that question?”

“No, are you kidding me?” Eddie let out a nervous laugh. “You’re talking to Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson, remember? I’m not— You know I’m not gonna judge you. I’m just…trying to figure out why you liking me would be a bad thing.”

“It’s not,” said Steve. “I mean… What, did you think my parents found out we were friends and tried to get me to stop hanging out with you or something? They’re never in Hawkins and I don’t give a shit what they think anyway. If they even tried, I’d just ignore them.”

“So what is it?” asked Eddie. “Why don’t you want to see me?”

“I do want to see you!”

“Then why are we sticking to phone calls, Steve?”

“I can’t tell you!”

“For fuck’s sake—! Steve, if you’re gay, you can tell me!”

Steve’s phone dropped out of his hands.

He fumbled it on the way down, trying and failing to catch it with hands no longer steady because holy fucking shit, how did they get there?

The phone landed on Steve’s pillow, and he allowed it, pressing his face into his hands to take a terrified breath, to try to steady the stream of thoughts rushing through his head. Looking back at their conversation, Steve could see how Eddie could come to that conclusion. He was definitely in the closet about something here. But it wasn’t what Eddie thought it was.

Or, well, that wasn’t all of it.

Warily, Steve reached down to pick up the phone and brought it slowly, cautiously back to his ear.

Eddie hadn’t stopped talking.

“—if you’re still figuring things out and I’m pushing you into something, then I’m sorry—or maybe I’m totally off-base, but—shit—”

“No— Eddie— I’m, uh…” Steve cleared his throat. “I’m glad you’re not an asshole. But that wasn’t, uh, what I was talking about.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“…Well, uh… I’m glad you think being a homophobic sack of shit makes someone an asshole. But right. Obviously. Yeah.”

Steve chuckled in spite of himself. “Yeah.” He grabbed a fistful of the pillow on his lap. “Yeah, uh, no, that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was talking about…something else.”

“Something else…” Eddie’s breathing returned to something steady. Something less anxious. A little muted. “Well… Point still stands. Even if it’s not what I thought. It’s…still me. I’m not gonna freak out on you.”

Steve picked at his pillowcase. “No, I know that. I know, you’re not…” He sighed. “You’re not the kind of person who turns freaks away.”

“…Is that what you think you are?” murmured Eddie, his voice soft and warm through the phone. “Because, Steve, you’re about as far from a freak as a person can get and still be worth keeping around.”

Steve’s lips curled into a tiny smile against his wishes. “It’s…kind of a recent development.”

“But it’s not about liking dudes,” said Eddie. Steve almost laughed. That was not a recent development. “And it’s not that you’re sick. So you’re not, like, hanging around Joyce because she’s teaching you how to deal with chronic pain.”

Steve shook his head despite Eddie not being able to see it. “No. No, it’s not that.”

“But it’s something that makes you not want to be around me.”

“Dude, I just told you I do want to be around you.”

“Uh huh…” Eddie hesitated. “But you can’t, because of reasons I can’t…fucking fathom. Are you okay?”

Is Steve okay?

Is Steve fucking okay?

What a question. What a great goddamn question.

“This isn’t about me,” said Steve. “I don’t even know how we got on this topic in the first place. We’re supposed to be waiting for your song to play.”

“So that’s a no,” said Eddie. “Because if it was a yes, you would have just said so.”

“It’s not important,” said Steve.

“Of course it’s fucking important,” said Eddie.

“Your song—”

“I don’t care about my fucking song!”

“Well, that’s bullshit.”

“Fine! I don’t care about it more than you! Are you happy?”

Steve held his breath as he heard a jingle on the other end. Like keys.

“I will drive over there right fucking now,” threatened Eddie. “You won’t even have the chance to fucking blink before I show up in my sweatpants and bare feet. I’ll be there in a heartbeat. You know I will.”

“Please don’t,” breathed Steve. “Just— Just don’t, all right?”

“Steve.” There was desperation in Eddie’s voice. Worry. Steve felt awful. “This is starting to actually freak me out. Are you hurt or something? Did someone fucking mug you? Are you trying to hide the fact that you, like, lost an eye so I won’t worry or something? Because if you are—” Eddie laughed bitterly. “If you’re trying to keep me from worrying, that is not succeeding. That is failing with flying colors.”

“I’m not hurt—”

“Is that why Joyce shoved this little wax thing at me?” demanded Eddie, ignoring Steve’s protests. “Because I didn’t think much about it when she said it’d protect me! I really didn’t! But if she’s worried about me because something happened to you—”

“I’m not hurt!” Steve’s voice cracked. “I’m not hurt, I fucking promise! Is that good enough?”

“Then what the hell is going on?” demanded Eddie. “You don’t hate me, you’re not sick, you’re not repressing gay guilt, and you’re not hurt, but something’s wrong and you won’t let me help!”

Steve kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. “Why do you have to be so goddamn…sweet, Eddie? Why do you have to be such a good friend? Why can’t you just let me…?” He trailed off, too frustrated to articulate.

“Because, Steve, I fucking—” Eddie took a seething breath. “I care about you,” he insisted. “So much. And I don’t want to lose you!”

Steve closed his eyes and hung his head forward. He didn’t want to lose Eddie, either. That was exactly the problem.

“Steve,” whispered Eddie. “Talk to me. Tell me something. Tell me I’m not gonna lose you.”

He was too tired for a conversation like this. The constant up and down was going to give him a headache.

He wanted to say it. He wanted to be able to tell Eddie he wasn’t going to lose him. But he had no idea what the magic was going to do.

The circle Steve had knitted still sat on his desk.

Despite Joyce telling him it wouldn’t do him any good, he still wanted to tear the damn thing apart.

“Steve.”

“You’ll see me at Joyce’s jam thing,” said Steve, doing what little he could to assuage Eddie’s worries. “And I won’t be missing an eye or whatever you said when I get there.”

“And you won’t be avoiding me or anything?”

“…I hope not?” Steve rubbed his forehead. “I don’t— I don’t know. I don’t want to.”

“What does that mean?” groaned Eddie. He sounded inches from sobbing.

“I can’t—”

“You can’t tell me, yeah, whatever.”

Steve winced. “You’re mad.”

“I’m scared,” said Eddie. “You’re being vague as hell and it’s not like you and I’m terrified.”

Steve pursed his lips. “…I’m sorry.” Part of him really wanted to tell Eddie. He had no idea all this was going to happen. That Eddie would ask so many questions. Steve keeping it a secret in the face of Eddie inches from snapping was starting to feel like a worse and worse idea. But telling Eddie meant coming out as bi and a witch at the same time, and it meant admitting that he’d gotten Eddie involved with something really stupid, and the idea of admitting that, all of it, at the same time, right to Eddie’s face, made Steve feel sick. He just…couldn’t. “I didn’t realize you’d care this much.”

“Yeah.” Eddie scoffed. “Apparently. Apparently, Steve Harrington is fucking blind. Who could have seen that coming?”

Steve winced again. “If it makes you feel any better, I do promise I’m not hurt, and that I’m not going to get hurt. Not physically, anyway.”

“But trauma’s still on the table, huh? Jesus Christ…”

“It wouldn’t be traumatic,” assured Steve. “Just, you know, upsetting. For me. I don’t want you to have to worry about it. It’s not your problem.”

Eddie paused. “…Did someone, like, threaten to hurt me if you got close to me or something? Was it Carver? ‘Cause I’ll kick his ass—”

“Stop trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Steve. “I’m not telling you.”

“Fine,” said Eddie. “But if you ever need me—”

“I know, I know.” Steve dragged a hand through his hair. “You’ll be my knight in shining armor. I get it.”

“Mm.” Eddie grumbled something to himself, something just too low for Steve to hear. “…I would have gone with a dragon guarding its hoard, though.”

“Just can’t take a compliment, can you?”

“Not on your life, Harrington.”

Steve smiled to himself. There was still tension in Eddie’s voice, but he seemed to have settled down at least a little. That was a feat all on its own.

Eddie did suck in a breath, though. One that sounded like he was about to say something. But before that breath could turn into a word, Steve’s ears tuned back in to the radio he and Eddie had been listening to before they’d started arguing.

“—local act by the name of Corroded Coffin—”

“Shit, Eddie!” Steve clambered off the bed and rushed to his stereo, hitting record on the blank tape he’d set inside for this exact moment. “Your song!”

“Yeah,” said Eddie, heavy and void of emotion. “My song…”

Steve scowled through the tiny plastic window on the front of his tape deck as he watched the gears inside turn, pulling the blank tape from one side of the cassette to the other. “Maybe you don’t care anymore, but I do.”

“I know.” Eddie let out a bone-tired sigh. “I fucking know you do. For some goddamn reason, you do, and I am still out of my mind.”

Steve deepened his frown.

“I spend all this time wishing for something I know I’m never gonna get,” said Eddie. “And I know I’m never gonna get it, because you—” He took a breath. “You don’t even trust me.”

“Eddie—”

“Don’t,” grumbled Eddie. “You say you do, but it’s hard to believe that when—” He sighed. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m done being pissed. You wanted me to be done, I’m done. I just— I don’t care about my voice right now. I just want to hear yours.”

“I’m here,” said Steve.

“You’re in Loch Nora,” said Eddie.

“I know, but—”

“But you stayed up until ass o’clock in the morning with me just to hear the first time one of my songs played on the radio,” continued Eddie. “Because you’re Steve Harrington and you’re goddamn perfect.”

Steve shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would,” said Eddie firmly. “I’m glad you’re here. I just… I wish I had more of you. But that’s selfish. I know.”

“It’s not selfish if I wish I was there, too.” Steve turned around and leaned his hips into the dresser behind him. “Tell you what… When I see you at Joyce’s, I’m going to hug the hell out of you. For, like, ten minutes straight or something. Like last time.” He’d probably be okay with that even if it was platonic, right? Eddie sure was.

“I don’t know, Steve…” Steve could hear the slightest smile crawling back to Eddie’s face. “There’s gonna be a lot of people there…”

“And, what, you think I’m gonna care if they see?” Steve scoffed. “What, is Hop gonna arrest me?”

“He could try,” said Eddie.

“He’d have to catch me first,” said Steve.

Eddie chuckled.

Steve felt the warmth from the smile on his lips all the way to his heart. It was good to hear Eddie laugh, at least once, before the end of their call.

“I really am proud of you,” he said, twisting the cord from his phone around his index finger. “I know I kind of wound up making it about me, but—”

“I made it about you,” said Eddie. “And seeing as it got me a hug, I’d do it again. I’m holding you to that, by the way. You’re not getting out of it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Munson.” Steve closed his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The day of Joyce’s event, Steve had work. He’d managed to get the afternoon off, but the morning was devoted to old men looking for good westerns, teens grabbing movies for summer parties, and overthinking about Eddie Munson.

When the time came for Steve to clock out, he was already exhausted from worry alone. He could barely lift his eyes off the pavement as he made his way to where he’d parked his car, even as he slipped his vest off his shoulders.

“Hey, dingus!”

Which was only half of why he was surprised to hear Robin’s voice.

Steve lifted his head to follow the sound. Robin was supposed to not be able to make it to Joyce’s that day. She was supposed to go to her grandparents’ anniversary celebration. She wasn’t supposed to be leaning against Steve’s car.

But there she was, hands in her pockets, squinting against the summer sun, an easy grin on her face.

And Steve wasn’t going to ask any questions. Not this time. He refused to look this gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he stopped short of his car, held his arms lazily out to either side, and lost himself in the warmth of his best friend as she ran up and held him close.

“You smell different,” he mumbled into her hair as she twisted them back and forth.

“Dorm rank,” she said mildly. “Can’t get it out of my clothes.”

“That’s… That is just gross.”

Robin laughed and held Steve tighter.

Steve let her carry his fears away.

Steve had given Robin, a newly licensed driver as of her departure to Bloomington, his keys, freeing him to fiddle with his bangs in the passenger seat. “I feel like this is the last time I’m going to be freaking out about how my hair’s going to look in front of Eddie.”

“You said the magic couldn’t do anything impossible, right?” Robin reached across the armrest and jabbed Steve’s arm with her finger. “I feel like you falling out of love with Eddie seems basically impossible, Mr. ‘I-See-My-Future-With-This-Weird-Metalhead-Dungeon-Master-Guy’.”

Steve ignored her in favor of smoothing his hair down in the visor mirror.

“Steve…” Robin caught his wrist. “You’ll be okay. Maybe— Maybe the magic is just going to push the two of you together and make you live happily ever after.”

Steve scoffed. “Now that is impossible.”

“Oh, don’t be such a Debbie Downer!” Robin ruffled the hair he tried so hard to fix, ignoring his annoyed protests. “You and Eddie are like, fairytale levels of meant-to-be.”

“Really,” deadpanned Steve. “The guy who would have been prom king if it wasn’t for Nancy Wheeler and the guy who struts on lunch tables and moons cops and…and smiles like…”

“Like all your mushiest, sappiest dreams come to life?” teased Robin.

Steve pressed his face into his hands. He was trying to say Eddie smiled like a vampire bat, but he couldn’t bring himself to. “He’s just so…him. He’s like no one else. And I’m—”

“A witch,” said Robin. “Which, somehow, I feel like Eddie would find super hot.”

Steve flopped back against his seat. “He probably would. But I’m still, you know. Steve Harrington.”

“You’re better than that now,” said Robin. “You’re Stevie. And you know what?”

“What?”

Robin looped her arm through Steve’s, the closest she could come to a hug while she was driving. “I’m really glad to be on the other side of this conversation.”

Steve smiled in spite of himself.

“Okay.” Robin pulled the car to a stop in front of Joyce’s house. “We’re here, so you have about five seconds to apply any final touches to your already-perfect hair before people start wondering what we’re doing still in the car.”

Steve grumbled, looked up at the visor, and ran his fingers through his hair just a few more times while Robin twisted around to grab the strawberries and the box of mason jars he’d brought out of the back seat.

“Ready?” she asked sweetly, eyes bright, somewhere between encouraging and teasing.

Steve stole a look onto Joyce’s front lawn and took a steeling breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

As Steve climbed out of his car, he was greeted by another warm, familiar sight. The same type of sight that made him start thinking about how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Eddie in the first place.

Max sat with El, Lucas, and Erica next to the driveway. El’s hands were in Max’s hair, sectioning it into pieces to braid, while Lucas made conversation with the other three, earning a skeptical, half-laughing smile on Max’s freckled face and an annoyed shove from Erica.

Not far from them stood Nancy and Jonathan, the latter shyly picking a leaf out of the former’s hair.

And in the middle of it all was Dustin, slapping at Eddie’s arms as he tried his best to wriggle out of the hold Eddie had around his neck.

Eddie ignored him soundly, his eyes instead on Steve’s, an unreadable expression on his face. Unreadable, but…beautiful. Steve could hardly breathe. It had been weeks since he’d seen Eddie’s face, and it was as if any immunity Steve had developed against the quirks in his features, the flash of his wild eyes, the hair that curled around his jaw and fluttered across his brow in the faint breeze, had disappeared. And all that was left was unfiltered want.

That unreadable expression… Steve thought, at first, that Eddie might still have been mad at him for their argument, but his face smoothed out into a welcoming smile that drew Steve in like a siren’s song, like—

“I’ll save you, Dustin!”

Steve blinked, startled, as a blur of green and white connected with Eddie’s side, knocking him clean over and decidedly not saving Dustin, instead squishing him at the bottom of a dogpile.

“What the hell, Sinclair?!”

Steve laughed as Dustin gasped for air, struggling to free himself under Eddie and Lucas’ combined weight.

“All right, enough drooling,” said Robin, grabbing Steve by the arm. “We gotta check in with your witch mom.”

Steve blinked. Right. “Wait, shit, does she even know you’re coming?”

“I’m not that much of a mess,” said Robin, leading him to the door.

The jars inside the cardboard box Steve had found clattered cheerfully in Robin’s arms as he opened the door for her, allowing her inside. The fruity smell he was greeted with was overwhelming, but not unpleasant. Just a lot. Like…

Steve stole a glance over his shoulder, at where Eddie was still struggling to stand.

Robin had to pull him through the door.

Steve, feeling sheepish despite the fact that the Byers house had become more of home to him than his own over the past month, followed her into the kitchen at just the right moment to catch Joyce exchanging a soft peck with Hopper.

Steve barely resisted the urge to knock the image of his older self doing the same with Eddie out of his head. The hell was wrong with him?

“Steve!” Joyce twisted around, a bright, beaming smile on her face. “And Robin, it’s so nice that you could make it after all.”

“Aw, I couldn’t leave my little Stevie all alone after the last few weeks he had.” Robin leaned into Steve’s side, her weight a comfort. So that was why she changed her plans.

Steve’s eyes darted between Joyce, who was hovering over four separate boiling pans on her stove, and Hopper, who was washing dishes, and he frowned. “Are you guys the only ones working on this?”

“We had two more,” said Hopper. “Then Will burned himself on a hot pan, and—”

“Well, you know how Mike gets,” said Joyce, finishing Hopper’s sentence.

“Especially with Will,” said Steve, exchanging a look with Joyce.

Joyce smiled back at him. “Right, so Mike’s in the bathroom with Will, fussing over his hand.”

“Like someone I could mention,” Hop bit out, low and gruff.

Joyce bumped him with her hip. “Oh, hush. You weren’t even there.” Having shared her smile with Hopper, Joyce turned back around and took note of the box in Robin’s hands as if for the first time. “What did you bring?”

“I got some Mason jars,” said Steve. “I thought, you know, since you’re going to be giving away, like, ten of them…”

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Joyce. “But thank you. That’s very sweet.”

“Can I put them anywhere?” asked Robin, twisting nervously. “They’re actually starting to get a little heavy.”

“Oh, um…” Joyce looked around at the counters surrounding her, covered in fruit and pots set out to dry and jars with masking tape labels reading each of their names. “The kitchen’s a little busy right now. Why don’t you put them on my bed, and I’ll figure out what to do with them later?”

“Uh…” Robin sent Steve an anxious glance. “I don’t know where…?”

“I’ve got it,” said Steve, holding his arms out.

Robin let out a relieved breath as she passed him the box, taking the tiny package of strawberries off the top. “Okay, in that case, I’m going to go annoy Nance!” She grinned. “But if you need me, Steve, you know where to find me. No matter what’s going on. Okay?”

Steve didn’t know what he did to deserve her. “Okay.”

Robin pressed a perky kiss to the moles on his cheek and turned away, sliding the strawberries onto the counter with the rest of the fruit before disappearing through the front door.

Jars in hand, Steve went the opposite direction, toward the hall. He found Joyce’s room easily, knowing the layout well after all the time he’d spent there, even if very little of that time was spent in Joyce’s bedroom. As he set the box down on Joyce’s quilt, however, his ear caught voices leaking into the quiet room. Curious, he followed them to the bathroom door, which was open only a crack, just enough for Steve to see inside.

Just enough to catch Mike turning Will’s face ruby red by kneeling in front of him, where he sat on the edge of the bathtub, and kissing the side of his thumb.

“You didn’t need to do that,” muttered Will, calm expression belying the red on his cheeks. “The balm already took care of the burn.”

“I wanted to,” said Mike. “Is that cool?”

Will, by some miracle, managed to turn an even darker red. “Uh, yeah. It’s…cool.”

Mike smiled up at him. “Cool.”

Steve left quickly, before either of them could notice him peeking in, but under the surface, Steve barely resisted the urge to do a victory dance. Or at least a little bit of a victory wiggle.

At least one of them was making strides with their long-haired, brown-eyed crushes.

Steve paused in the kitchen doorway. What kind of a life was he living where he got excited about the relationships between fifteen-year-olds?

“Steve, come here!” Joyce looked up from the pots she was tending to and waved Steve toward her.

Steve stole a look at the sink where Hopper had been just a moment before. Now there was just an empty sink and a line of drip-drying dishes. “Where’d Hop go?”

“I shooed him outside to start dinner for everyone.”

“Dinner?” Steve moved closer. “I didn’t know we were doing dinner. I would have helped.”

“It’s nothing,” chided Joyce. “Just a few hot dogs. Besides, I wanted to give you a quick lesson on this jam without Hopper hearing the juicy parts.”

Steve took a step closer and leaned in over Joyce’s shoulder, listening to her explanation on how each of the jars had dried and crushed components inside, all steeped into shallow pools of tea that wouldn’t disturb the flavor or texture of the jam thanks to Steve’s help grinding flower petals down over the past few weeks, and that all that was left to do was to add the jam, which, as Joyce explained, would be ready as soon as it had the right consistency.

“Here, let me show you.” She spooned a bit onto a saucer. “Wait a second… Now drag your finger through it.”

Steve did as he was told. Beneath the hot jam—hot, but no longer boiling—the plate was cold, like it had been taken out of the freezer, even though Steve had watched it sit there for the past several minutes. It took him an embarrassingly long time to remember Joyce was a witch.

“That’s perfect,” said Joyce. “See how it’s sort of globby, not runny anymore? That’s what we want.”

Steve hummed thoughtfully, memorizing the texture. It wasn’t until he tasted blackberries on his tongue that he realized he’d licked his finger clean, and what that meant.

“Uh, what was that jam going to be again?”

“That was Mike’s luck jam,” said Joyce casually. Then she caught Steve’s eyes and she realized what was going through his head. “Oh! Don’t worry, we haven’t added it to the bells-of-Ireland, remember?”

All the air rushed out of Steve’s lungs in a relieved sigh. Right. He’d forgotten that part of it in his panic. “Thank god for that. I do not need any extra magic meddling today.”

Joyce smiled at him, sympathetic, and patted his cheek before reaching for the pot of blackberry jam in front of her.

Steve swooped in before she could get her hands on it.

“Okay, now, take these—” Joyce handed Steve his strawberries once all the jam was in their respective jars. “—and start chopping them up. You know where everything is. I’m going to get the others. This is going to be the last batch.”

That, Steve supposed, was what he got for being late.

He watched Joyce leave before navigating easily around her kitching, finding everything without much hassle at all after weeks of witch lessons (with baking lessons on the side; as it turned out, knives, cutting boards, and bowls were often needed for both).

Steve had barely started chopping the first of his strawberries before he felt a warm, broad hand slide around his waist and a low voice in his ear.

“Hey, Stevie…”

Right. By the others, Joyce meant, well, at least Eddie. Probably someone else, too, but Eddie. That made sense. Either she’d decided they needed to interact for the first time under her supervision, or Eddie had put in his preference when she was splitting everyone into sections. Probably not even to corner Steve and force him to talk in person. Probably because he wanted to make sure Steve wouldn’t be stuck making jam by himself when his turn came around. After all, it seemed like they were in groups of four, one for each burner on Joyce’s stove, and between the Hoppers, the Byerses, the Wheelers, the Sinclairs, Max, Dustin, Eddie, and Steve, that made thirteen. Three groups of four and one loose remainder. So Eddie would have split off from some other group of four, maybe just so Steve would feel less lonely. That was sweet. Eddie was sweet. He was sweet, and his chest was warm against Steve’s back, and he smelled so good—

“Uh, St… Steve?”

“Mm.”

“Maybe wait until later to do the whole hug thing we talked about.”

“Mm?”

Steve opened his eyes, and all he saw was dark hair. Dark hair and maybe a sliver of a jawline. For an instant, he couldn’t remember why he’d closed his eyes in the first place.

Then he felt Eddie’s hands, warm and firm on his biceps, rings digging into his arms. The buttons from his vest digging into Steve’s shoulder blades. His pulse against the corner of Steve’s mouth.

Oh.

Oh, Jesus, there was something wrong with him.

Steve shot upright, leaving his knife on the cutting board so he could turn around.

Eddie’s eyebrows had shot up behind his bangs. His hands, torn from Steve’s arms when he turned around, raised in a halfhearted show of surrender. His face, roughly the color Will’s had been when Mike kissed his hand. Not that Steve could blame Eddie when he’d rolled his head over Eddie’s shoulder and nuzzled into his goddamn neck like it was something he did every day.

There is something wrong with me there is something wrong with me there is something so goddamn wrong with me— “Uh. I missed you. I guess.”

Eddie laughed, high-pitched and strained. “You guess?”

“I missed you,” Steve repeated firmly, allowing no room for misinterpretation. The last thing Steve wanted was Eddie wondering if he was avoiding him again. Not that he assumed that was the reason for Eddie’s tense response.

“Well, uh…” Eddie lowered his hands cautiously. “Good. I missed you, too?”

“And nobody misses me. I see how it is.”

Steve rolled his eyes, slowly remembering how to breathe. He could always count on Henderson to cut the tension like it was never there in the first place.

He put his hands on his hips and leaned around Eddie’s arm to send Dustin a look.

Dustin held his arms out. “Waiting for my hug.”

Steve, with an apologetic pat to Eddie’s arm, slinked around him to give Dustin a much less weird hug. If what he’d done to Eddie could be called a hug at all. “Do you follow Eddie around everywhere or what?” he asked, cupping the back of Dustin’s head.

Dustin had to tilt his head back awkwardly to look up at Steve past the brim of his hat. “I’m here for you, dumbass. I waited to do my jam in the last group so I could do it with you, and what do I get? Sass.”

Steve’s heart swelled in his chest.

Oh.

With a great deal more enthusiasm, Steve squeezed Dustin in a proper hug, one that had him squirming in protest that it was too tight. Steve didn’t give a shit. If Dustin wanted love, Steve was going to love him.

As a warm hand that didn’t belong to Dustin slid over Steve’s shoulder and down his arm, he found himself wishing that worked for him, too.

Joyce’s hands were sore, which was understandable. With Will and Mike ditching her to make eyes at each other in the bathroom, she’d had to take on a bit more stirring than she originally planned, so when it came time to boil the jam, Steve had taken over.

She still stayed in the kitchen for guidance, however, telling Steve when to skim foam off the top and when to check whether any of the pots were scorching their contents. Eddie, less helpful, had found a spoon and turned the jam-making into a game of keep-away where he ducked around Steve to try to steal some of his own jam before it was finished while Steve played goalie with his own wooden spoon.

Dustin distracted Eddie from their little game regularly by talking about Dungeons and Dragons, forcing Eddie to go on the defensive with his own game of keep-away as Dustin tried to pry campaign spoilers out of him.

Robin wandered back inside as well, patting Steve on the back or the arm at regular intervals in subtle shows of sympathy and encouragement every time Eddie said or did anything that threatened to make Steve’s knees buckle. Which was a lot that day.

Every so often, someone would pass through and comment on the smell, like Jonathan, or join briefly on the Dungeons and Dragons discussion, like Mike and Will, or make fun of Steve for absolutely no good reason, like Erica, but they never stayed long.

At one point, Hopper came in with a plate of hot dogs, but Steve refused to abandon the jam to eat. Eddie, however, wouldn’t allow that, and put aside his spoonful-stealing game to hover over Steve’s shoulder and feed him by hand, despite the fact that Steve did have at least one hand free, which somehow both embarrassed Steve beyond belief and made him feel so loved that the butterflies couldn’t be contained to his stomach. They fluttered up to his chest, down his arms, from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. Stupid Eddie Munson was so stupidly sweet that it was going to give Steve a stupid heart attack.

“Take a look at the texture,” advised Joyce, still finishing her chips from the nearby kitchen table. “The apple one. That’s going to be done first.”

“I’ve got it,” insisted Eddie, apparently not done doting on Steve yet. “As soon as someone tells me what to do.”

Steve rolled his eyes good-naturedly and reached for the perpetually cold saucer to hand it to Eddie. “Here. Just drop a spoonful of it in the middle and move your finger through it. But give it a second, all right? Don’t burn yourself. It’s gonna be all…melty if it’s too hot, anyway.”

“Are you gonna let me this time?” asked Eddie, smirking entirely too close to Steve’s face to be good for his heart.

Steve pushed him back with his elbow, earning a laugh. “If you don’t do that, then yes.”

Eddie nudged him in turn with a hip and scooped a spoonful of apple jam onto the plate. Surprisingly, he actually did listen to Steve and gave the jam a moment to cool.

Then he dragged his finger through it.

Steve watched, heart in his throat, as Eddie left a white trail behind his long, calloused finger, parting the honey-colored jam to reveal the white porcelain beneath. He followed that stained fingertip with his eyes as it lifted, journeying upward to Eddie’s parted lips, a drip sliding down from his finger and landing on his wrist an instant before Eddie sucked his fingertip clean.

“Still a little too runny,” said Eddie, though Steve could hardly hear him. It felt like static in his ears, like a radio playing between two stations, or a television that needed its antennas adjusted. All he could think about, all he could focus on, was the drip of apple jam rolling over the veins in Eddie’s arm.

He wanted to lick it clean.

“Oh, my god! Holy shit! Steve!”

Robin’s scream behind Steve, somewhere between horrified and thrilled, like the kind of scream people let out in haunted houses, urged him to open his eyes. Eyes he couldn’t remember closing.

Eddie’s rings glinted in the corner of Steve’s eye. The red Hellfire logo on his t-shirt flooded his vision as he slowly came to.

He tasted apple in his mouth.

Oh, shit.

Steve slowly pulled his mouth off Eddie’s wrist, lips still pressed to jam-sweetened skin as he forced them shut. He knew Robin had seen that. He knew everyone had seen that. Dustin was still in the kitchen with them. And Joyce, as if Dustin wasn’t the worst possible audience on his own. Steve didn’t need to look around to know they were all staring at him, gaping at him. Not that he could look at them if he wanted to. He was stuck, trapped, unable to look away from Eddie’s stare, his scrutinizing glare as his eyes bore into Steve’s soul, his breathing quick, the hand attached to the arm Steve had glued himself to curling into a slow, shaking fist.

Well.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Before Steve could say a word, Eddie wrapped his hand around Steve’s wrist, swapping their positions. “Can you come with me, please?” was Steve’s only warning before Eddie began to yank him to the kitchen door.

“Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!” Steve blurted, desperate for some excuse, any excuse, to not be alone with Eddie. “The jam—!”

“Screw the jam. We need to talk.”

Goosebumps shot up Steve’s spine, standing his hair on end. He’d never heard Eddie talk like that before. Never heard that low, commanding tone come from his warm, playful voice. Anxious, Steve stole a glance over his shoulder and caught Robin’s worried eye for a split second before Eddie pulled him through the door and into the back yard.

Hopper wasn’t there anymore, but it still smelled like an open flame from the grilled hot dogs. Eddie dragged Steve by the hand all the way to the edge of the woods, the same place where Steve had given Eddie his Anthrax tape. No one could see them from where they were, unless someone looked through the window over the sink. Steve tried not to think about the likely chance that Robin, Joyce, and Dustin were all doing exactly that. He had enough going on right in front of him.

Eddie let go of Steve’s hand the moment they reached the fence and began to pace, blocking Steve from the kitchen door in case he had any desire to run back, running his hands down his face, rubbing his eyes with the pads of his fingers, the fatigue of a dying man settling into his features.

Steve had no idea where this conversation was going to go, outside of the obvious, that the goddamn licking was going to be addressed, so he started the only place he knew.

“I’m sorry.”

Eddie froze, pacing halted. His head whipped around, hair flying, and he stared at Steve like he’d just stabbed him, pain and betrayal in his eyes. “What? No— Steve, don’t fucking apologize. That—” He gestured toward the kitchen with a sharp swipe of his arm. “—could not have been more clear—” He inhaled a sharp breath. “That wasn’t you.”

Steve dragged his hands through his hair. Shit. Shit. “Uh, actually—”

“Steve.” Eddie stomped across the grass to grab Steve by the shoulders. His eyes, always wide, always dark, always hypnotically intense, seemed sharper than they’d ever been before. His grip on Steve was tight, desperate, almost painful. “I know— I know, you’re not going to want to believe me. I get that. I get that you’ve been defending Joyce for a long time—”

“What— Joyce?”

“—because you’re a way better person than you ever were in school and the kind of person you are now defends weirdos like her, and like me, but you know—I know you know—that just because freaks like us get shit on for daring to be a little different doesn’t mean we can’t be bad fucking people sometimes.”

Steve mouth-fished, baffled. “Are you calling Joyce Byers a bad person?” That did the impossible. That made Steve Harrington mad at Eddie Munson. “What the hell—?”

“I know! I know.” Eddie released Steve’s shoulders to hold his hands up placatingly. “I get it. But I really—”

His nostrils flared as he took a sharp, deep breath.

“I think—no, I know she fuckin’ put a spell on you, man.”

Steve sucked in a breath so fast he choked on it. The anger left as quickly as it came. “W-What?”

“You’ve been acting weird all goddamn day,” said Eddie, turning away to resume pacing, hands flailing around him. Dramatics. Always with the goddamn dramatics. “No, you’ve been acting weird for a month, or, or longer, I don’t know. But you start hanging out with Joyce, and suddenly you’re, like— There’s the tape you got me, and then you’re, like, scared of being around me even though you apparently want to be, and then we see each other again and, like, every time I come anywhere near you, you fucking melt. And at first I thought— Doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s what I know is going on now. Because that shit—” He gestured at the kitchen window again. “The shit that happened in there? That wasn’t you, man. That wasn’t Steve Harrington. That was something else. I saw the—” He raised a hand to his face like he was holding a particularly large monocle. “—the fear in your eyes, man. And the Steve I know wouldn’t lick me. Not in that weird, like, sensual fucking way with the tongue swirling around—”

The fucking what.

“—and the teeth—”

God, what did Steve do with his teeth?

“No way. Not happening. Not in a million years. So the only thing I can think of, the only thing that makes sense, is if you’re under a spell.” Eddie grabbed Steve’s wrist again. “And I know you’re gonna hate to hear this, but we both know a witch.”

“It wasn’t Joyce,” said Steve firmly.

Eddie screwed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No— Steve, I know you want to defend her, but there’s no other explanation. I don’t know why she’s doing it, maybe she just wants to practice her love spells or something, I don’t know, but—”

“Eddie, think about it,” sighed Steve. He already knew what he had to do. What he had to say. “I already told you, magic doesn’t make the impossible possible. It can’t change a person’s will. It just…nudges, I don’t know.” Steve shrugged. “Making people fall in love is, like, way out of bounds.”

“And who told you that, Steve?” snapped Eddie, grabbing the front of Steve’s shirt. “Huh? Who told you that? Because I bet it was Joyce! I bet it was fucking Joyce, lying to you so you’d never figure out what was going on with her! We both know that magic made you do what you did in there!”

“Eddie.” Steve grabbed Eddie by the wrists and tugged his hands gently down. “There…was magic involved. Okay? I was…under a spell or enchanted or whatever you want to call it. But it wasn’t Joyce.”

“Well, if it wasn’t Joyce, then who the fuck—” Eddie’s eyes widened as understanding broke through his protective anger. “You know who it was.”

Steve dropped his hands from Eddie’s wrists. “Yeah. Uh…” He took a step back, putting distance between himself and Eddie, protecting himself. “Yeah, I know who it was.”

“Then who the hell was it?” demanded Eddie, angry again. “If this was some shitty prank— If this is why you’ve been avoiding me—”

“It wasn’t a prank,” said Steve quickly. “It is why I’ve been avoiding you, though. I knew something was going to happen—hell, I took a risk by just calling you—but it wasn’t a prank, and it wasn’t anything that was supposed to hurt you. Or me. It was just…a mistake by a dumbass novice with magic he barely knows how to use.”

Eddie furrowed his brow. “So…Will? Is that why you didn’t tell me what was going on? You didn’t want me to get mad at Will for messing up some incantation or whatever and making you act like some kind of a weird horndog around me? Because if you just told me… I mean, we could have laughed it off. I mean, I probably would have teased him about it, sure, but I know how sensitive he is. I’m not gonna make him hate himself or anything.”

“No, I know.” Steve shrugged. “If it was that, I would have told you. But, uh, it’s not. It’s not Will.” He hiked his shoulders up to his ears. “It’s me.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “You?” He looked up and down Steve’s body, scanning him as if something about the way he was standing could give him more answers. “You…did that? That thing in the kitchen, that— That was because of you. But you’re not a—”

“Yeah, I am,” said Steve. “I’m, uh… I’m Joyce’s apprentice.” He turned to lean his backside against the fencepost behind him and slide his hands into his pockets. “…Surprise.”

Steve expected Eddie to tense up, to take offense, to get mad. He didn’t. If anything, his face softened. “Okay. So…you're a witch. And you didn't tell me because…why?”

“I haven’t told anyone,” said Steve. “I mean, Joyce, Will, and Jonathan all know because, you know, kind of unavoidable. And Robin because she’s, like—”

“Robin,” said Eddie plainly. “And you’re Steve and not telling her would be like not telling your right arm.”

“Exactly.” Steve smiled. Eddie got it. Got him. Knew him almost too well. “Joyce figured out I could use magic after some of the magic from that night at The Hideout wound up being stronger than she expected. She’s been training me ever since. I’m still not that good at it yet, though, so, uh…” The scratched his brow, eyes averted. “You know. The shit you were worried about that night? That was…my fault. And I accidentally blasted the song in your head to everyone at the table that night I gave you the Anthrax tape. Which was why Jonathan got up and left. Why everyone looked sort of uncomfortable, so, you know. Definitely nothing you did. That was all me. And I’ve been avoiding you for the past month because I accidentally said some shit I shouldn’t have when I was talking to Robin… And that’s all it is, you know, like…basically the source of all my problems with magic. I can’t keep my mouth shut. And somehow, you always wind up dealing with the fallout of it.” Steve shook his head. “At least you didn’t get hurt. My big mouth said some vague bullshit, so I thought you might have been.”

“So that’s what the protection charm was about,” said Eddie.

“It could have killed you,” said Steve. “Worst part is, that wasn’t even what I was the most worried about. Me…sniffing your neck or licking your arm… I didn’t even think about that. Could have been worse. A lot worse.”

“Is that why you haven’t told anyone?” Eddie took a tentative step closer. Steve refused to meet his eye. “You were, what, worried someone would get hurt and trace it back to you?”

Steve shook his head. “I wanted a back door. A way to drop it if I decided I wasn’t ready to be a witch. I didn’t want to have to, you know, go around telling everyone I quit if it wasn’t for me. Wasn’t what I wanted. And I mean, I did want it. Still do. I just… I was scared to commit, I guess.” He laughed bitterly. “Robin’d laugh if I told her that. I mean, I’m a hopeless romantic. I daydream about shit like getting married and having half a dozen kids more than I should. But this, just…studying magic? This was too much? It’s stupid, I know, but—”

“It’s not stupid,” assured Eddie, his voice low, calming, gentle.

“Mm.” Steve shrugged noncommittally. “It definitely feels stupid.”

“It’s not,” said Eddie again. “So…that’s what all this was? Just…not having the whole magic thing figured out?”

“Pretty much.” Steve scowled at the ground.

“Right.” Eddie took a deep breath. “So, uh… That part about magic not going against your free will or whatever… I’m guessing that doesn’t apply when it’s your own magic or something, right?”

Steve knew that question was coming. He knew it. He goddamn knew it. And he knew exactly what Eddie meant by it. “Nope. Still works the same way.”

“But you’re…”

Eddie trailed off as Steve fixed him with a stern look.

“Remember what I said?” asked Steve. “That part about how I felt like a piece of shit because you could have died and that wasn’t even what I was worried about?”

Eddie frowned, but he nodded.

“Well, what happened was… I was talking to Robin,” said Steve. “And I made this…wish. That’s what my big mouth keeps getting me in trouble with. Wishes. Apparently, it’s the most basic form of magic. Like, baby witches can do it or whatever. I guess they’re taught not to say the word ‘wish’ when they’re young enough, or they do it enough times that they learn the hard way, but I’m a little late on that wagon, so I keep fucking saying it. And that night I was talking to Robin, I was talking about you.”

“Me,” muttered Eddie, his tone impossible for Steve to decipher.

Steve nodded anyway. “I got…frustrated, I guess? And I told her that I wished…”

He dropped his eyes to the ground. He couldn’t look at Eddie’s face. He couldn’t see rejection swim in those dark, gorgeous eyes. He couldn’t see reluctance twist the corners of his mouth into a hard grimace. But he had to say it. Eddie deserved to know what was going on.

“I wished I could ‘do something’ about…about the way I feel…for you.”

“The way you feel,” repeated Eddie slowly.

Steve nodded. “And I mean… ‘Do something’ is the vaguest fucking thing I can think of. I didn’t have a clue what would happen. Like I said, you could have died. Or I could make myself out to be a massive asshole in front of you and you wouldn’t want anything to do with me anymore. But the thing that worried me the most was that I’d just…stop loving you?”

The grass beneath Eddie’s feet shifted with his flinch. The chain on his hip jingled softly. He sucked in a breath.

Steve quickly continued before he could say anything. He had one last chance to get it all out there, and he needed to. He couldn’t smother those thoughts in his chest for the rest of his life. He’d suffocate. “I didn’t want to stop loving you. I mean, you could hate me for the rest of your life, and that would suck, but I’d deal with it. But if it was my feelings, if I felt different, I—”

He shook his head. “I just don’t want that, okay? I don’t.” He bit his lip. “I mean, so what if you’re way out of my league? So what if I don’t deserve you? So what if there’s no one else in the world like Eddie Munson and Steve Harringtons are a dime a dozen? I don’t care. I—” He sighed, frustrated. He had so many feelings that he wanted to get out, wanted Eddie to understand, but they were so hard to put into words.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” he said decisively. “I don’t care if it doesn’t fucking matter to anyone else but me— I want to love you. I’d choose to love you a million goddamn times, over and over and over again, because just— Just having the chance to love you, to know you, to see—parts of you, things that no one else has seen even if it’s just stupid shit like listening to you talk about Lord of the Rings until the sun comes up, or watching you fall on your ass because you’re high on magic and climbing over park benches, or holding you while you cry over over a fucking cassette—” He lifted his head, up past Eddie’s, still avoiding his face. “All these little things that I’ve fallen in love with— I want that.” He shrugged almost sharply enough to yank his hands out of his pockets. “I want to forget how to breathe every time you look at me with eyes so goddamn wide I can see whites all the way around. I want those nights where I can’t stop smelling my own goddamn vest because you’ve been hugging me and my clothes still smell like you and I can’t get enough. I want…”

He trailed off and looked out into the woods.

“It’s not about the happy ending,” he said slowly. “It was never about that. It’s about the feeling. Just loving you is enough, and… I was so fucking scared of losing you that I put it off as long as I could. So, sorry for avoiding you for the past three weeks. I just…”

He sighed.

“I wanted to hold on for as long as I could.”

Steve heard Eddie swallow, hard. “…But you’re straight.”

There was no lift in the tone toward the end. It didn’t sound like it was supposed to be a question. But at the same time, it did. And Steve took that as his cue to finally look Eddie in the eye.

There was no rejection there. No anger or disgust or pity. His expression was just…flat. Uncertain. Maybe a little anxious, like he might have thought about running away. He looked pale. But he also looked like he was close to tears. There was a sheen, a blue to his eyes that wasn’t normally there.

“What? No, I’m not.” Steve wrinkled his nose. Not like Joyce did when she was happy, but like something crawled under his nose and died. “What are you talking about?”

“You said—” Eddie held out a hand. His nostrils flared again, but he didn’t look angry like he had before, just…intense. “I asked you a few nights ago if you were gay. And you said no.”

Steve scoffed. “When?”

“That night,” said Eddie frantically. “That night, when we were listening to my song on the radio, I asked you. Don’t fuck with me, man, I know I asked you.”

“I…” Steve shook his head, confused. He didn’t have a clue what Eddie was talking about. And then he did. “Wait— No— I didn’t say no. I said that wasn’t what I was talking about. And it wasn’t.” He laughed, sharp, nervous. “I was talking about the magic shit.” Eddie opened his mouth to say something else. “And besides, you—!” Steve cut him off. “You said you knew! You didn’t ask! You told me you knew!”

“I didn’t say I knew!” countered Eddie, pointing at him. “I said you could tell me if you were!”

“No, after that! When you said you were glad I wasn’t an asshole and then you went, ‘Well, obviously!’ Obviously! Because it’s kind of hard to be homophobic if I’m fucking bi!”

“I was referring to Robin! Your out and proud best lesbian friend Robin fucking Buckley! You’re bi?! Bisexual. Steve fucking Harrington is bisexual.”

“Yes!”

“Oh!” Eddie snorted. Not derisively, not like he was laughing, just…in an Eddie way. In an Eddie-was-always-dramatic way. Like that was the way he chose to express whatever the hell he was feeling in that moment.

Which was hard to read. His shoulders were hunched defensively. His eyes were wild, more than they usually were. He was a lot. Steve had no idea how to interpret what he was feeling, but it was a lot. So much fucking flavor in Eddie Munson. A chef’s masterpiece in a person. Steve loved him. And he desperately hoped that, whatever Eddie was feeling under those mad eyes, it wasn’t something that would push him away.

“So you…” Eddie held his hand in front of him, pointer finger shaking so much it was almost wagging. “You— You— You meant— All that shit, about, about being in love with me. You— You meant that.”

“Yeah.” Steve clenched the insides of his pockets in his fists. “Yeah, I did. I’m in love with you—” Eddie shuddered visibly. “—and if that changes shit between us, then I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry for being in love. I’m never going to apologize for that. Maybe I never had a chance—maybe you think I’m boring—but I’m in love, and I’m happy to be in love. And I’m not going to pretend I regret that, or that it’s not real, just for the sake of getting things ‘back to normal’ or whatever. I’m not doing that.”

Eddie stared at him.

That’s all he did. He stared. He fucking stared. Like he was looking at a unicorn instead of some guy in a polo and jeans.

Then he swooped in.

For a split second, a surge of fear gripped Steve’s heart as some irrational idea of Eddie strangling him ran through Steve’s head.

But Eddie didn’t go for his throat.

He went for his face.

“Steve Harrington, you are many, many things, but boring? Is not one of them.”

Steve stumbled back, startled, but he didn’t go far, stopped by the fence post he’d been leaning against. Eddie chased him anyway, fingers drawn gently up his cheeks, into the hair at his temples.

“And I’m not just talking about the witch thing,” continued Eddie, his voice curling around Steve’s face like smoke on the way to his ears, his eyes darting twitchily across Steve’s face but never straying too far from his eyes for too long. “Which is, by the way, cool as fuck… But even before that,” breathed Eddie. “Before that, you are a selfless hero. You are…Dustin’s big brother—” Steve chuckled, soft and breathy despite the panicked beat of his heart. “—and the staunch and true defender of Joyce Byers, who is not, as I briefly assumed, a power-hungry psychopath willing to use those who care about her most to further her sorcerous studies.”

The corner of Eddie’s mouth twitched into an almost-smile that twisted Steve’s insides like a phone cord around Eddie’s long fingers.

“You once developed a crush on a lesbian who responded to your confession by coming out,” continued Eddie. “And you responded in turn by teasing her about her taste in girls like she was one of your teammates in a locker room.”

“God,” murmured Steve, barely moving his lips, half-afraid to speak. “She told you that?”

Eddie’s lips pulled back a little farther, into a true, soft smile. His thumbs caressed Steve’s cheekbones. Steve barely forced his eyes to not flutter closed.

“Your first love broke up with you because she fell in love with someone else,” said Eddie. “And just a few weeks ago, you followed that ‘someone else’ when he left in the middle of dinner to make sure he was okay, and you both came back smiling.”

Eddie’s fingers shifted ever so gently, his ring fingers sliding under Steve’s jaw, sending sparks zig-zagging all the way down his neck and into his chest.

“You treat your car like a princess,” said Eddie. “You once found a stray dog and derailed an entire afternoon with your weird friend Eddie to make sure it got to a shelter. You have…a hair-care routine—” Steve chuckled again, eyes traveling down Eddie’s face. “—so intricate, that, if you wrote it down, I’d be willing to bet it could rival The Silmarillion in length.” Eddie hesitated. “Which is—”

“The book that explains all the background shit in Lord of the Rings,” murmured Steve, struggling and failing to lift his eyes from Eddie’s lips. “I remember.”

He was still watching Eddie’s lips when they pulled into a wider smile. “You’re a good listener. You remember shit you have absolutely no interest in, like what The Silmarillion is, and who Kirk Hammett is, and what album from a band you’d never heard of before just came out, all just because you care about the people who told you that shit.”

Steve swallowed.

“You come from a shitty family,” continued Eddie. “An actual nightmare. The Harringtons are the most hollow pieces of conformist shit to ever walk the streets of Indiana. Not that they’d ever actually walk the streets. They’re above that. But for all the picture perfection they seem to be on the outside, they’re cruel and empty on the inside. And somehow, you, Steve Harrington, rose above your name. You had the integrity to become someone real. Someone kind. Someone who delights in taking kids like Dustin Henderson under his wing, and eagerly becomes the apprentice of witchy Joyce Byers, and invites Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson to put his feet on your shitty parents’ furniture and flick the ashes of his cigarettes into your shitty parents’ pool. Not out of spite, but because you decided, without their permission, that life isn’t about looking perfect. That life is about being true to yourself and loving without regret.

“Steve.”

His name, spoken in such earnest tones, pulled Steve’s gaze from Eddie’s lips to his wide, emotional eyes.

“You can call yourself boring,” whispered Eddie. “Or say you’re a dime a dozen. Or that you don’t deserve me. But it’s never going to be true. Because I know that when my eyes meet yours, I don’t see some guy who used to be kind of a jerk in high school. And I don’t see someone who likes the same things ninety percent of the population does, like football and fast cars. I don’t see someone who could have been just like his parents. You are all those things, but those things are not all you are. You don’t like sports because they’re easy to like in public. You like sports because, for some bizarre reason I can’t fathom, you just do. And you’ve never apologized for that, even when the only other person you know who likes them as much as you do is sixteen. You are truly, and beautifully, unapologetically you. The kind of man who fears falling out of love, even if he thinks that love is unreturned.”

Steve’s pulse quickened. “Thinks it’s unreturned?”

“Steve, I’ve never seen so much good in one person.”

Steve’s pulse skyrocketed.

“And knowing—” Eddie’s voice cracked. “Knowing that you…you chose to love me… That you’re not afraid of loving someone like me, that you’d keep choosing me again and again and again, even if I didn’t love you back, it— It drives me fucking insane.”

Tears welled in Eddie’s eyes.

“I never thought I’d get to hear those words, not from you, or—or anyone. I thought…if anyone ever did fall in love with me? It’d be an accident. Something that snuck up on someone before they had the chance to fight it off. I thought that would be lucky. But you…” Eddie swallowed. “The— The fucking idea, that my favorite person in the whole fucking world not only loves me, but wants to love me, but would choose to love me if he had a choice? And that he doesn’t even think I love him back? I— I don’t— I don’t even know what to fucking do with that.”

“Do you?” murmured Steve, before he could start overthinking what it meant that Eddie didn’t know what to do with Steve’s feelings, before he could wonder if that was bad. “Love me back, I mean.”

Eddie screwed his eyes shut and pulled Steve’s face close to his, close enough to shove their foreheads together like he was trying to soothe a headache. “You’re so stupid,” he gasped, voice strained with emotion. “You’re so fucking stupid.”

The insult stung for less than a second. It was soothed faster than the balm healed Steve’s burned hands after he’d grabbed Joyce’s potato soup with nearly bare hands.

With Eddie’s lips on Steve’s, nothing hurt at all.

All that time spent wishing he was good enough was forgotten as Eddie’s calloused fingers slid into his hair, the fiery weight of his rings raking across his cheeks. Those weeks spent scared to death that he’d lose Eddie, lose the way he felt around him, were gone the moment Steve’s hands found Eddie’s belt and guided him closer with an easy tug. Those pained conversations with Robin, with Joyce, with anyone who would listen, about how much he wished he could have someone he’d never get, failed to linger as even a memory when Steve lost himself to the soft sounds of Eddie’s hastened breathing through his nose, to every gentle click of their lips parting and meeting again, to knowing that those lips were Steve’s and Eddie’s and that they were happy. They both were. And they were happy together.

“I love you,” Eddie whispered across Steve’s lips between one part and one meet. “I love you so fucking much, Steve. I’m going to tell you every damn day until you don’t have to ask anymore.” Every syllable grazed Eddie’s lips across Steve’s in a feather-light touch that sent lightning dancing across his skin. “I’m so fucking glad you’re a witch.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiled. “That hot, huh?”

“So stupid,” repeated Eddie, stealing another chaste kiss and sliding his arms around the back of Steve’s neck. “No, dumbass. It’s because if you didn’t magic yourself into seducing me in the middle of Joyce Byers’ fucking kitchen, I wouldn’t be kissing you right now.”

Steve locked his arms behind the small of Eddie’s back as Eddie toyed with the hair at the base of Steve’s skull. “Good point.” He stole a kiss of his own. “I’m going to have to ask Robin how she feels about strawberries.”

Eddie pulled his head back to send Steve a questioning look. Wide eyes. Dark eyes. Beautiful eyes.

Steve leaned back in, brushing his nose against Eddie’s. “I’m just saying, I don’t think I’m going to need help with love for a while.”

Witches didn’t have the best reputation. In a small, conservative with like Hawkins, Steve Harrington could probably expect that.

After kissing Eddie Munson in witchy Joyce Byers’ back yard, he would make his way back into her kitchen and announce to all the people he loved that he was a witch. And eventually, that news would spread, and people would click their tongues and mutter disapprovingly as they passed him on the street.

But the people in that kitchen knew him, pretty well, far beyond his reputation. And they would never stop loving him. No matter what, he would have his family to turn to when the rumors got too much.

And he would have Eddie to kiss him goodnight at the end of every hard day.

And witchy Steve Harrington would live weirdly, happily ever after.