Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“He’s going to tell them what?”

“Steve, look,” Dustin says, with all of the exasperated candor of a parent, “it’s not like he has a choice.”

“Like hell he doesn’t!” Steve shouts, and, sucking his teeth, shucks his Family Video vest and ditches it below the counter.

“Woah, what?” Robin asks, sounding bored, looking bored, and a little high actually, but that’s just her face when it’s relaxed.

She’s not high.

High was last night, when she and Steve split a heavy joint between them and laughed through at least two reruns of MASH and four of Star Trek before passing out in a jumble on the squashy couch in her den.

High was thanks to Eddie Munson, who regularly dealt him overpriced but decent pot, and who is about to blow up Steve’s whole spot, shatter his whole reputation with the cops, overturn his whole, tenuous, stable-but-only-just relationship with his asshole dad for… what reason?

“I’m taking my break,” Steve grunts, and Robin shrugs, accepting.

Dustin scrambles to follow Steve as he charges toward the door, slamming the glass doors open with a delightful jingle of the bells overhead.

“Hey, wait,” Dustin says.

“Absolutely not,” Steve says. “I can beat him to the station if we leave right now.”

“Okay, but—“ Dustin dashes from under Steve’s elbow to his passenger door. “I’m coming with you.”

“Whatever, shrimp,” Steve grouses. “Buckle up.”

“Fine,” Dustin grunts, turning toward Steve as he lands in the driver’s seat. “But Steve, you gotta listen—“

“I don’t have to do shit!” Steve says, “I don’t care what this burnout wants to do with his life, but mine is hanging on by a thread, and if I get busted…”

Steve trails off as he slings an arm around Dustin’s seat, looking over his shoulder to back out of the parking lot.

“Fuck,” Steve mutters, shaking his head.

“I mean,” Dustin sighs, “not to throw stones, Steve, but maybe you should’ve considered the implications before buying drugs from a known drug dealer—“

“Oh thanks, Henderson, you’re right, maybe next time I’ll head on down to Mrs. Delaney’s bakery and pick them up from a respected business owner—“

“And burnout? Eddie has a job, and hobbies, unlike some people I could mention? And that’s on top of being a full time student—“

“Because he flunked all his classes! More than once!” Steve shouts, feeling the strain in his voice, his neck. “Fuck, Dustin!”

“Dude, at least listen,” Dustin says, pinching his brow with the energy of someone decades older than he is.

Steve exhales through his nose, his mouth a straight line. The station is five minutes away on this road; he just has to get there without speeding, or at least without being arrested for reckless endangerment.

“He has a job at Steinem’s,” Dustin is saying carefully.

“What? The supermarket?” Steve asks. “Well, explains why he wanted to meet there.”

Eddie had told Steve to meet him behind the giant new grocery store to do their little deal, and Steve just figured it was because no one would be back there. It’s not like Eddie had been wearing a uniform, just a pair of unlabeled coveralls and heavy boots.

The idea of Eddie in that green Steinem’s apron… it’s ridiculous. It’s heinous. It’s.. a little cute, but it’s not the time for that chirping little voice in his head, the one that thinks Munson is a little… compelling, sometimes.

Steve shakes his head, tamping it down. He wouldn’t wanna be Munson, not in a million years. But something about him…

Steve is a little jealous.

Not because Eddie seems to be Dustin’s new best friend, even? although Dustin certainly seems to have accepted that narrative with an almost eager confidence.

Eddie just seems so… happy.

Dustin would scoff, he’s sure. Eddie is constantly making a nuisance of himself, apparently. He’s always screeching or protesting or tossing a table during their games. He would yell at school too, when Steve was there, in the hallways and in the smoking lounge and once on his knees in the middle of the courtyard, covered in fake blood for who knows what reason.

But even when he’s yelling, even when he seems pissed off, Eddie is smiling. He cares about kids’ games and about pot, sure, but he also has opinions about stuff that matters, and Steve will find himself turning over the arguments in his head, hours or even days after he’s heard them.

None of this makes Eddie’s plans to turn himself in even remotely acceptable to Steve. In fact, it just
makes the whole thing worse.

“Yes, he has a real job at Steinem’s—his uncle was worrying about him having a future, so he works in the big freezer in the back and stocks the frozen section—“

Steve snorts. “And he’d throw it all away to come clean to the cops?”

“That’s just it, Steve!” Dustin says, “I’m trying to explain, just—!”

Dustin gives a big exhale, closing his eyes in this bitchy way he’s been doing. Steve wonders where he picked it up.

“Steve,” Dustin starts, “someone—exposed himself to Chrissy Cunningham while she was in the refrigerated section.”

Steve blinks.

“What?”

“You heard me the first time,” Dustin says, sounding embarrassed. “She saw it behind the food, but not his face.”

“And Munson did it?”

“No!” Dustin spits, face wrinkled with disgust.

“This isn’t becoming any clearer, Henderson.”

“It was John Carver!” Dustin yells. “He’s the only other guy who was working yesterday.”

Steve pulls into the station parking lot. He’s beaten Eddie. He doesn’t leave his seat; he doesn’t move a muscle.

“But he’s—“

“Jason Carver’s older brother. Home from college for winter break.”

Steve props his forehead on his fist, says, “And Jason and Chrissy are—“

“Dating since the dawn of time? Yeah.”

Steve blinks, staring at the shiny leather of his steering wheel.

“How do you know it wasn’t Eddie?” Steve asks, affect flat.

Because, really, Steve knows it wasn’t Eddie. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows. Eddie loves to be known as a freak—but he isn’t that kind of creep.

“Because—“ Dustin sighs. “Because he’s a good person.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods. “And—“

“And he’s gay,” Dustin breathes, defeated.

“What?” Steve asks, looking at Dustin; Dustin isn’t joking. He seems serious, and tired.

It’s not like it’s unbelievable. Steve just—he never thought it would be confirmed or denied, not where he could hear it.

“He—“ Dustin starts shaking his head, “even if he were that kind of guy, Chrissy just—I mean, you know what I mean.”

Steve looks ahead again. The gears in his head are turning.

“What did they say?” Steve asks. “When he said it wasn’t him?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain,” Dustin sighs. “They’re not going to believe it was John—Jason’s brother? And a jock? And—“

”A real choir boy,” Steve says.

“They'll never believe it was him. Not when Eddie is there, instead.”

“Shit,” Steve breathes.

Dustin shrugs, looking supremely uncomfortable. “And the only alibi he has…”

“Is me,” Steve says.

“They’ll believe he wasn’t the guy if he has a good alibi! But they won’t believe he was just—playing hopscotch.”

Steve thinks maybe Dustin is just repeating Eddie. He can see it: Eddie telling Dustin he might be going away for a while, explaining the whole thing.

“I mean, if he comes clean about this, Hopper might even be able to—“

“Are there cameras?” Steve asks.

“What?”

“Cameras,” Steve says, “Proof?”

Dustin tilts his head, considering.

“You don’t know,” Steve confirms.

“How would I know?” Dustin asks.

“If this gets back to my dad, I’m screwed. Royally.”

Steve looks ahead at the station.

“Imagine what Eddie must be feeling,” Dustin says. “He can disappoint his uncle and mess up his own future by confessing the truth, or? He can have everyone think he’s the type to—do this! It’s gross, Steve.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs.

He imagines what everyone would say. It would confirm everyone’s worst ideas about Eddie, and Steve isn’t an idiot; he knows what everyone thinks about Eddie. The guy is harmless, truly; his best friends are barely out of their short pants and he wouldn’t hurt a fly—but because of how he looks, everyone would be so quick to think he’s the type to pull out his dick and show it to Chrissy Cunningham—to ruin her day, or maybe even her year? For what? Just for kicks?

Owning up to the truth versus taking the fall for a lie? Eddie’s choice must be clear.

Steve shakes his head.

“Dude, I’m in a tight spot,” he says. “My dad is already pissed I’m still at home and not in some.. fancy college. I swear to God I can’t even put a fork in the drawer right, he finds any reason to just—scream?”

Steve turns toward Dustin. Dustin looks at him grimly.

“Eddie’s dad is in prison,” Dustin says, and yeah, okay.

“Fuck,” Steve says. “Can’t he just tell them he’s gay?”

Dustin’s eyebrows rise. “Would you?”

“I mean, if the other choice is being an actual criminal?”

“Would they even believe him?” Dustin asks, “or would he just be making it worse?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve clocks movement. The door to the station just opened and closed.

“Fuck, was that him?” Steve jumps, opening the car door.

He looks back. Dustin is still unbuckling his belt.

“Steve, fuck, wait!”

Steve runs to the door.

Chapter Text

“Can I help you, young man?” Florence asks.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Steve says, walking right past her desk. He smiles at her winningly, hoping it’s enough to put aside any questions.

“Dude, stop!” Dustin yells as he crashes through the door.

Steve is headed straight back, does not stop. He knows where Hopper sets up shop, unfortunately for himself and his track record with his parents.

There’s a shadow of a bushy head of hair through the frosted glass window. Steve’s heart picks up the pace and he opens the door without knocking.

“Woah, woah!” Hopper calls in that booming voice of his, meant to overwhelm a room, or a building, or a stadium.

The contrast between his broad, beefy masculinity and whatever it is that Steve finds so attractive about Eddie has Steve’s head swimming for a second. Eddie looks so gentle, sitting there, his profile handsome and his eyes dark. He bows his head.

“Shit,” Eddie says, quietly. “Look, Harrington, I’m sorry—”

“Hey!” Dustin yells, barreling in with full volume and full drama. “Eddie, I’m sorry—”

“You’re all about to be sorry,” Hopper says.

Florence intones, drily, from behind Dustin, “Chief—”

“Leave it, Flo,” Hopper says, “It’s alright. The rest of you, sit.”

Flo rolls her eyes and waves a hand dismissively, retreating.

Steve breathes a small sigh of relief as he finds a chair.

Dustin, finding no seat, strolls forward to sit on the edge of Hopper’s desk.

“No,” Hopper says, shaking his head minutely.

Dustin stands with a huff.

“Look, Eddie,” Steve starts, “you don’t have to say a thing about this, not without a lawyer—”

“I don’t know who said you were in charge, here, kid,” Hopper says with fatigue.

“I can’t afford a lawyer,” Eddie grins, a little biting. There’s a flare of heat in Steve’s gut; he closes his eyes through it.

“My folks can,” Steve says, letting his mouth run, really just buying time. Eddie’s face twists in confusion.

“Just hold it,” Hopper says, his voice rising. “No one said anything about a crime.”

“Indecent exposure is a crime,” Eddie says pointedly.

“Which you didn’t do,” Dustin spits.

“Which is why you should just shut up until we can get a lawyer,” Steve says.

“Unclear that your folks would give a fuck about getting me a lawyer,” Eddie shrugs.

“Getting us a lawyer,” Steve says, “And I give a fuck.”

“Oh, you do?” Eddie asks with sarcasm, his dark eyes hard and opaque.

Ouch.

Steve’s face softens with the unexpected hurt.

He says, “You know I do.”

Eddie is visibly still. Dustin, eyes closed, brings a fist to his mouth in measured consideration.

Steve finds himself hoping for the speed of that little kid’s brain.

“Harrington,” Hopper says, “I was hoping that you’d be here to make this easier, not harder—”

“Are there cameras?” Dustin opens his eyes on Hopper. Hopper sighs.

“They can’t get the angle,” Hopper shrugs.

Steve is shocked at his candor, but knowing his history with the kids, he processes it easily.

“Behind the store,” Dustin says. Hopper stares flatly at Dustin, glances at Eddie.

“That’s where you were?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. He turns to Steve. “Look, I’m sorry—”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“Uh, okay,” Eddie blinks, like he’s never seen a Boy Scout before. “So—you’re just—kosher? with all this? If we just—fess up?”

“You don’t need to!” Dustin says. “There’s no need to give an alibi if there’s no evidence of wrongdoing!”

“If you don’t think Chrissy Cunningham’s word is evidence enough,” Hopper says. Steve can tell, Dustin and Eddie can tell, probably the fibers in the carpet can tell this is not what Hopper thinks. “We also have the video of Chrissy dropping her groceries and running, and she didn’t see a damn ghost.”

“But you don’t know it was Eddie!” Dustin pleads. “And if there’s video of the back door, we can prove it!”

“There’s nothing on the back door,” Hopper says, “Eddie already told us he was on break, but John says he’s the one who took his fifteen at that time.”

“Look, Dustin, it’s super sweet you came down here,” Eddie says.

“Real sweet,” Hopper says, tone dry, brow heavy.

“It’s just,” Eddie’s mouth moves, he shrugs. “It’s nothing personal. I gotta come clean, here, man.”

“I agree,” Steve says.

Eddie turns to look at him.

“Hop, the truth is,” Steve starts.

“Hold on,” Hop mutters, “don't get me wrong, it’ll be easier to settle with your statement, but I’m a shit typist. You’ve gotta give me a minute to set up.”

“Okay,” Eddie breathes, more impatient than anything.

“And you, small fry,” Hopper addresses Dustin, “you gotta scram.”

“What? Why?” Dustin asks.

“Because I said so,” Hop says, more patiently than Steve would expect. “I can’t have you interrupting every four seconds.”

While they bicker, Steve looks at Eddie. He’s too young to look as worried as he is. And to think—none of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t tried to go legitimate, get a real job. He was just trying to do right by his uncle, by society, and now, depending on how seriously Hopper takes this, he could be looking at jail time.

Unfortunately, doubts are arriving in Steve’s head—namely, that it would be a waste. Steve loves to have Eddie around—for the kids, sure, but he’s also come to love seeing him every once in a while. Once, they got a little high during a deal and drove around the backroads, Steve taking the long way to drop Eddie where he wanted to go. He still remembers how Eddie laughs when he’s tired. He’d always hoped they’d do it again sometime.

He doesn’t want Eddie to go anywhere.

Steve will be fine; he doesn’t have any weed left on him to be charged with and his parents will make sure he’s alright. But it’ll make his life much harder in the short term, depending on how long his dad wants to prove the point. They won’t kick him out, but Steve will certainly know the indignity of being a grounded nineteen year old. He’ll lose privileges around god knows what—the TV? The couch? Shit, the car?

No, they won’t throw him out; his dad likes the power trip too much. Getting thrown out might even be better than what he’s facing, but that wouldn’t happen, not even if Steve were—

Dustin sighs, throws his hands up, “Fine.”

Dustin turns to leave. Once the door clicks closed, Hopper turns to Eddie, then to Steve.

Steve’s mind is racing. Would it be possible to solve Eddie’s problem, and by extension, his own problem, without a lick of jail time for either of them?

“Your mother will kill me if I don’t tell you to at least think twice about what you’re going to say here, Harrington.”

It’s genius, he thinks. Even Dustin would be proud of him.

Sure, Eddie might be pissed, potentially, at being exposed to, potentially, the whole town, but those rumors have always existed—and since when has Eddie cared about being a freak?

“Well,” Steve starts carefully, leaning forward. “I’m hoping she doesn’t have to find out.”

Hopper’s brows press together. “If Chrissy presses charges, you’ll have to make a statement. She’s definitely going to find out then.”

Hearing this, Steve is strangely just as settled on the lie he’s about to tell.

“Hop,” Steve says, sighing through his nose. “Eddie is my boyfriend.”

Chapter Text

Eddie is not amused.

He’s breathing very slowly through his mouth, and staring at Steve with eyes wide enough to use as dinner plates.

Hopper is not typing anything. Steve glances at the typewriter. Hop leans back.

Hop asks, “Pardon?”

Steve says, “We’re dating.”

Hopper sits silently, sucking on the ends of his mustache. His jaw works back and forth.

Eddie says, “Harrington.”

Steve says, “Dude. Don’t call me Harrington.”

You’ll blow our cover, Steve thinks.

“Steve,” Eddie says. He sounds a little careful, a little plaintive.

“Why are you telling me this?” Hopper asks.

“Rip the band-aid off,” Steve says, shrugs. “I’m telling you, I went to see Eddie on his break. You were going to ask why. Now you know.”

Without making a sound, Hopper’s mouth says What the Hell.

“And I can tell you, without a doubt, that Eddie was taking his break, seeing me, behind Steinem’s, because we can’t meet up and make out in the parking lot like normal people—”

“Okay,” Hopper says, propping his elbows on his massive desk.

“And it definitely wasn’t John Carver I was kissing back there—“

Hopper places his head on his fists.

“And even if Eddie had been in the freezers, he has no reason to harass Cunningham, because he doesn’t even like—”

“Okay,” Hopper says, and slowly begins to stand. “Okay.”

“Are you going to write that—”

“Later, Steven,” Hop says, showing Steve his palms. “I won’t forget. And you’re okay sharing this with a courtroom?”

“Yes,” Steve says, nodding aggressively.

Hopper looks at Eddie.

Eddie does not look well. He wears a tight, plastered-on smile.

“Yep,” he says.

“Okay,” Hopper says. “Get the hell out of my office.”

Eddie scrambles. Steve follows him as he seemingly remembers himself, holds the door for Steve while staring at the middle distance.

Steve follows, head down, staring up at the space between Eddie’s shoulder blades. He’s wearing a black t-shirt; locks of frizzy, light brown hair hang down his back.

Steve just claimed this guy. Just told the chief of police that Eddie is his boyfriend. It feels oddly official, like it’s on the stepping stones toward getting hitched at the courthouse. Steve imagines both of them in suits, exchanging rings, feels oddly proud of the idea.

“Take care of yourselves,” Flo says as they approach the door. Eddie nods at her, and Steve gives a cheery wave.

As soon as they step onto the sidewalk, Eddie lights a cigarette.

“You okay?” Steve asks, though, truthfully, seeing his face—he knows Eddie is not okay. Eddie looks at the pavement like it’s insulted his grandmother, turns that look toward Steve, and back to the pavement. Steve curls in a little, hot in the face.

“Did you know you were gonna do that?” Eddie asks.

“Not the whole time, to be honest,” Steve says. Eddie scoffs.

“You just put yourself on the bad side of the chief of police for no reason,” Eddie says.

“We’re not on his bad side,” Steve says, waving a hand. Eddie hasn’t offered him a cigarette.

Eddie asks the pavement, “Oh really?”

“No,” Steve says, frowning.

“Is that so?”

“If Hop had a real problem, we’d know about it,” Steve reasons. It feels correct. “That was just him being pissed at having to do his job before noon.

“You seem pretty confident,” Eddie says. He’s sucking down his cigarette in long, determined drags.

“Look, dude, I know him,” Steve says, wondering how to communicate what he knows. “He’s not—he’s a good guy.”

“And you, Harrington?” Eddie asks, affect flat. “You a good guy?”

“I hope so,” Steve says, shrugging.

Eddie stomps on the cigarette with a heavy boot.

“Can I buy you lunch?” Steve asks.

“I suppose you should,” Eddie shrugs, “given that we’re an item.”

“Hey!” Steve hears, and, turning to the voice, realizes it’s Henderson.

Dustin emerges from the undergrowth of a hedge, one that separates the station from a grove of trees, a steep little hill that descends into a creek.

Eddie snorts.

“Communing with your fellow woodland trolls?” he asks.

“I thought trolls were the big ones?” Steve asks, hands on his hips.

Eddie moves his mouth in Steve’s direction, shaking his head a little before simply saying, “I need to sit down.”

“I thought I saw an alligator snapping turtle! but it was just your average Terrapene Carolina.” Dustin says, and then, as if snapping to attention, “Did you tell him?”

Eddie says, “I need to sit down.”

“Get in the car, shrimp,” Steve says, as Eddie agrees to meet them at the diner.

“You don’t want like, some fries? Or a milkshake?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Eddie drawls. He’s stirring his coke with a bendy straw.

“Okay, I’ve had enough small talk,” Dustin says. “What did you say?”

“Okay, don’t be a jerk,” Steve says.

“I’m assuming because Eddie is not in handcuffs—“

“Oh no,” Eddie says, grinning with tight lips. He’s stabbing his ice cubes. He says, “Imprisoned only by lies.”

Dustin’s wide eyes turn on Eddie. He’s doing his “imploring” face.

“Listen, I don’t know why I went in there,” Steve says, and Eddie looks up from his coke, pale and tired. “I wanted to stop you, but Dustin told me why you wanted to tell the truth, and then I just—wanted to help?”

Eddie crosses his arms.

Steve’s voice dips low. “But man, if my dad caught wind of this—“

“And this is going to be—better?” Eddie prompts.

“What is going on?” Dustin hisses.

“Harrington, I didn’t fuckin sleep last night,” Eddie says. “By now, half the town probably thinks I’m a parasitic creep who shows his junk to innocent fuckin’ cheerleaders—“

“And now they don’t have to!” Steve says. “Win-win!”

Eddie throws his hands up. Steve can’t help but notice his rings, many and glinting in the sunlight of the diner window.

“The truth will out,” Eddie mutters, staring out the window.

“Steve,” Dustin asks, “what did you do to Eddie?”

“Dustin,” Steve says, bending low to Dustin, who sits next to him. “I told Hop that Eddie met me behind the grocery store.”

“Okay,” Dustin says, motioning for him to continue. He’s become such a prick, Steve thinks.

“So it couldn’t have been him in the store with Chrissy!”

Dustin nods, beckoning Steve to continue, “And did he… ask why?”

Steve inhales. Rip the bandaid, he thinks.

“I told Hop Eddie and me are dating,” Steve whispers.

Dustin blinks. Steve holds his gaze. Dustin looks from one of Steve’s eyes to the other, measuring his seriousness.

“My word,” Dustin says, starting to smile, eyes sparkling and wide, “It’s genius.”

“What?” Eddie spits.

Steve is nodding, his own grin widening. Dustin is nodding too, looking at Steve like they’ve hit the jackpot.

Dustin turns, whisper-screaming, “Eddie, you don’t have to go to jail!”

Eddie wipes his eye with one hand. He asks, “am I going off the fucking rails?”

“Nobody would know about it already because you’d obviously be keeping it a secret! Your friends know you know each other! And who is it that brought you together? Well, your mutual best friend: me.”

Eddie clenches his jaw, and Steve thinks for a moment he might scream. He doesn’t actually know what he’d do if Eddie started screaming; he can be pretty intimidating when he’s on one.

He says, “Dustin, lies like this require—maintenance! Collaboration! Planning!”

“And who better to collaborate with?” Dustin gestures to Steve, who smiles winningly. “Steve is Hawkins’ secret badass!”

“So you say,” Eddie breathes. “But can he stick to a goddamn plan? A statement? A testimony?”

Steve throws up a salute. “Scout’s honor.”

Eddie’s hands are clasped in front of his face, and he closes his eyes. While Steve’s and Dustin’s excitement is palpable, Eddie seems to dread the idea of the perfect cover-up.

If Steve weren’t so pleased with himself, he might be a little insulted.

“We’re gonna need to start writing shit down,” Eddie says. He opens his eyes to throw his dark stare at Steve, who wants to shiver a little. Eddie is stupid handsome, like a movie hero, but dark and unexpected. He says, “We need a backstory. We need yesterday’s story. We need details, nicknames, we need to be able to play the goddamn newlywed game if this shit is going to work.”

“You don’t think it’s believable?” Dustin asks, and Eddie cuts flinty eyes at him. To the kid’s credit, he’s unflinching.

“I think the Carvers are going to look for any excuse to pin this on me. And if we get caught out on a lie—”

Eddie pauses, shakes his head. Steve understands what he’s saying. There’s no going back and explaining that hey, actually, we were just meeting up to exchange legal tender for illegal drugs.

“Eddie,” Steve says, and it’s soft. He throws the whole of his energy into making his expression open, confident, and a little inviting. After all, the guy is gay.

He still needs to be won over, but Steve can do that. He’s great at that.

“Don’t you worry. You’re not going anywhere, and we’re gonna make sure this prick gets what he deserves. We’ll get every detail straight, okay?” Steve says, and tries to be assuring. Steve exhales, and notices that Eddie hasn’t stopped biting his bottom lip.

He kind of wants to take Eddie’s hand, so he does, reaching across the table to grasp Eddie’s fist, enclosing it in his. He holds it, allowing the warmth of his hand to relax Eddie's hand. Eddie doesn't pull away.

Steve says, “If there’s one thing I know how to do, if there's one thing I'm good at—it’s being somebody’s boyfriend.”

Chapter Text

Once everyone was fed, Steve suggested a relocation—somewhere relatively private to go over the details, which is how he finds himself sitting with Eddie at his uncle’s trailer in Forest Hills.

Dustin was extremely aggrieved to be dropped off. Dustin was part of the planning committee, as Steve is referring to it in his head, but he let it slip that Mrs. Henderson expected him home in the next hour to help fix the fence and that was that. He left spitting and cursing.

Eddie is, of course, understandably tired—but Steve is finding some bizarre excitement in the whole ordeal. A project! A purpose! Lower stakes than demogorgons, but higher stakes than getting the jelly stain out of his work vest. And all for a good cause!

The factual details are these: Eddie and Steve met up during Eddie’s fifteen minute break. John Carver had just taken his. About an hour later, the bosses come trudging down and throw Eddie into the store manager’s office, where they press him for ages before finally telling him that Chrissy might press charges, which is when he starts freaking out about what could’ve possibly happened to Cunningham that could be pinned on him.

“So they tell me they’ve got video of the whole thing, which is a lie, which I figured, but they tell me it’s my dick on the video—and at this point I’m so confused I just tell them I’m going home, and they say to expect a visit from the police.”

There’s a slow, simmering anger working its way through him, imagining Eddie in a corner and being yelled at by some beefy middle-aged dude in a green polo. The idea that anyone could think they’re in charge of Eddie—it’s ridiculous.

“So the next morning, I call Henderson, because I can count on him to relay the message to everyone else, and because he knows you,” Eddie explains. “And now you’re caught up.”

“Do you work today?” Steve asks.

Eddie scoffs.

Turns out, Steinem’s cut all of Eddie’s shifts for the foreseeable future—until they “close the investigation”, whatever that means.

“Is John still working there?” Steve asks.

Eddie just shrugs. Steve can tell the answer is yes.

“That’s bullshit,” Steve says, and Eddie nods.

“It’s gotta be the freak, right?” Eddie asks solemnly, “It was stupid of me to try.”

“Try?”

“Try and fit in, get a real job,” Eddie says, “Old man’s been put away for four years, but everyone thinks of him when they hear my name.”

Steve nods, understanding. Everyone knows the story—grand theft auto.

“Nobody thinks of Wayne,” Eddie says, “The man’s a saint. Nobody says, Oh, you’re Munson’s boy? That gentle, unassuming mensch who won first in Gourds at the county fair?”

Steve is nodding along until he fully processes that last bit.

“Sorry, what?”

Eddie nods. “The man loves to garden. We had roses, too, until one of the kids around here got caught in the thorns.”

“Did he try a lattice?” Steve asks.

“What?”

“A lattice. Put it against the house and the roses will grow against it, no danger to anybody.”

Eddie blinks. “Lots of experience with roses, Steven?”

“I have some experience climbing lattices,” Steve shrugs, then, looking around, says, “Wouldn’t have that problem here. I’d just have to get a boost up to your window.”

Eddie’s clearly mystified.

“You know, to sneak in,” Steve says. “Unless you think your uncle would approve. I’d be happy to use the front door.”

Eddie looks at Steve, discomfited. Steve tries to smile, but it slips off.

After a minute, Eddie says, “Nobody has to sneak in here.”

“So you think Wayne would approve?” Steve asks, and, standing up, does a little twirl. “I do dishes, I bring flowers. Boyfriend material or what?”

He cocks a hip, looks over his shoulder at Eddie. He beckons, “Huh? What do you think?”

Eddie is straight faced for what feels like a whole minute, but slowly, slowly, his face cracks into a grin. Got him, Steve thinks.

“You can use the front door,” Eddie says.

“Yes!” Steve cheers quietly, collapsing onto the sunken loveseat, next to Eddie.

“You know, Harrington, you’re being weirdly brave about this,” Eddie says, “Everyone’s going to think you’re gay, man.”

“You were the one ready to head to the pokey,” Steve shrugs.

“You wouldn’t prefer that?” Eddie asks, earnestly.

“What? Absolutely not,” Steve asks. “I’d much rather be trying to charm some old man into thinking I’m good enough to date his nephew.”

“Pretend to date,” Eddie corrects.

Steve shrugs. “What beer does he drink?”

“Schlitz.”

“Should’ve guessed,” Steve says, “I thought Miller.”

“It’s not like he cares,” Eddie says.

Steve waits a minute, caught on an urgent question. “Does he care… about…?”

“Me?” Eddie asks. “No. He doesn’t say much.”

“Is he religious?” Steve asks, eyes caught on the church calendar hung by the door.

“Yeah?” Eddie says, making a face. “He is very… he believes. He does not like church.”

“Well, that’s probably a good thing,” Steve shrugs. “The Carvers are church people.”

“Wayne is not church people,” Eddie shakes his head. “Lucky for me.”

Steve laughs, gentle. He says, “Yeah, I can’t see you going.”

“Burst into flames upon entry,” Eddie jokes. Steve smiles, too big, happy to hear the lightness.

But then he sighs, looking sad, looking tired. He said he barely slept last night. Steve is trying to think of a way to tell him to take a nap, and that he’ll come back later with dinner, when Eddie props his chin on his fists.

He says, “I didn’t tell you. One thing. I got a call last night.”

Steve waits for details. When they don’t come, he asks, “A call?”

“Not a normal call,” Eddie says, and Steve feels goosebumps raise his armhair under his jacket. Eddie says, “It was… Quiet, and some breathing, and then… a bang.”

“A bang?” Steve asks.

“Like a loud noise. I don’t know what it was.”

Steve is quiet, considering. He asks, “Did you tell Hop?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I’m a coward. I don’t know.” He breathes out, shaky. He says, “I thought about just hoofing it.”

“What?”

“Running away?” Eddie says, wiping his hands on his jeans. Steve watches the tendons in his hands move, the glint of those rings. Eddie’s nails and cuticles are chewed to hell, pink and blood-red in spots. Eddie says, “But I don’t want to make it worse, for Wayne.”

Steve nods. “He wants you here.”

Eddie scoffs. “I don’t know. With this?”

“He knows you didn’t do it,” Steve says.

“He doesn’t know anything about it,” Eddie says. “I was too scared to tell him. Before I went to the cops. He’s on day shift right now, he would’ve just come home and I’d be gone. Easy.”

The vulnerability is coming off of Eddie in waves. He’s clearly worried; Steve has never seen him like this. He wants to touch, wants to comfort. The broad back of Eddie is right there, his denim vest over his leather jacket over his clothes. Steve lays a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and it’s cold with all those layers between them. He slowly moves his hand back and forth.

“Shit, man, I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Eddie says.

Steve smirks.

“And don’t make any cracks like you’re my boyfriend,” Eddie says, his voice a laugh.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Steve lies. “You act like you don’t like it. Am I wearing too much color? Smile too much?”

“Jesus,” Eddie says, shaking his head.

“Don’t bring him into this,” Steve says.

Eddie looks at him, those wide eyes shocking him yet again. In the light from the window, Steve can see the warm amber tones under the depth of his irises.

“Nobody’s gonna believe this,” Eddie says. “You and me?”

“Well sor-ry!” Steve says, “Didn’t realize you were swimming in options over here.”

Eddie shakes his head, says, “It’s not that, y’know. Jock goes for Freakazoid?”

“Well, we’ll make them believe it,” Steve shrugs, his tone going a little soft. He pushes Eddie just a little, just to feel the weight of him come back into his hand. “Who says I don’t like a freakazoid.”

Eddie snorts. He’s starting to smile, something Steve likes. He’s brightening, a little snarky, a little defiant. He asks, “You think—if you were—like that, you’d go for me? Me?”

“Why not?” Steve asks, throwing up a hand.

“I’m not exactly Nancy Wheeler,” Eddie says, gesturing to himself.

“Look, my horizons have broadened since the days of yore, okay?” Steve explains. “I asked out a band geek, like three months ago.”

Eddie shrugs, looking doubtful, challenges: “I dunno, man. Dustin had some things to say about your personal growth.”

“So what, you think I’d go for a prep?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, glancing around. “Like—little Carver.”

“Jason?!” Steve says, “No way. I’d at least go for someone hunky. Patrick McKinley, if we’re talking jocks.”

Eddie looks joyfully scandalized suddenly, and Steve loves it, sees an argument catching fire, like little bits of kindling sweeping up air into flames. He asks, “I’m sorry, hunky?”

“Yeah!” Steve says, shrugging.

“Some prince to climb the rose lattice?” Eddie asks.

Steve sits back, feeling some measured warmth flood his limbs. That’s an option?

“Oh, shit, that’s right,” Steve says. “Well yeah, if I have an opportunity to be the girl, I’m gonna be the girl.”

Eddie’s further scandalized. He’s got a hand to his chest, under his jacket, and he’s smiling wide like the beginnings of a cackle. He breathes out, measured and slow, his mouth an ‘o’, and he says, “Okay, we’ll, just slide past the implications of that statement.”

Steve asks, “huh?”

Chapter Text

Steve convinces Eddie to try and get some shut eye while he picks up Robin from work. Well, he loudly insists that the plan includes Eddie getting a nap as he announces that he’s going to pick up Robin, but that he’ll swing by Eddie's that night to arrange the details.
“You’re a grade A jerk, you know that?” Robin asks as she slumps into the passenger seat. “You were supposed to be taking a break! Not leaving me in the lurch!”

Steve gives her the goo-goo eyes. “Robin, you know you’re the light of my life.”

“Whatever,” she says, buckling her seatbelt and looking pointedly at Steve’s.

Steve buckles in. He needs her receptive if he’s going to get her on board.

He says, “I need you to listen to this.”

“You have my entirely captive ear,” Robin sighs, throwing up her hands and their delicate, purple-painted fingertips. “Until we get to Dave and Ginger’s.”

“Hopefully your folks will remain in the dark about this, but there is a chance that everyone in Hawkins will hear about it, so—“

Robin, clearly fatigued, rubs the tips of her fingers into her right eye. “Why? What did you do about the Eddie thing?”

“So you were listening.”

“It’s hard not to hear some things. You get pretty shrill when you’re excited.”

“So—okay, you’re sitting down—what if I were to tell you that I’ve been secretly dating Eddie Munson?”

Robin is quiet. When Steve glances toward her, her mouth is open slightly, her brow is furrowed. She looks almost catatonic as she stares at him.

“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head, “what?”

“So, here’s what happened,” Steve begins. On the fifteen minute drive to the Buckley residence, he explains the whole thing: Chrissy and the freezer flasher, the way Eddie needed an alibi, the way he was about to give himself up to the cops for god knows what punishment to avoid being charged with indecent exposure.

“And I want to back him up—”

“You do?” Robin asks. "Didn't seem like that at the shop."

“He’s a good guy! A little weird? Sure! But if every weirdo in my life deserved to go to jail I’d have no one left! No offense.”

He pats Robin’s knee. She doesn’t seem convinced.

“But you don’t wanna go to jail,” she says.

“Jail? I could do. My dad? If I got charged? Get outta here. So I say look, how about… we’re boyfriends! We met up because we’re just sweethearts trying to get a minute!” He looks at her for the affirmation that was so immediate from Dustin.

“Steve, you are…” she shakes her head. “Your brain is…”

She sighs.

“…you think,” she starts, “Richard Harrington is going to be better about you—with a guy?”

Steve shrugs, frowning, “He won’t kick me out.”

“You’re sure?” Robin asks.

“It’s possible,” he says, “but I think whatever he does about this will be better than whatever he’d do about the drugs.”

Robin is concerned, and uncharacteristically speechless. Her mouth isn’t even doing the thing it does when she’s gearing up to say something.

Steve says, “Well, look at it this way—excellent test run for Hawkins’ reaction to Robin Buckley, lover of ladies.”

Robin snorts. “If you think that’s what’s happening, your head trauma is worse than we thought.”

“Look, if Richard takes it badly, it's not like he can punish me. Putting me out is one thing, but he can’t ground me for being gay.”

Robin turns it over in her head; she moves from side to side, processing.

“But you’ve gone on like, three dates in the last month,” Robin says. “With girls.”

“Two. Becky and Elizabeth. Neither of them went anywhere—Becky was nice but boring as hell,” Steve says, and then, “shit.”

“Your wandering ways,” Robin tuts.

“Kind of your fault. I never got anywhere with the ladies before your advice.”

“I’m glad someone is getting female attention,” Robin laments.

“Hey, buck up. I won’t be getting anywhere with anyone until this whole thing with Eddie blows over.”

“You’re serious?” Robin asks. When she looks at him from under her brow like that, he can see the whites of her eyes below her pupils. “You’re going to swear off girls? For how long?”

“Well I can’t cheat on him!” Steve is saying. “It wouldn’t be good for our story.”

“What is your story?” Robin asks, “and how do Becky and Betty fit in?”

“Maybe I was trying to make him jealous,” Steve says, shrugging, “Or! we broke up for a little bit, but I couldn’t get over him.”

“You’re a little too into this,” Robin says. They’ve pulled up to her house and she’s unbuckling, but hasn’t gone for the door handle.

Steve stares ahead at the street. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is headed toward the treeline. The winter is creeping steadily toward them.

Steve frowns, says, “If I got charged with possession, I’d never hear the end of it. I love my mom, but my dad is a straight up lunatic. He said three strikes is two too many.”

“Yikes,” Robin mutters. “What about Eddie?”

“What about him?” Steve asks.

“This wasn’t his idea, was it?” Robin clarifies.

“No, all me,” says Steve. “Why?”

“He’s—on board with all this?”

“Why not?” Steve waves a hand. “Get out of jail free?”

“But he’s actually—“ Robin waves a hand.

“Gay!” Steve says. “See? It’s perfect. People already kind of know about him, but everyone thinks I’m straight, so it’s like he couldn’t say anything!”

“Until you swoop into the police station and come out. Wow,” Robin looks ahead at the descending sun, tilts her head back and forth, looks at Steve.

Steve gestures at her, as if to say, well?

“Fuck dude,” Robin slams her head against the headrest. “That’s actually kind of romantic, dingus.”

“Shit, you’re right. I have to write that down,” Steve says.

“You have a lot to write down,” Robin says, “I mean, are you just gonna be gay now? You’ll pretty much have to be gay until you leave Hawkins. Or what if Eddie meets someone?”

“What do you mean?”

Robin shrugs. “Once he’s out, like officially, everyone gay and weird is going to be all over him!”

“What!” Steve shrieks. “Rob, don’t say that! Eddie wouldn’t cheat on me. He’s a nice guy.”

“Steve,” Robin says, “wait, Steve.”

“What?”

“Guys are going to be all over you.”

“Well, obviously,” Steve says, then, “Like who?”

“You think I’m tapped into the gay male population of Hawkins? I don’t know!”

Steve shrugs. “Could be fun. But I have a boyfriend.”

“Like Eddie would be your type,” Robin says.

“What?” Steve asks, “not you too? What’s wrong with Eddie?”

“Steve,” she says, “what if Eddie were a girl?”

“I’d ask her out!” he yells. “I asked you out!”

“I’m not a drug dealer,” Robin says seriously.

“But I would’ve still asked you out,” he says, aware he’s being stubborn. “Sheesh, you act like I’m judgmental.”

“What did you say about Maggie Waterson’s ears today?”

“She shouldn’t have gone for the third piercing if she’s keeping her hair that short?” Steve asks.

Robin looks at him.

“This is different! Eddie’s hair looks great. Lots of volume.”

“I’m sure your children will be very well-coiffed,” Robin says with a wry smile.

“I wonder if he wants kids,” Steve wonders aloud.

“Dude,” Robin smiles. “You’re doing the thing.”

“What?” Steve asks. “I’m not.”

“Hair. Kids. This is exactly how you were with Yvonne before she told you she got late admission to Northern Illinois—!”

“I never said Yvonne had great hair,” Steve shakes his head, “It was kind of flat?”

“And Stacey before the thing with her ex-boyfriend—”

“This is ludicrous.”

“Are you sure you don’t actually like him?” Robin asks. Her hand lands on Steve’s forearm, purple nails just barely felt. Her eyes are alight. “How long have you been dating, anyway?”

“Oh, shit,” Steve says. “We haven’t decided yet.”

Robin’s father soon emerges to stand on their stoop, hands on his hips. He’s convinced there’s something there that isn’t, and Steve wonders how he’ll receive the news about Steve’s relationship. It’ll serve in two ways: to let Robin off the hook and to test the waters with Dave.

That’s what he tells himself as he drives away, headed back toward Forest Hills.

Steve stops on the way for three Italian subs and a sixer of Schlitz.

He’s welcomed with silence by a balding, gently moving older man. He is either in his fifties or has led a hard life into his forties.

Steve shifts the heavy paper bag to his left hand, offers his right. He says, “Steve Harrington.”

The man looks him up and down, opens the screen door.

“Ed told me,” he says.

“Oh, that’s—good,” Steve says, letting his hand fall.

“How long this been going on?” Wayne asks, and Steve realizes: Eddie didn’t tell him the whole story.

To Wayne, he’s Eddie’s boyfriend.

“Um, hard to say,” Steve says, stepping forward where Wayne’s given him room.

He steps over the threshold and heads straight for the counter that separates the living area from the kitchen—cheap yellow formica, chipped and showing the particle board beneath. He lays out the sandwiches, pops a beer and hands it to Wayne, who’s watching the whole scene with a particular consternation.

“You Richard’s boy?” Wayne asks with a frown that seems permanent.

Steve shrugs. “Unfortunately.”

Wayne hums with understanding. He isn’t much older than Steve’s dad, then. Late forties, maybe.

Steve gestures to the sandwiches. “Italian okay?”

Wayne nods, “Yep.” He turns toward the TV momentarily, where the colors and sounds of basketball are obvious.

“Oh, the Pacers game on?”

Wayne nods, “Yep.”

“Eddie still asleep?” Steve asks.

Wayne nods.

“Mind if I wait him out?” Steve asks.

Wayne shrugs, gestures to the couch.

Still got it, Steve thinks.

Chapter Text

Wayne eats the sandwich and drinks the beer, which Steve considers a solid win.

“With this court work we’ll definitely make it to the playoffs this year,” Steve offers. It’s the third such comment he’s made. Wayne grunts. The grunt is a slightly more amiable grunt than the previous two grunts.

Give it time, Steve thinks to himself. Ted Wheeler didn’t have a kind word to say to Steve for months, and he’d have never had a beer with him.

Robin’s in his head, though, just a little: are you sure you don’t like him? Steve finds himself turning over Eddie’s face in his head between moments of action. Part of the reason this plan of theirs excited him is that he’s been looking for a reason to hang out, to get to know him.

Wayne gives a heavy sigh, then grumbles, “The Knicks have no mid range talent.”

Steve nods, “it’s a lost art.”

Wayne hums, low and rumbling. Got him, Steve thinks.

He gives a quick glance at Wayne’s profile. It’s obvious he and Eddie are related: the high forehead, the grim but full mouth, the rounded nose and tremendous eyes. Steve thinks Eddie will probably age well, if Wayne is anything to go by.

Steve finds himself wondering if Wayne ever had a wife, or a girl. Maybe he’s like his nephew, only in Wayne’s younger days there was no Freddie Mercury, no David Bowie, no hope to be understood.

It’s a shame, Steve thinks. Wayne is solid and gruff, compact but strong-looking; Steve can smell the cotton and cigarettes just from looking at him. For the millionth time since his moment with Robin last summer, he thinks about how wrong it is, how truly shameful that there are so many barriers keeping people from happiness and companionship, from love and romance.

Or maybe Wayne just likes to take life solo.

“We could work on our offense,” Steve offers.

“No shit,” Wayne responds. “Did you see that just now?”

Steve hums. He hears a shuffling from the right, turns to see Eddie emerging, tousled and bleary-eyed, from the back hallway.

“What the hell,” he says, trudging into the kitchen area, eyeing the wrapped sandwich and the empty beer cans. He glances toward Wayne, toward Steve, who gives a delicate, five-fingered wave.

“Game is on,” Wayne says, straight faced and then, breaking into a barely-there smile.

“Laugh it up, old man,” Eddie says. “Steve likes a sport-ball. So what?”

“I didn’t say a thing,” Wayne shrugs, but the spare, gentle smile is still there.

“You amuse him,” Eddie says later. Steve is sitting on the lone chair by Eddie’s bed, while Eddie flits from space to space, fiddling and fidgeting, first with records, then with notebooks. He flips through a stack of ragged spiral-bound books, moving restlessly until he finds a worthy contender.

Wayne had notified them of his intent to turn in around seven, while setting up his bed in the living room.

“For propriety, I’d tell the two of yous to leave the door ajar,” he joked, “but you can do whatever you want. I’ll have my ear plugs in anyhow.”

“Har de har,” Eddie said, “I’ll pull the plug on your ass in the nursing home. Don’t make me.”

Steve is fidgeting with a crew of Eddie’s little toy soldiers. Eddie doesn’t like when he calls them that. He says, “Your uncle is cool.”

“Cool?” Eddie asks, gently confused.

“Yeah, like, nice.”

“I’ve never heard Wayne described as nice,” Eddie probes, his skepticism easing into fondness. “But he is, you’re right.”

“And you… I mean, he knows about you? How long?”

Eddie shrugs. “I told him when I moved in. I think I was trying to get him to kick me out, kind of.”

“But he just… let it go?”

“Yeah, like I said, real mensch. Said something like, ‘what do I care about something like that?’,” Eddie says, then sighs, hands on his hips. “Dude, this is weird.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks. He’s had one and a half beers, and a pretty big sandwich, and the Pacers won, so he feels nothing but a contented, comfortable fullness. “I don’t feel weird.”

“I’m spilling my guts over here, and man—how am I supposed to know you’re alright?”

“Alright like what?” Steve frowns, turning toward him. He shrugs. “I think I am?”

“Man, I don’t know,” Eddie says, and scrubs his face. Steve continues to frown at him, unsure where this is headed.

“Henderson says you’re solid,” Eddie begins. He’s wearing a white undershirt and flannel sleep pants and he’s pulling it off pretty well, actually—doesn’t look sloppy or insane, just sleepy and kind of cute. He continues, “Buckley is cool, and she clearly approves of your general… nature.”

Steve waits patiently. Normally he’s a little fidgety, kinda trying to get to the point of any given visit, but he enjoys just watching Eddie walk to and fro, work up to whatever he’s trying to say.

“But y’know, you’re kind of—rich? Popular? Have you even been here before today?”

“Your place?” Steve asks.

“Like, the trailer park?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah. Max Mayfield lives across the street,” Steve says, “I mean, the path, or whatever. I helped her move in.”

“You know Max Mayfield?”

Steve shrugs, “She’s one of the kids.”

Eddie stares, scanning his face. “Henderson says—your dad is a dick.”

Steve snorts, “Grade A.”

Eddie sits on the bed across from Steve, his dark eyes huge and intense.

Eddie is… good looking. Steve thinks for the hundredth time that Eddie only looks so scary to most people because he puts a lot of work into it—and maybe it’s because, without his whole costume, so many more people would notice his looks. When he sets his jaw, when you get a good look at him, he’s movie-star handsome.

“He—hit you?” Eddie asks.

Steve shrugs, “Not really. Not for a while. He just—”

Steve sighs. “It’s hard to say. He’s just always got something to say. He can’t leave anything alone. He thinks he’s… I don’t know what he thinks, actually, but he just—won’t stop.”

Eddie nods slow, just taking it in.

“And I know it’s like, well if he doesn’t hit you, what’s the problem? And he’s just trying to show that he cares. My mom says that, he’s just trying to show that he cares.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Eddie says.

“Exactly, it’s like I can’t do anything right? He tries to show me how to do stuff but he spends the whole time telling me I’m doing it wrong, and whenever he thinks I’ve done something wrong it’s like he has to punish me or I won’t learn.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Sounds like mine.”

“It’s like, maybe he’s right,” Steve shrugs. “Maybe if he doesn’t yell, and set punishments, and take shit away, I won’t learn.”

“No, that’s bullshit,” Eddie says.

“You think?” Steve asks.

“Would you want someone to treat Dustin like that?” Eddie asks, and more quickly than he can notice it’s happening, adrenaline makes his ears and face hot. The idea is enough to make him want to fight, to take over and run his friend far away.

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “That kid is like my brother. I’d like to see him try. I’d like to see anyone try.”

Eddie nods, “Then you know it’s not right.”

“Jesus man, I’d want to kill him. I don’t normally—I can control myself, nowadays. I know when to shut up, stand down.”

“Do you go somewhere in your head?” Eddie asks.

Steve blinks, “Yeah. Kind of. Like I say yes sir, no sir. But when he decides to y’know, go to war like that? It’s not worth it.”

“When did he do that?” Eddie asks. “What was it the last time, I mean.”

Steve blows a slow stream of air from his mouth. “Didn’t call.”

Eddie’s eyebrows cant upward. “Didn’t call?”

“Last week. I was staying late at Robin’s. I fell asleep,” Steve shrugs. “It happens all the time. I don’t know why that time was different.”

“Damn,” Eddie says. “So… this whole situation? isn’t going to be great for you.”

“Nah,” Steve says. “I mean, it’ll be better than drug charges.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks.

“Kind of?” Steve shrugs. “I was sure when I said it.”

“Well, I apologize for my less than enthusiastic behavior earlier,” Eddie says. “I do prefer a little innocent subterfuge to possible criminal charges. Perjurious though it may be.”

“Glad it works out for you,” Steve nods.

Eddie exhales, heavy. “Well, I told Wayne. As I’m sure you noticed.”

Steve nods. “That’ll help. He asked how long it’d been going on.”

“What do you think?” Eddie asks with a smile. “We a hot new item or does this go way back?”

“Maybe both,” Steve says with a grin. “I’ve been on a few dates with girls recently. I couldn’t decide how they fell into it.”

“Oh shit,” Eddie says, “were they any good? the dates?”

Steve frowns, “Nah.”

“I wouldn’t have liked that. If we were dating.”

“Exactly!” Steve says, pointing in excitement. ”I thought maybe I was trying to make you jealous.”

Eddie leans back on his bed, a low, wide mattress with no bed frame. He considers. Steve looks at his narrow hips.

“That could work,” Eddie nods, “Maybe I tried to break it off with you and you were trying to get over it.”

“Rebound,” Steve agrees. “Write that down?”

“Definitely,” Eddie agrees.

They come up with this: Eddie and Steve have been together for a few months, and they go by their first kiss, which happened outside of the movie theater back when that was still around. They’ve been on again, off again since then, and Steve has been on a number of dates trying to convince himself that he wants to be with girls, but has only broken his own heart and Eddie’s in the process. Eddie keeps trying to break it off because it’s too much with school and work and trying to keep his band pumped up to tour this summer. Only Robin and Dustin have known about the extent of it, and Eddie plans to tell Wayne and his band now that they’ve been forced to go public by the impending trial.

“I mean, we don’t even know if there will be a trial. Or charges,” Eddie says, and Steve feels almost disappointed, having counted on the drama of the whole thing.

“Well, I’ll take the stand if it comes to that,” Steve says easily. “We just have to make sure we’ve got all the details right.”

“Details, huh?” Eddie asks, with an easy smile, “You wanna know all my secrets, Harrington?”

“Oh, definitely,” Steve says. “And the day in question, of course. Then, I think we should probably kiss.”

Eddie blinks quick, several times in succession, and then slow as he inhales. He says, “What?”

Chapter Text

“I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons,” Steve says.

Eddie looks shellshocked, wide eyes blinking. He says, “I think we should consider.. a brief recess in the proceedings.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not trying to pack it in already?” Steve says, “It’s barely nine.”

Both of Eddie’s hands are raised, as if to say “slow down” or perhaps “I surrender”.

“Unfortunately, the boot of public education is ever present on my neck,” Eddie says.

Steve shrugs, “Alright. But I do think we should kiss at some point? The chances are not small that the Carvers are going to pull something weird. We shouldn’t be caught off guard.”

Eddie has a sternness to his expression. He’s frowning deeply.

“Oh, speaking of,” Steve says, “Do you think Jason will give you any shit at school tomorrow?”

“Fuck,” Eddie says, the breath falling out of him. After a moment, he shrugs. “I’ll be okay. That type doesn’t usually fuck with me.”

“That type?” Steve asks.

“Squeaky clean,” Eddie offers.

After a moment, Steve asks, “Are you sure you should go?”

Eddie shrugs. “It won’t be easy, but yeah, I should go. I’m innocent, you know? I’ve got no reason to hide. And it was his own shithead brother that flashed his girlfriend, you know?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “How do we prove it?”

“Well,” Eddie inhales, “this whole thing is definitely part of it.”

“Maybe I should look at your dick,” Steve wonders aloud.

“Excuse me?” Eddie says, a whisper-screech.

“Or at least know what it looks like,” Steve shrugs, “I could talk to Chrissy, and she can tell me what she saw—”

Eddie shakes his head, blinking fast, “Dude, don’t get me wrong, normally a guy with your kinda looks asking to see my dick is pretty high up on the chart of my wildest dreams—”

Steve flashes Eddie a winning smile, feeling admired.

“But this isn’t exactly the context—“

“Oh, do you think he was hard when he did it?” Steve wonders aloud, “Gross, right? Well, maybe whatever Chrissy describes, I’ll just say the opposite? Are you circumcised?”

“What?”

“Because I’m not, no shame really.”

“No. I mean, dude, what the hell—”

“But then if I just say whatever, and they wanna see your dick in court—“

“They’re not gonna see my dick in court,” Eddie says, shaking his head violently.

Steve grins, and, catching his breath, Eddie slowly smiles too. Then, he slowly starts to shake with silent laughter. Steve is smiling so hard his face hurts, watching Eddie light up like he is.

“God damn Harrington,” he says, “if I’d known you were this eager to get in my pants, I’d have asked you to the movies already.”

“You like movies?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, “God damn it. God damn it all.”

“What?” Steve asks.

“They’re gonna wanna see my dick, aren’t they?” Eddie asks. “Someone at some point. That’s how crazy this has all been. It’s going to culminate in some kind of dick examination.”

“Yeah, they’ll have Chrissy pick it out of a lineup.”

“We shouldn’t joke,” Eddie says, but his smile lines are cut deep into his face.

“I don’t really know,” Steve shrugs, “I’ll talk to Chrissy, see what she says.”

Eddie’s leg bounces with nerves. He exhales. “Alright.”

“But to be clear, you’re not circumcised?”

Eddie shakes his head.

Steve continues, “Do you think she got that clear of a look? Fuck, that poor girl. Her own boyfriend’s brother.”

Eddie scoffs. “And they call me a freak.”

Steve packs out around ten, having offered Eddie a ride to school in the morning. Eddie had expressed a kind of amused shock at the idea that he drives Robin to school; Steve explains that he hasn’t been able to sleep in for years now, doesn’t have anything better to do. Eddie turns him down, but agrees to visit Steve tomorrow after school. Steve leaves with the feeling that he’s got a little more work to do.

“Why do you sound like you want to kiss Eddie Munson?” Robin asks the next morning, mouth open and applying a brown mascara. Steve loves when she wears makeup, not because it makes her look better, but because he knows she’s wearing it for some girl. It just tickles him.

“Well what about you?” Steve asks. “There’s somebody you like, I can feel it.”

“There’s nobody,” Robin grumbles. “At least, not that I’ve talked to.”

“You’ll get there,” Steve says. “Some lucky lady’s gonna get the Buckley charm, laid on real thick—”

“Ew, dingus,” Robin says, “don’t make my limited charisma sound like a… paste.”

“And anyway,” Steve says, “I’ve never kissed a dude. Maybe it’s the final frontier, you know?”

“Frontier. Got it,” Robin says, “all I know is that.. you couldn’t really pay me to kiss a guy, much less try and convince him he should kiss me. Something you’re not telling me, Harrington?”

“I mean, I’m telling you all of it,” Steve says. “I just think there’s a good chance someone is gonna try and call us on this whole scam, and we should be ready.”

Robin turns to him suddenly, spits, “Who’s the hottest guy on Earth?”

Steve is taken off guard. “What do you mean?” He asks. “I feel like that’s not a great question. Who’s the hottest girl on Earth?”

“Debbie Harry,” Robin says.

Steve makes a face, and says, “Not on your life.”

“So who’s the hottest guy?”

Steve looks at her. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying I think you have an opinion, and it’s not a normal guy opinion,” Robin says. “Is Eddie hot?”

Steve shrugs, “I think Eddie is pretty hot.”

“There it is,” Robin says, snapping her mascara and twisting it closed. “You think he’s hot? Not in like a, you want to be him, but you wanna be with him?”

“You’re crazy,” Steve laughs, “That’s not what I mean.”

Steve pulls into the parking lot, and right away, like fate, he spots someone standing on the sidewalk, watching for something—red orange hair, giant ponytail, big dolls’ eyes in a porcelain face.

“Chrissy Cunningham,” he says.

“Huh?” Robin says, “Yeah, she’s cute in like a—claw your eyes out type of way.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s got a side to her,” Robin shrugs. “You don’t see it, because you’ve never been in the girls’ bathroom.”

“Huh,” Steve says, but he can imagine it: sweet and unassuming, right up until she’s not. “We’re going to take her to breakfast.”

Robin screeches, “What?”

He pulls into the spot adjacent to where Chrissy’s standing, and emerges quickly despite Robin’s pained groan.

“Chrissy,” he says, and she turns to look at him. She’d clearly been growing impatient, waiting for someone. Steve remembers what Robin said: claw your eyes out.

“Steve?” she asks. “Didn’t you graduate? What are you doing here?”

“Dropping off a friend,” he says. “Look, I uh, don’t want to be indelicate.”

She cocks her head a little, and her eyes squint in a way that could be confusion, or something much colder.

“I heard what happened the other day. I’m sorry; that’s really shitty.”

She shakes her head, blinking fast, “wait—you did? How did you—,”

“I wanna talk to you about it,” Steve says. “Do you wanna grab breakfast?”

Chrissy looks between Steve and the car with hesitation. “I don’t like to—it’s not personal, it’s just—?”

“With a chaperone?” Steve asks, and, ducking into the car, asks, “Robin, do you mind sitting in the back?”

“Where are we going?” Robin asks. “It better be good, if I’m missing first.”

“To the diner with Chrissy,” Steve says, “for me, Robs?”

Robin sighs, “sure.”

“You know her?” Chrissy asks.

“Do you?” Steve asks, as Robin emerges. “She rocks. She speaks five languages.”

“She’s… tall,” Chrissy says, and, looking around, sighs forcefully. She says, “He should’ve been here ten minutes ago. Sure, let’s go.”

“You mean Jason?” Steve asks. “You guys still together?”

He opens Chrissy’s door. She nods while ducking into the cabin.

“How long that been going on anyway?” Steve asks.

Chrissy smiles, “Seventh grade.”

Steve whistles low, making like he’s impressed, and then, “So, you do know Robin?”

“Hi Robin,” Chrissy says primly.

“Hey,” Robin says, suddenly very interested in her nails.

“You know what I was thinking about the other day?” Steve begins, “Those Halloween parties Jason’s dad used to put on at the church.”

“Fall fest,” Chrissy says, a little stiff, but that’s how it starts: a round of reminiscing about old times. They’re times Steve would sooner forget altogether, but it’s clear that Chrissy is fond of Jason’s friends, Jason’s teammates, in a kind of possessive way. The boys of the group aren’t her closest friends, but she’s known them forever, just like Steve.

By the time they’re seated at a booth in the diner, Chrissy is more comfortable, chatting and smiling amiably.

“You’ve been cheerleading since you were three?” Robin asks, “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

Chrissy shrugs. “Since I could hold a baton.”

“Can you do the splits?”

“Can I ever,” Chrissy laughs, “Haven’t you seen our routine?”

“Yeah, but the details, you know,” Robin offers, and Steve is going to get her for this later. Robin doesn’t give a flying fuck about the cheer routines, and thinks the whole cheering thing is a demeaning patriarchal affront to the power of the female body.

“I kinda needed this,” Chrissy says as she pokes at her poached egg, “I know you said you wanted to talk about the whole… thing, but it’s nice to talk about other stuff, forget about it for a minute.”

“I’m sorry that happened,” Robin says. Strangely, she ordered black coffee and a strawberry milkshake. She stirs one and then the other in between sips. She says, “Men are disgusting.”

“You’re not wrong,” Steve says.

“I felt so… scared,” Chrissy laughs a little, “It’s stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Robin says. “Someone wanted to intimidate you. That’s a natural reaction.”

“I guess,” Chrissy frowns. “It’s like, I don’t even know why he would do that. I know he’s weird—”

“That’s,” Steve cuts her off, “Kinda what I wanted to talk to you about. Did you get a good look at who it was?”

Robin’s making a face. She knows the details; she knows he knows them. Chrissy didn’t see anything above the belt.

Chrissy shakes her head.

“I know this is …crass,” Steve begins, “But do you think you could describe what you saw?”

“Just a … thing,” Chrissy says. She’s starting to pink a little bit in the cheeks, says in an almost silent way, “You know.”

Steve asks, almost a whisper, “Was he circumcised?”

“Steve!” Robin reprimands, and Steve is thankful for the balance.

Chrissy laughs uncomfortably, “How am I supposed to know?”

Steve is silent. He can tell his face is doing something strange, his concern and confusion writ large.

“Uh, well. Is… Is Jason…?”

“I don’t know,” Chrissy shrugs, “It’s never come up.”

Steve could make an easy joke, but he doesn’t.

“Holy shit,” Steve says, “The two of you have been together since middle school!”

“So?” says Chrissy, looking offended, “I don’t do that. He knows I don’t.”

“He’s never even tried…?”

Chrissy shrugs, “Once or twice. But he respects me.”

Steve snorts.

“Like Nancy,” Chrissy says, pushing Steve’s hand, which is resting on the table. “You respected her.”

“Absolutely,” Steve says, “And I respected her daily, nightly, and oh so very rightly—”

“Jesus, dingus,” Robin says, “Get a grip.”

She turns to Chrissy, “It’s fine not to have any interest in that.”

Steve looks at her pointedly. She pointedly isn’t looking at him.

“So, did you file a police report, or anything?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Chrissy sighs. “They’re supposed to be looking into it, but my dad says that they won’t do anything.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Steve says. “What time did it happen?”

“I don’t know,” Chrissy says, shaking her head. “Not exactly. I couldn’t talk about it immediately. I went to my car for a while.”

“Makes sense,” Robin says.

“I didn’t know if he was going to come after me,” Chrissy says. She’s only eaten part of her poached egg and toast, continues to poke and prod with her fork.

“I bet Jason is on the warpath,” Steve says.

Chrissy nods, with less confidence than Steve expected. She says, “He keeps talking about it... Eddie the Freak.”

Steve grimaces. He crosses his arms over his chest. He says, “Eddie didn't do it. He’d have no reason—”

Chrissy scowls, taken aback. She asks, "How would you know?"

“Well,” Steve shrugs, “Because he’s my boyfriend.”

Chapter Text

Chrissy’s mouth is pursed into a tiny little bow. The muscles of her face move in barely perceptible little twitches, like ants in the grass. Steve thinks she must have some amount of practice with hiding her emotions. She looks dazed as she asks, “But… Nancy? You were with Nancy. Last year. Do you…”

“I like both,” Steve shrugs, “Like Bowie.”

In the corner of his vision, Robin turns to give him an accusatory glare. That’s a detail they hadn’t discussed, but Steve thinks it’s the most believable.

Chrissy is staring at him like he’d started speaking Russian. “How—I—excuse me,” she says, and little bubbles of nervous laughter fall out of her. “I just—this is—a little surprising. Eddie? He’s so…”

Steve smiles, and shakes his head. “He just looks like that. It’s kind of on purpose.”

“And you’re—I don’t believe this,” Chrissy says.

Steve shrugs, “Believe it. Three months, almost. With a few hiccups.”

Got her, he thinks. Sticking to the story and everything. It’s a wild time, he thinks, three months in: obsessive and constantly eager to see one another, the butterflies still there when you think about them.

Chrissy stares at him wide eyed, glancing at Robin, and then back to him. She leans in a little closer to the two of them, asks, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“He’s not dangerous,” Robin says, “Kind of a sweetheart, really.”

“I mean—being a guy? With a guy?”

“Chrissy,” Steve laughs, “I didn’t know you cared.”

“This isn’t exactly the big city,” Chrissy frowns. “How well do you know him?”

The question, something about her tone, it rankles him. He’s already told her the good part—Eddie didn’t do this. What’s going on?

“I know him. I was with him during his break that day,” Steve leans forward, “How well do you know Jason’s brother?”

Chrissy looks at the table, her eyes dancing across the surface as if it will sort the puzzle pieces in her head.

“I think I should go,” Chrissy says, “I—I’m sorry, Steve. I don’t know what to say. Maybe I should call a cab?”

There’s only one cab driver in their little town.

“Larry? That drunk? No,” Steve says, “Let me drive you back. I’m driving Robin, anyway.”

The ride is near-silent, Robin making blessed idle chatter about the first period classes they’d missed. Steve finds himself uncomfortable and confused. He’d told Chrissy, but none of the pieces fell together like they should have. They pull up to the school just after the start of second period.

Chrissy starts to open her door, asks, “Steve?”

Steve hums in acknowledgement, trying to appear amiable.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she says. “About… you.”

“You can,” Steve shrugs, smiling, “I’m not ashamed.”

Chrissy looks at him for a moment, as if trying to pack away all of these details she’s learned into little boxes in her head. As if it’s taking a minute to sort through.

As Chrissy leaves the car, she says, “See you later, Steve.”

“We’re gonna talk later,” Robin says to Steve from the backseat, “Things were said.”

“Were they ever,” Steve says. “Did you know Chrissy can do the splits?”

“Shut your trap, David Bowie,” Robin says as she slaps the car door shut.

“I’m not surprised,” Eddie says, later. They’re at Steve’s. It’s the precious few hours just before his father comes home, while his mother is at her rotary club meeting, and Steve has some measure of privacy. Steve is already thinking about where to go later, not wanting to risk putting himself or Eddie under his father’s eye.

Steve has told him all about Chrissy’s confusing reaction, about the dismay he felt when the clouds failed to part and shine a beam of light directly into Chrissy’s consciousness.

“But if you’re gay, and with me, why would you have any reason to do what was done to her?” Steve asks.

Eddie shrugs, “Look at it from her perspective. A gross, weird dude did something gross and weird. Who cares if he’s in a relationship?”

Steve shakes his head, “You’re not gross or weird. And it doesn’t make any sense. If you're not into chicks—”

“Steve, look,” Eddie interrupts, then sighs. “A lot of people—dumb motherfuckers, mostly—genuinely believe that us inverted, godforsaken gay people are just—straight people who decided to sell their souls, so to speak. In their debilitated, myopic eyes, we’re all still attracted to the opposite sex, in our true selves, but we do this with each other because—” He throws his arms up, continues, “Because it’s disgusting? Because we can? Or because we don’t have the strength to keep ourselves to one side of the pool.”

Eddie is serious. He’s looking alternately at the ceiling, the wall, and at Steve, leveling that dark stare at him and making him feel a little tingly.

“That’s so… ridiculous,” Steve says. “That makes it sound like all guys would just be sucking each other's dicks if it weren’t for some…”

“Moral imperative? Yeah. Exactly,” Eddie sighs. He’s been prowling Steve’s den like a restless animal. Steve wishes, not for the first time, that he could beckon Eddie next to him, wrap an arm around him, rub his shoulder, be some sort of calm for him. Eddie has his hands in his hair, elbows in the air. He continues, “They don’t get it, because they’re not in my head, you know? They don’t understand that this isn’t fun for me. It’s just—the way I am.”

Steve feels like one of those psychiatrists on TV, staring at Eddie over tented fingers. He asks, “And you’d never… with a girl?”

“No,” Eddie laughs, shaking his head, “Not at all.”

“Not even like… a mouth is a mouth?” Steve offers. He’s never said it, but he’s heard it.

“If you believe that,” Eddie says, with a grin kind of low and morbid, “we have some things to discuss.”

Steve actually sees nothing wrong with this idea, finds himself wanting to stare at Eddie’s lips, but doesn’t let on for the sake of argument.

“But there’s got to be some kind of—scale,” Steve says. “Like there are definitely some guys who will just put it anywhere.”

Eddie snorts. “I guess. Maybe they’re bisexual? I don’t know.”

“And then there are guys who are willing to—” Steve gestures, beginning to feel self-conscious. It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about this. He does. But Eddie is standing there, listening. Seeing him. Steve says, “You know.”

“Take it in the ass?” Eddie offers.

Steve gives a less-than-comfortable laugh. He asks, “Those guys have got to be the gayest, right?”

“Oh, Steve, my naive friend. No,” Eddie shakes his head. “Anal is like—pineapple pizza. Some people are crazy about it, other people not so much. Doesn’t mean you don’t like pizza.”

“You’ve lost me,” Steve says. “Everyone likes pizza.”

Eddie sighs. “Never thought I’d be explaining the labryinthian intricacies of gay sex to Steve Harrington.”

“I’m grateful for your patience,” Steve says. “Do you want a coke?”

“Sure,” Eddie says, and he seems surprised when Steve ducks under the bar for his parents’ mixers. Steve comes up and hands him a can.

“This is cold,” Eddie says. “You have a refrigerator under there.”

Steve shrugs. “It’s a bar.”

“In your house,” Eddie says, and looks at the can with wonder. He shakes his head.

“So, explain,” Steve says, coming out from the bar, collapsing onto the plastic-covered sofa.

“Where to begin?” Eddie says, his grin on the edge of mania.

“Well, you’ve said you’re 100% not into chicks,” Steve says. He’s talking with his hands, which Dustin says is an indication that he’s feeling philosophical. “But if you were blindfolded—”

“Stop right there,” Eddie says, “I know where you’re going with this, and you’re basically talking about masturbating with a human orifice. Are you attracted to your own right hand?”

Steve looks at his right hand. He frowns, considering. It’s not bad.

“Nevermind, forgot who I was talking to,” Eddie says with a smile.

“So you were saying,” Steve says, “There are guys who are willing to—go all the way—but they’re not the gayest of the gay? How does that work?”

Eddie gives half a sneer, “I mean, that’s just a thing you do. Well, not you.”

“I’ve done anal,” Steve says.

“I’m sorry?” Eddie asks.

“I mean, I’ve done the pitching, not the catching. I’m not naming names, but there was this girl who wanted to save herself for marriage.”

“I’m sorry?” Eddie repeats, “But—ass was okay?”

Steve grins. “There are loopholes, apparently.”

“That’s not the only hole,” Eddie says.

“Dude!” Steve laughs. Eddie takes a seat, grinning, and Steve is finding himself pleasantly surprised with the conversation. Since he was eleven, he’s felt himself becoming obsessed with understanding sex. He felt he had it pretty much down by the age of sixteen, but this is like an entirely new realm. “So, what do you mean, it’s only a thing you do? Anal?”

Eddie huffs a laugh, “Well, Steven, it’s like kissing. It’s not like only gay or only straight people kiss. It depends on who you’re kissing.”

“Huh,” Steve says aloud, thinking. “So I could like girls, but still want to get railed?”

Eddie cackles, breaking some unseen tension. Steve looks at him, proud to have made him laugh. The lines that form around his mouth, they emphasize the thickness of his skin, the barely there stubble on his jaw. Eddie asks, “I don’t know, do you?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” Steve shrugs. “What’s it like? Wanting to get railed.”

Eddie shrugs, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Wait, really?” Steve asks, sitting a little straighter, “You’re telling me, you’re 100% gay—”

“Homosexual, absolute,” Eddie says, twirling a finger in the air.

“And you don’t wanna get railed? Doesn’t that make you, what, less gay?”

“No,” Eddie laughs. “If anything, I’m more gay, because all I want is for someone to lie there and take it—”

Steve blinks, hard. Woah.

“And if I’m not blindfolded, or whatever, it has to be a dude, and he better…” Eddie shrugs, gestures.

“What?” Steve asks, “Have a dick? What’s so special about the dick?”

“It’s not just the dick,” Eddie laughs, shaking his head. “It’s the whole thing. Steve, please consider: if someone looked exactly like Nancy Wheeler, but had a dick, would that be the same thing as a man?”

Steve doesn’t answer, caught up in the idea of Nancy with a dick, maybe naked. He flips between that and the idea of Eddie wanting someone to lie there and take it, and the fact it’s got to be a man—hairy legs, broad shoulders, narrow hips—

“Woah,” he says. “Shit, I guess not.”

He cracks open his own coke, as Eddie nods. He says, “I wish school were this interesting.”

Eddie huffs a laugh, “Yeah. Maybe I’d have passed the first couple times.”

“Well, you’re a good teacher, for what it’s worth.”

Eddie throws his hands up, exasperated. The message is clear: for all he’s willing to teach, no one’s listening.

“Is there anyone I know?” Steve asks, “Like you?”

“Gay?” Eddie shrugs, “I don’t actually know. No one’s told me, if they are.”

“I never understood what the big deal was, really?” Steve asks, “It’s like—what’s it to you? What someone else does?”

Eddie stops, and, hands on his hips, looks square at Harrington. His eyebrows are pressed together, his mouth quirked like he could say something.

“What?” Steve asks.

“You didn’t always feel that way, did you?” Eddie drawls, asks almost absently. “Mr. Jock, Mr. Popular. King—”

“Don’t say it,” Steve says, hands over his face.

“What changed?” Eddie asks.

Steve shrugs. He could say a million things, spill all of his guts to Eddie, that’s how comfortable he is. He knows he can’t.

“Well, when I started dating Eddie Munson—”

Eddie scoffs, begins his prowl once more. Steve watches him walk, his hips and legs moving, the tumble of his hair over his shoulders.

He wants someone to lie there and take it, Steve thinks.

He keeps thinking.

Chapter Text

“I mean, I don’t think anyone believes it,” Robin says when he sneaks into her room, later that night.

Steve is starting to feel rejected. First Chrissy, and now the rest of Hawkins High, if Robin is anything to go by.

“I don’t get it,” Steve says, a measured whisper as they settle into her bed. “Why wouldn’t he date me? Like, why isn’t it believable?”

“If anything, they think Eddie’s made it up,” Robin says. She’s wearing a set of mens blue striped pajamas, and looks alarmingly professional for bedtime. “I haven’t talked to Chrissy, but I think she told some girls, and they’ve told just about everyone. I heard it through Becky Felberg, who plays second clarinet, only by the time it got to her it was just that Eddie had a crush on you so he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Is Eddie okay?” Steve checks. If people have heard about what happened with Chrissy, Steve doesn’t trust anyone to leave him alone.

“Didn’t you just see him?” Robin asks, as she settles against him.

“Yeah, but it’s not like he’ll tell me,” Steve says, squeezing around her waist. “He’s like, a fortress about that stuff.”

“I guess that makes sense, dingus. Maybe he still sees you as the enemy.”

“I think we’re getting there,” Steve says, pressing his face to her back. The whole arrangement is extremely comfortable. He sighs against her, feeling warm. “I want him to know we’re on the same side, y’know?”

“Yeah, the side that doesn’t go to jail for having drugs,” Robin says.

“That too,” Steve says.

“Get some sleep, dingus. It’s like eleven.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Steve tosses himself out of Robin’s first story window, stumbling onto his feet. He can tell it’s a few minutes before dawn and he blinks at the slowly purpling night sky as he pisses against the nearest tree.

He showers efficiently, but partway through conditioning, Steve is struck by the thought:

Eddie wants someone to lie there and take it.

Eddie, when his dick is hard, and he wants to be with someone, a man he’d said, he wants him to lie there and take it.

Am I a lie there and take it kind of guy? Steve wonders to himself. He’d jumped at idea of receiving gifts, flowers, affection. But.. sex?

He remembers his most comfortable sexual relationship. Nancy had been shy the first few times, but had come into her own as the months passed. She’d often ride him from on top, said she knew exactly how to come when they did it that way. Steve had loved looking at her from below as she closed her eyes and chased her orgasm. He’d loved her, and he’d loved being that pleasure for her.

Steve’s fingers are slippery with conditioner as he reaches behind himself. There’s a lot of hair. Would someone like Eddie like that? After all, girls don’t really have much of that. He leans against the shower wall, allowing himself to twist further. Once he’s past the hair, he slips his fingertips against the furl of his asshole and shivers. It’s not unpleasant—someone else doing it, the right person maybe, it might feel good, even.

He presses the fingertip gently against the hole. He presses again. It won’t budge.

“Jesus, like Fort Knox back there,” he says to himself. One more push, he resolves, and that does it: nice and firm, his fingertip inside of himself, he begs his body to relax and let it in. His finger slides in, just to the first knuckle, but it feels enormous.

“Holy shit,” Steve says. “How’d I fit my dick in one of these?”

When they did it, Francine had done all the prep, he’d just stuck it in. It was tight, but not like this. She’d had practice, he reminds himself.

He slides the finger out a little, and his hole pushes it the rest of the way. It's like his asshole is throwing him out of the door and throwing away the key.

“Yeesh. I’ll show you,” he says to himself, squirting another pea sized amount of conditioner onto his fingertip. His conditioner is expensive.

“I think I can do it,” he says to Eddie, later. They’re back at Eddie’s place, only this time Wayne is working from six til six, out for the night. Steve is lying on the couch, taking up the whole thing—not that it’s hard to take up the whole thing.

Eddie seemed confused when Steve called from the video store, suggested hanging out. Steve had the excuse prepared: Robin is busy with marching band; Dustin and the twerps are staying after school for some science-based nerd club. Steve is out of options. In actuality, Steve doesn’t want to be home, and he just wants to hang out with Eddie.

But Eddie didn’t actually question the idea, just asked if he’ll eat macaroni from a box and told him to bring Conan the Barbarian, a film Eddie has rented six times.

Watching him do his nerd thing is shockingly endearing, the trailer shockingly comfortable, and he can have a beer in the open. Steve feels contented and relaxed.

“Think you can do what?” Eddie murmurs. He’s set up a little cardboard box on the floor and is painting tiny little metal figurines. He’s stooping over them and squinting really hard and Steve doesn’t know whether to be worried for his back or his eyes.

“Be the type of boyfriend who lies there and takes it,” Steve says.

Eddie looks up, allowing his eyes to refocus on the wall in front of him, then turns to look at Steve. “Do you… think about the things that come out of your mouth before you say them? Or?”

“No, because I’ve thought about it, and it’ll be easy to act like that in front of other people.”

“Act like /what/?” Eddie says, a little stern.

“Like you’ve swept me off my feet. Duh!” Steve says. He looks at the waterstained ceiling. “It makes more sense that you would pursue me anyway.”

“Oh, really?” Eddie asks, tone flat. He returns to his figure, opens a pot of silver paint for the arrowheads.

“Yeah! Think about it. If you—”

“Harrington,” Eddie laughs, “You have to stop saying this shit.”

“I just want it to be natural,” Steve says.

“It really bothered you?” Eddie asks, “When the Princess Christine didn’t believe you?”

“I mean, yeah,” Steve says, “It felt like she was making fun of me.”

“Well, definitely get used to that,” Eddie drawls, flat and nasal. “You’re a freak, now, baby.”

“I can take it,” Steve says.

“You were saying,” Eddie says, and when Steve looks at him, he’s grinning, self-satisfied, like a cat in a TV show.

Steve kicks him.

“Hey, watch it!” Eddie calls, wipes the silver paint off of his hand. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about, man. Our story checks out.”

“You’re not worried?” Steve asks.

“About a witch hunt on the freak?” Eddie asks, his tone rising with the idea. “A little bit. But as long as I got my friend Mary Jane, and my fake boyfriend—”

Eddie shrugs.

“Well, I think a good public makeout would go a long way toward sealing the deal,” Steve says, letting his head fall toward the arm of the couch.

“Not happening,” Eddie murmurs, his eyes not leaving his painting.

“I mean, the fact that I’m willing to do that without being actually gay would never cross their minds,” Steve says.

“They’d just think you’re gay,” Eddie says.

“Exactly,” Steve says, “Smooth sailing.”

Eddie nearly snorts, asks, “Are you sure about that?”

“At least tell me, y’know, for preparation’s sake, in case we need it,” Steve closes his eyes and spreads his hands out in front of him. “What’s your kissing style? Do you go for it, right from the jump, aggressive style, or is it a more gradual situation? Are you like a caveman? Or like a Humphrey Bogart?”

Eddie sighs, swirling his paintbrush in the jar of water. He sets down the figure.

“Well, first,” he says.

Steve sits up. It’s about to get good. Finally, he thinks.

“I get in the right headspace,” Eddie says. He looks relaxed, but considerate. “I want to be strong, but not too aggressive. Gentle, but not indirect. You know what I mean.”

Steve is nodding along.

“Then, when the mood is right, and I feel that special spark…”

“Right,” Steve mutters. “The electricity!”

“I unroll my poster of George Michael, and I just lay it on him,” Eddie smiles.

Steve picks up the squashed, sagging pillow that’s practically welded into where the cushion meets the arm of the couch. He throws it at Eddie’s head.

“Fuck, watch the—water!” Eddie throws the pillow over his shoulder and sets the water off to the side, and Steve doesn’t even pretend to himself he’s not watching Eddie move, watching his hips, where his jeans ride down, showing his underwear, the dimples in his lower back, the ridge of his spine. His mouth waters. Oh, he thinks.

Before Steve can readjust, Eddie launches. Steve stumbles off of the couch, smacking his elbow and grimacing as Eddie knocks him to the side.

“Oh, Fuck off, you piece of—” Steve grunts, and goes for his middle, knocking him to the floor. He pushes against Eddie, and the places where his hands meet Eddie’s body feel like they’re touching some kind of lightning, electricity shooting through his body. The softness of his worn T-shirt gives way to the firmness of flesh, hard lines, thicker skin than the girls he’s known like this.

“Fuck,” he says, and Eddie rolls him over, throwing a knee over to the other side of Steve’s thighs. He’s got one forearm braced against Steve’s chest when Steve cries, “Mercy! Mercy. Fuck.”

“Harrington,” Eddie says, swallowing. His voice is somehow low and even, despite the exertion.

“Don’t call me that,” Steve says, slapping without honest energy, trying not to sound too out of breath. He’s wriggling to try to distract himself. The warmth of Eddie’s body is pressing down on him. He’s going to have an issue in about a fourth of a second.

“Steve,” Eddie says. He leans himself on one hand, bring himself closer to Steve’s face. He uses the other to pull a strand of long hair out of his mouth, flick it to the side. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

“Bullshit,” Steve says, his eyebrows drawing together. His hands find a home on Eddie’s legs, and somehow it still feels so natural. He asks, “Never?”

“No,” Eddie says.

“Not even a joke?” Steve asks.

“Never,” Eddie confirms.

Steve looks at Eddie’s lips, and back to his eyes. Eddie’s looking at his mouth, looks back to his eyes.

“Fuck,” Steve mutters.

“Can I kiss you?” Eddie asks, and it slurs together like one long word, one sound.

Steve’s hips twitch upward, and meet the solidity of Eddie’s body.

“Please,” he says. Eddie does.

Chapter Text

Eddie touches his mouth to Steve’s lips. It’s gentle, just a touch, soft and careful. He’s not doing a stupid pursing shape like a lot of girls do, just laying his relaxed mouth on top of Steve’s.

Tingles go all up and down Steve’s body.

How did he not realize he was this attracted to Eddie?

Eddie pulls away after a second, and Steve immediately reaches back up, propping himself on his elbows.

Eddie’s dark eyes are open, wide, looking between Steve’s eyes with a visible panic.

Steve wants to soothe him. He kisses him instead.

Eddie huffs a breath between their mouths and presses back down, and Steve takes his elbows up, lying down on the nubby carpet. Eddie reaches behind him to wrap a hand around his skull, allowing Steve’s head to hit the ground with Eddie’s hand as a cushion. Eddie presses into him, and the kiss is firm and earnest.

Steve moans. It’s fucking loud.

Eddie’s mouth feels good. It feels so good.

His lips are warm and wet and feel like a revelation. Eddie's lips are thick, thicker than any he's kissed. It’s like his mouth has a perfect landing spot; he can push and pull and fall into the heat of his mouth with abandon. And lying there, allowing Eddie to kiss him? It’s enough to make his heart race, and swell his dick to bursting.

He groans, upset when Eddie pulls away.
“Hey, get back here,” Steve says, wriggling his body as if to welcome him back.

Eddie huffs a laugh and sits up. Steve’s body is offensively cold without Eddie’s warmth.

“Okay, well! Practice kiss done,” Eddie says. He sighs, leaning against the sofa, and looks back at the TV, where there’s some conflict Steve hasn’t paid enough attention to understand. He’s looking too intently. He says, “We can check that box.”

“Let’s do some more,” Steve murmurs, reaching for Eddie’s hand, “c’mon.”

Eddie’s fingers are pale and beautiful. His too-big rings glint in the low light. Steve likes holding them.

Eddie looks apprehensive, glancing all around, anywhere but Steve.

Steve holds his hand, brushing his thumb across Eddie’s knuckles, scooting closer. Eddie snaps his eyes away from the TV, looking at where Steve is holding his hand—then he’s looking at Steve’s lips, blinking slow. His mouth is swollen and pink, and Steve knows his must be too.

Steve sits all the way up, wanting to kiss and be kissed. Eddie is skittish, though, and so Steve only goes ninety percent of the way, holding his face close to Eddie’s. If Eddie wants a kiss, he’ll go the rest of the way.

He’s close enough to feel Eddie’s breath, close enough to count his individual eyelashes; he’s close enough to see the roughness of his patchy stubble. He’s definitely a man, and Steve definitely wants him.

Eddie leans forward, slowly closing the gap.

Steve holds his hand, feeling it clasp around his.

The phone rings.

“Fuck,” Steve whispers.

“It’s Hopper,” Eddie swallows. “He called before you came. He just met with Chrissy.”

Steve stumbles up, out of where he’d been seated on the floor, and darts directly to the phone.

“Munson residence,” Steve answers, and in the further reaches of his mind he hears Eddie bark a disbelieving laugh.

“This is Chief Jim Hopper of the—yeah. Is this Eddie?”

“It’s Steve,” Steve says.

“Harrington? What are you doing—shit, never mind,” Hop says.

“What did Chrissy say?” Steve asks.

Hopper sighs, “Let me talk to Eddie, kid.”

Steve wants to argue, but he offers the phone to Eddie instead. Eddie is standing five feet away, looking haunted. He creeps toward the phone like it’s going to bite him.

He picks up the phone, “Chief?”

Steve stands close to be able to hear what he’s saying. Especially since he just kissed Eddie, he feels total license to press against him to hear the conversation.

“Chrissy wants to press charges. There’ll be an investigation,” Hopper sighs on the other end. “Then, if it needs it, I’ll send the case upstairs and they’ll decide whether they want you charged.”

“Did you tell her about Eddie’s alibi?” Steve says, shouting past Eddie’s mouth.

“She doesn’t want to believe it was John, kid,” Hopper says, sternly. “He’s her boyfriend’s brother for Christ’s sake.”

Eddie closes his eyes, tilts his head back. His knuckles are white on the receiver.

“Fuck,” he breathes toward the ceiling. “Fuck.”

But I talked to her, Steve wants to say. I told her it wasn’t him.

“We’re gonna get this taken care of,” Steve says quietly. “They can’t punish you for being different.”

Eddie opens his eyes to look into Steve’s with surprise.

Hopper says from down the line, “I’m gonna need statements, from you both and from anyone who saw you close to that time. Receipts from that day, if you’ve got 'em.”

“We’ll come in tomorrow,” Steve says. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow’s a Wednesday,” Hopper says.

“Tomorrow morning,” Eddie confirms.

“Ten AM,” Hopper says. “I’m gonna need to be awake for this.”

When Eddie hangs up, Steve goes under his arms, around his ribs for a full bodied hug. Eddie’s arms wrap tentatively around his shoulders, then their hold becomes tight.

“We’ll get through this,” Steve says, “we’ll take care of it.”

“Continues to stun and fascinate me that there’s a ‘we’,” Eddie says. The rumble of his voice is felt through Steve’s chest and arms and he squeezes his eyes to help with the sudden rush of feeling.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. A week ago, he wouldn’t have guessed he’d be feeling any of this, or that he’d be as calm about it as he is. Eddie’s company just feels so natural, the feeling of his body inspiring such animal contentment.

“Even if it’s just pretend,” Eddie says.

Steve remembers their kiss, broken off before it had really begun.

“Didn’t feel pretend,” Steve says, leaning back to look at Eddie’s face, and his hands find Eddie’s ribs. He asks, “Wanna go again?”

Eddie sighs, a shaking, stuttering thing. He looks down, back up, and he nods.

This time, Steve doesn’t have to wonder if Eddie wants the kiss. Eddie steps forward into Steve’s space and presses his face to Steve’s, his mouth finding Steve’s so easily.

Steve groans, not able to hold back in this tiny, private space. His hands follow Eddie’s ribs to his sternum and over his broad chest, holding his shoulders as Eddie continues to press against him.

Steve’s mouth opens, naturally beckoning Eddie to come forward, come in. The inside of Eddie’s mouth tastes warm and masculine and kind of perfect, the insides of his lips smooth and soft.

“Tongue,” Steve asks, “please?”

Eddie complies, smoothing his tongue into Steve’s mouth, shy at first, probing along his lips without urgency. Steve feels himself groaning but is lost otherwise to the sensation.

It feels good. It feels like Eddie wants him, and him alone, and wants to taste his mouth. Eddie proves it; he presses further into Steve’s space until they’re against the wall, one hand on Steve’s jaw and the other on his waist.

Steve hopes so hard he’ll try to get underneath Steve’s clothes. Steve wants him to be everywhere.

It’s new and utterly strange to feel someone’s hard dick pressing against his, but the heated push of it is maybe the hottest thing he’s felt in years, enough to make him throb and pulse inside of his jeans.

“Eddie,” he hears himself say. “God, Eddie.”

Eddie breaks away from his face, pressing his forehead to Steve’s and panting.

“I need to calm down,” Eddie says, all while pressing his whole body into Steve’s, hips first.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and, smiling, “I don’t have any extra pants.”

Eddie looks all over his face, mouth open and eyes bright. He huffs, “Use mine.”

Both of his hands on Steve’s jaw now, Eddie dives in, kissing Steve over and over, mouthing him continuously as if drinking from him. Steve holds him tight, moving his body along Eddie’s, seeking warmth and friction.

“Take me to your room,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” Eddie says against his mouth, and begins to walk him backward the few feet to his room, his bed. The door flings open, hitting a set of drawers and shaking off a few metal figures. Steve laughs brightly, watching them clatter to the ground.

Eddie doesn’t seem to notice, making himself busy kissing over Steve’s neck and jaw. His hands are finally finding themselves under Steve’s shirt, warm and broad and searching, granting Steve the permission he wanted to strip Eddie’s shirt from his body.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, running his hands over Eddie’s chest, his pale skin and sparse hair, his tattoos. Eddie grins, and pulls at Steve’s own shirt.

“Do you like them?” Eddie asks.

“I really do,” Steve says, and can feel his mouth agape, his blinking slow.

“I’ve been thinking all the time about this,” Eddie says as he lifts Steve’s shirt over his head.

“How I look without a shirt?” Steve asks as he stands unashamed, proud before him. He’s not used to the adoration he sees on Eddie’s face, naked and thirsting, scanning Steve’s body like a map. He loves it.

Eddie shakes his head. He says, “No, just… you.”

Chapter Text

Steve thinks being pressed to the bed is heavenly, and then Eddie’s bare chest falls against his. He hasn’t felt this way in years. Eddie’s above him, kissing him, grinding into him. His thick forearm brackets Steve’s head and Steve feels caged in adoration.

“You’re good at this,” Steve says. Eddie laughs. “I’m jealous of the next guy.”

“Don’t talk about other guys,” Eddie says, low and rumbling.

Eddie’s hand is traveling along Steve’s body. It’s the way Steve would normally be touching a girl, leading from the waist and cupping under his chest. He can tell Eddie likes what he feels because his mouth slowly stops moving, his breath panting against Steve’s mouth.

“Can I touch you?” Eddie asks.

“You are touching me,” Steve says, grinning.

“Please,” Eddie smiles and Steve can feel it against his lips.

Steve reaches down to unbuckle Eddie’s belt, unfasten his jeans. It goes so quickly that Steve is impressed with himself, and suddenly his fingers are reaching into the elastic of Eddie’s shorts.

“I asked you first,” Eddie says, slapping his hands out of the way.

“Hey,” Steve laughs, “come on, please? Take it out.”

“Baby,” Eddie laughs, and a shiver falls through Steve, a warmth that he didn’t expect behind his ears, in his stomach. Eddie says, “you first.”

Steve doesn’t fight it when Eddie leans upward to look over Steve’s body, one hand rubbing over his shoulder, another trailing over his stomach.

“Fuck,” Eddie says, “I can’t believe this.”

“What?”

“That I get to do this,” Eddie says, and starts to unfasten Steve’s jeans.

“Me too,” Steve says, and realizes he can’t reach Eddie where he’s sitting over Steve’s body, “come on, lie down.”

Eddie’s hands are strong and sure in Steve’s pants—definitely more sure than any virgin has ever behaved with Steve’s dick.

Steve is eager to get into Eddie’s pants, knowing that with how keyed up he is, there won’t be time for anything fancy. He feels like the blood is about to burst his skin, almost painful with how hard he is.

As soon as Eddie is within reach, Steve is delving into his underwear, gripping Eddie’s dick.

“What?” Steve says, “Why is this so big?”

Eddie huffs, “Saving up for you, I guess.”

“Fuck,” Steve says, beginning to work the foreskin of Eddie’s dick over the head. Eddie groans, and his hand works itself clumsily over Steve’s. “It’s gonna be a while before I can get that in.”

Eddie gasps, stutters, working his hips to fuck Steve’s hand. He rolls Steve onto his back. Steve thinks he could really get used to that feeling.

His hand is finding a rhythm, and Steve is sure to thrust against him when he finds the right place to grip. As soon as he does, Steve is coming.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie says, “fuck, Steve, fuck.”

It comes in bursts over his belly and over his chest, he’s coming so hard, and it’s a lot—it’s the hardest he’s come in years. It isn’t until he’s calmed down that he realizes he’s been chanting Eddie’s name.

“Can I come on you?” Eddie asks, and Steve nods, almost frantic with how much he wants that. He works Eddie faster, wanting to watch him. He’s watching his hand move over Eddie’s dick, the purple tip of it, the soft wet opening at the tip, he almost forgets to look at Eddie’s face.

Eddie coming is the hottest thing he’s seen in his young life, he thinks. His hair is framing his face, his mouth open, his eyes shut tight until they’re not, until they’re looking at Steve, shocked and grateful.

Eddie is panting, he is supporting himself on his hands above Steve. He starts to shift to the side, but Steve won’t allow it—he wraps his arms firmly around Eddie’s ribs and pulls him down so that their naked stomachs and chests and even their softening dicks are touching one another.

“I’m not—crushing you?” Eddie asks.

“No,” Steve says. “It’s nice.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says.

Steve snorts. “You too, champ.”

Eddie grimaces. “Champ?”

Steve laughs, squeezes Eddie close.

“You’re crazy,” Eddie laughs. “How did I not see you were crazy?”

“Too caught up in my good looks?” Steve says.

Eddie tilts his head in consideration. Steve allows him to fall to the side, to roll toward the edge of the bed. He watches Eddie walk away, his naked shoulders and back sending a pulse through Steve’s groin.

“Be right back,” he says. Steve hears the water running, and Eddie returns with a wet washcloth.

“Oh my God,” Steve says, “an actual gentleman.”

Eddie laughs, “let me do this.”

“You wanna take care of me?” Steve asks.

Eddie shakes his head, just a little, says, “You don’t know how much.”

Afterward, they lie on the bed, looking at one another. Steve is petting over Eddie’s shoulder, his chest as Eddie holds his waist.

“Should I—should I go?” Steve asks. “Do you need to sleep?”

“I don’t sleep much these days,” Eddie sighs.

“Me either,” Steve laughs, “so I’ll stay?”

“Please,” Eddie says.

Steve wakes up over eight hours later still wearing his jeans. The sunlight streams in, filtered through a bedsheet tacked to the window. Remembering where he is, he smiles without meaning to, with no one to show.

Then he sees that Eddie is awake, awake and looking at him, his face relaxed. He smiles gently, seeing Steve. His eyes are huge, gorgeous.

“That’s the best I’ve slept in ages,” Steve says, his voice sleep heavy and garbled as he stretches. He asks, “The fuck is in your water?“

“Lead, probably,” Eddie says.

“You’re funny,” Steve says. He looks at his watch. “Quarter after nine?!”

“I know. I was thinking I’d have to wake you,” Eddie says, and he slowly sits up, leaning toward his bedside table, finding a cigarette and lighter. He lights two cigarettes and hands one to Steve, who takes a drag.

“Wayne home?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “He sleeps in the living room.”

Steve wants to tell Eddie they’ll be quiet, pull him down for more kissing, more of whatever they were doing last night, just more.

“He gave you the bedroom,” Steve says instead.

“I told you,” Eddie says, smiling, “Saint.”

Steve reaches over Eddie to ash his cigarette, and when he’s done, instead of backing away, he settles heavily into Eddie’s naked chest. It feels good, to be able to be close to someone without worrying they’ll get the wrong idea. Steve is pretty sure that Eddie knows exactly what he’s looking for. Eddie’s arm wraps around him, starts to rub his back. If he were a cat, Steve thinks, he’d be purring.

“I guess we should get ready,” Steve says, and leans back to make eye contact. Eddie is looking far away, his face grim and tired. He nods.

That’s when they hear the brick come through the living room window.

Chapter Text

It would be comical if it weren’t terrifying: the shatter of glass, the squeal of tires against the dirt road. Steve is frozen in fear and confusion for several seconds that feel like eternity before he and Eddie stumble out of the bed and to their feet.

Eddie is tucking his rumpled boxers into his slept-in jeans as they scramble through the short hallway toward the kitchen and living area.

Wayne, wearing boxer shorts and a worn undershirt, is standing next to his roll-out bed—too close to the glass—staring out the broken window.

“Wayne!” Eddie cries, gasping with excited relief.

“Wayne, the glass!” Steve calls, seeing the shattered window lying in pieces and fragments all around.

“Is it in your bed?” Eddie asks. Eddie looks intent. Inappropriately, Steve thinks he looks really good, standing there without a shirt, looking ready to kill.

Wayne looks back. He reaches for cigarettes in the work shirt draped over the sofa.

“Little bit,” he says, lighting his cigarette. His gaze shifts back to the outside, as if the culprit will return and show themselves. The curtains, still mostly drawn, move gently with the breeze.

“What the fuck was it?” Steve asks.

“Language,” Wayne chides. Steve’s face blooms with red heat, but then he sees Wayne start to smile.

“He’s fucking with you,” Eddie says. “Fuckin’ old man—”

“‘S a brick, looks like,” Wayne says, gesturing to where the brick had fallen, near the head of his rollout bed.

To Steve’s horror, Eddie steps right into the mess of shattered glass.

“Woah—” Wayne says, looking at Eddie’s bare feet, but he’s cut off by Eddie’s crushing hug. Wayne closes his eyes, slowly allows his arms to fold around his nephew. He says, “I’m fine, bug.”

They’re the same height. Wayne’s face, creased and tired, relaxes into the hug. His tanned and corded forearms give way to paler flesh toward his shirt sleeves. Steve can see that he has a few extremely weathered tattoos; he can’t quite tell what they are. He rubs his nephew’s back, slow.

Steve looks around for a broom and finds one leant against the refrigerator. He busies himself with what he can sweep.

“Don’t do that,” Wayne chides, “don’t hurt yourself,” but he does it anyway.

“I called the cops,” a woman’s voice calls through the sizeable hole in the window, “Didn’t get a good look, though.”

“Thanks, Colleen,” Eddie calls, separating from his uncle.

“If you bust up your feet it’s your own damn fault,” Wayne grumbles, looking around at the nubby carpet.

“Same to you,” Eddie says, and Steve instinctively prepares himself for Wayne to raise his voice. It never happens.

“It should be alright,” Steve says, glancing around them.

“Oh,” Eddie says, “thank you, Steve.”

“You shouldn’t’ve troubled yourself,” Wayne says.

“It’s no problem,” Steve shrugs, “Should we see what this says?”

He nudges the brick. There’s a note, folded up and tied down with a rubber band.

Wayne frowns. It’s clear that something about the idea rankles him.

“Don’t wanna give ‘em the satisfaction,” he says.

Eddie sighs, and leans down to tear the note out of the rubber band. He says, “Hopper will wanna know.”

Eddie’s nimble fingers unfold the note. Steve watches as his solemn expression cracks and, shockingly, he giggles. It’s high in his throat, like a schoolboy’s.

“It says, ‘Christ redeem you’,” Eddie says. His smile falls as he’s shaking his head, “Oh, shit, that’s too good.”

“What?” Steve says, sure there must be more to it, but when he tucks his chin over Eddie’s shoulder, sure enough, that’s all that’s scrawled onto the piece of notebook paper. He asks, “It’s Carver, right?”

“Well, you ain’t been to church since baptism,” Wayne says, looks at Eddie. This time, he sucks down the rest of his cigarette before he starts to smile.

“One day I’ll know when you’re joking,” Steve says.

Eddie sighs a bit, rubbing his eye in a way that’s so frustrated it’s almost violent.

“Wayne,” he says, “This is serious. This is going to cost us.”

Automatically, Steve says, “I’ll help.”

“You don’t worry about that,” Wayne says.

“You didn’t think of this when they said a kid will be expensive, did you?” Eddie asks. It’s joking, but something about it makes Steve hurt on the inside.

“What? A window?” Wayne says, “Ed, look around. This shithole isn’t worth a dime compared to you.”

Eddie scrubs his face, looking at the damage. He props his face in one hand, looking doubtful.

“You’re not hurt. No one’s hurt. That’s what matters,” Wayne says. Wayne brings him close, holds his face in both hands and pats his cheek. It’s simple, but seems too intimate for Steve to be seeing. He feels like maybe he should go grab a shirt, but doesn’t want to leave Eddie’s side.

Wayne’s rough hands slip from Eddie’s face with a rasp.

“Well, it sounds like we don’t need to drive to the station,” Eddie says.

“The station?” Wayne asks, and Eddie explains their meeting with Jim Hopper.

“I’ll call him,” Steve says, walking to the yellow phone hanging in the kitchen, and he does. Florence puts him through to Hopper, who simply says, “Be right there,” without Steve having to explain a thing.

Someone must’ve told him, Steve thinks. Well, someone must’ve told Flo.

Chief Hopper arrives after everyone’s had coffee but before everyone’s put a shirt on. Steve is still wrestling with his day-old polo when he hears Hopper knocking.

Eddie and Steve lean against the counter in the kitchen, and Wayne is sitting on the tiny sofa. The chief has pulled aside a kitchen chair, staring at the note. He’s accompanied by Officer Powell, who Steve’s talked to before, maybe after a party bust-up. Eddie’s pulled aside the curtains so that the damage to the window is clearly visible.

“What time?” Hopper asks.

“Quarter after nine,” Steve says.

Hopper almost rolls his eyes. “Idiots. They came right from the station.”

Officer Powell looks unsettled. “Chief, should we be implicating—?”

“Oh, it’s them,” Hopper says, “Sure as if they’d signed with fingerprints.”

Hopper rubs his jaw, where a day’s stubble is sitting. His eyes look dry and heavy. He’s thin, Steve notices. Gaunt. Sometimes, Steve notices the way the upside down has written its signature on everybody’s lives.

“I called John Carver into the station this morning,” Hopper says.

“Showed up on time and everything,” Powell says.

“Thank you, Officer,” Hopper says, “The Carver boys as well as their family believe that Eddie is using devil worship to control people in the town, including Steve. Clearly, word of your… relationship has spread.”

Steve recognizes that Hopper is awkward about them in the way a decent father is awkward. However, Eddie stiffens beside Steve, hackles rising protectively.

“Now, I’ve heard some shit in my time, but this was truly impressive,” Hopper says. “Those Carver boys have the gift of gab and they know it. If they can convince the people around them that Eddie is dangerous—if they have the time to do so—”

“Declan and Mary,” Wayne says, quiet.

“Pardon?” Hopper asks.

“D’you remember Declan and Mary?” Wayne turns cold, crystal clear blue eyes on the men. “Green, their name was?”

Officer Powell nods; Hopper shakes his head, clearly unfamiliar.

“Buddy of mine and his wife. He’s white, she’s not. I don’t know where they are now,” Wayne says, low and even. He coughs; he’s been chain smoking since they woke up, nursing black coffee between drags. “They got married, moved in down the road by the creek. Little house. Burned to a crisp in the middle of the night.”

“It’s not the sixties anymore,” Officer Powell notes.

“Tell that to Reagan,” Wayne says. “I can’t let that happen to my boys.”

“You think—this has to do with us?” Steve asks. Eddie looks at him with sudden tenderness.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Hopper says, and, seeming to pivot, “Listen, I don’t think Cunningham is acting solo, here. Her boyfriend’s family are realizing we don’t have a lick of evidence against Eddie.”

He seems to be talking mostly to Wayne, looking at Steve and Eddie occasionally.

“And if Eddie has a decent alibi, there’s no choice but to believe John is the perpetrator,” he says.

“So they want to scare us,” Steve says.

“Us,” Eddie repeats softly.

“Scare us off,” Steve says, looking at Eddie’s face, which is tired and handsome in the morning light. His lips look soft, and Steve is aching for the next minute they’ll be alone.

“If you run, they get off easy,” Hopper shrugs.

“Well they can’t hang around here,” Wayne says.

“What?” Eddie asks.

“You boys. It’s too dangerous,” Wayne says. “I’ll have to hang a tarp. Anybody can get under a tarp.”

“I have some plywood,” Steve says, “we can fix this.”

Wayne doesn’t acknowledge it, smokes while staring down Chief Hopper, unblinking.

“I don’t think they’re looking to—become violent,” Officer Powell says, while Hopper nods.

“They could’ve killed Wayne,” Eddie says with a cold calm. “The brick landed right by his head.”

“I can see you’re upset,” Powell says, “and we know this is very serious, which is why we need to work together to find a solution. Chief Hopper seems to think we can gather a case against John Carver, and I tend to agree.”

Steve and Eddie both look to Wayne, who nods gently, closing his eyes.

“So, let’s go over the details,” Hopper says. “Cunningham is on video dropping her groceries and running at 1:37 in the afternoon. Now, according to Ed—”

“Eddie,” Steve and Wayne say simultaneously.

“According to Eddie,” Hopper says, “he took his fifteen minute break around 1:30.”

“That’s when he told me to meet him,” Steve says. “I got off from the video store at one.”

“But according to John, it was him taking his fifteen at that time,” Hopper says, “The thing is, we don’t have any evidence of Eddie clocking out—“

“Don’t need to clock out for a fifteen,” Eddie says, “and if anyone tells you to, that’s wage theft.”

“That’s right, boy,” Wayne says, nodding with approval.

Steve blinks.

“Wait, what?” Steve asks, “are you serious?”

Eddie looks at him, nodding kindly.

“I always clock out for my fifteen,” Steve says.

“And how much is that per day?” Wayne asks, pointedly. “Per week?”

“Wait, does Carver clock out for fifteens?” Steve asks.

“Bootlicker,” Eddie shrugs, “probably does.”

Steve looks at Hopper, points at Eddie.

“Carver said he was on break when Chrissy was assaulted, but that’s not true; he took it after,” Steve says. “Did he clock out?”

Hopper tilts his head, as if the information will roll out of one ear. He looks at Powell.

“Make the call,” he says.

Chapter Text

Powell uses the Munsons’ phone. Steve sets another pot of coffee to brew and Wayne distributes cigarettes.

Steinem’s has John Carver’s time sheet from the day in question within minutes. While he’d previously stated to the police that he’d taken his fifteen minute break during the time that Chrissy Cunningham suffered exposure at 1:37pm, his time sheet shows that he clocked out at 1:53PM.

“His time sheet is evidence that he lied to us; that much is true,” Hopper says. “This shows he was working at the time even though he claims not to have seen anything.”

“How big is this place?” Steve asks.

Eddie’s arms are folded over his chest. Steve remembers what it’s like to be caged in by Eddie’s arms, that broad chest above him. He blinks a few times.

Eddie shakes his head, says, “Not big. You’d have to be blindfolded not to see each other.”

Wayne says, “This kid should’ve held onto his brick, mighta had more brain cells than he did—”

Hopper says, “Given what he said in his statement about Eddie, and the content of the note, all signs point to his guilt. I think it’s time to meet with Cunningham.”

“She’ll be in school,” Steve says.

Hopper says, “Then it’ll be the Carvers. I think I’ll politely suggest they compensate Mr. Munson for his window if they want to avoid further investigation.”

“Avoid investigating the window, or the Chrissy charges?” Steve asks.

“Something tells me she won’t want to charge John for what he’s done,” Hopper says with a frown, “not that I won’t encourage her to do so.”

Hopper and Powell ready themselves to leave, shaking Wayne’s hand as they excuse themselves from the trailer.

“I’ll run and get the plywood,” Steve says.

Wayne nods. “Cold as a witch’s tit in here.”

“You should get some sleep,” Eddie says to Wayne. “Use the bedroom? It’s darker in there anyhow.”

“No, I’ll help,” Wayne says.

“Nah,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“Come on, Wayne. Just the once,” Eddie says, “You won’t be able to sleep through us boarding up the window.”

Wayne grudgingly allows himself to sleep in Eddie’s room, saying his goodbyes silently with a pat on the cheek for both of them and a kiss for Eddie.

As they hear a door close with a click, Eddie turns to look at Steve.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve gives an exhale, a weak smile, “weird morning, huh?”

“Weird morning,” Eddie agrees.

“Good night though,” Steve says, thrills to watch Eddie smile. “Just so you know, the plywood is kinda heavy.”

“Oh yeah?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah. Might have to.. lose the shirt.”

“You know I’ve handled plenty of that stuff, right?” Eddie asks.

“You’ve handled wood before?” Steve asks with a grin.

“Holy hell,” Eddie laughs, “you’re a monster.”

“The monster is that thing in your—”

Eddie cuts him off with a kiss. His eyes are closed, his hands intent as they pull Steve’s face, his mouth into the kiss.

Steve knows he’s moaning. He knows it’s loud. The wet of Eddie’s mouth just feels like paradise, smells like heaven, tastes divine. He loves a good kiss, and Eddie is like an ATM for the damn things.

“I ain’t asleep yet,” Wayne calls. “Wait ‘til I get to the damn room.”

Eddie pulls away, his breathing not heavy but not light. He looks into Steve’s eyes with amusement and joy, on the edge of a laugh.

They retrieve the plywood from Steve’s back shed, and Steve shrugs when Eddie asks if his family will miss it.

“I don’t think they’ve been back here since ‘82,” Steve says.

Eddie shakes his head, mutters, “Rich people.”

They ride back to the trailer and commence work all while chatting continuously. Steve learns that Eddie builds sets for community theater, and the school drama club, and Eddie has him name the movies Robin’s shown him, and Steve proves that he’s made easy-mac before by reciting the steps of the recipe. Eddie’s been running the Dungeons and Dragons club since he was Dustin’s age, and he likes to draw, and he’s pleasantly surprised that Steve knows how to knit.

Steve thinks to himself that Eddie is excellent boyfriend material. He knows how to use a hammer and he asks if Steve is okay when he trips over his own feet.

He pouts when Eddie explains that he’ll have to show his face at school, lest he risk an absence-based failure.

“I’ll help you study?” Steve asks.

“Maybe tonight,” Eddie says. “Don’t you have work?”

“You memorized my schedule?” Steve preens.

“You caught me,” Eddie says.

Steve thinks, you like me, but something hot in his cheeks keeps him from saying so. He wants to ask Eddie to come inside and give him a goodbye kiss, but Eddie’s already opening the door to his van.

“I’ll call you?” Steve asks, stepping back toward his own car.

Eddie looks at him, nods, “Yeah.”

“Alright,” Steve smiles, letting the butterflies fill him up.

“So what news for this weary traveler?” Dustin asks. He’d spotted Steve’s car, waiting to pick up Robin after school, and thrown himself in the passenger seat. Robin lounges across the back, threatening to fall asleep. Steve explains the brick, and the time sheet bust.

“Hop went to meet with Chrissy. He doesn’t think she’ll want to press charges against Carver. Probably something to do with the fact she’s dating a Carver.”

Dustin shakes his head, says, “Wouldn’t shock me. Poor girl.”

Steve shrugs, “She’ll probably drop the charges against Eddie, and then, investigation closed.”

Dustin’s face contorts. He asked, “Closed? So what, Carver just… goes home? Nothing happens?”

“Weird, right?” Steve says. “Maybe she’ll change her mind later. Come to her senses.”

Robin lies prostrate across the backseat, but Steve can sense movement. In the mirror, he sees her give a silent sigh.

Dustin hums, crossing his arms over his chest. Steve can tell he’s upset, allowing the gears in his head to churn through the information, to see if there’s anything he can do. He’s silent for a moment.

Then he asks, “So when’s the breakup?”

Steve thinks he’s talking about Chrissy. He asks, “Breakup?”

“You and Eddie?” Dustin asks, “How long before you can announce the dissolution?”

Robin laughs. She says, “Dustin, you poor, naive soul.”

Steve shakes his head, “What if we don’t? I think I like having a boyfriend.”

The words come easy, but Steve’s mouth is dry. His hands remain on the wheel, his eyes on the road. It’s a bit cowardly, but he just waits for Dustin to speak.

“I knew it,” Robin says lazily.

“What?” Dustin asks.

“What?” Steve says, “Do I have something on my face?”

“Are you messing with me?”

“No,” Steve says, “I like him.”

“You like Eddie? You like him like him?”

“I like him like him,” Steve nods, smiling despite his nerves.

“So you’re just.. gay? Now?” Dustin asks.

Steve shrugs. “Kinda.”

Robin gives a loud ha!

“What do you mean, kinda?” Dustin asks.

“It’s not that serious!” Steve says, “Let it go!”

“Not that serious?” Dustin asks, “Does Eddie know you like him?”

Steve smiles. He lets his face relax, thinking of being kissed. He waggles his eyebrows as he says, “I think he got the picture, if you know what I’m saying.”

Robin throws herself between the seats. Dustin jumps.

“Harrington. Did you guys do something?” she asks.

“Did we ever!” Steve smiles.

Robin retches, yells, “God, no details, please!”

Dustin is sitting, shellshocked, against the front seat, looking at the road as if it’s an oncoming storm.

Steve sighs, says, “I tried to get him to take off his shirt again when we were fixing the window, but he wasn’t having it. Said he couldn’t go around giving people a show whenever they wanted.”

“So gross, dingus,” Robin says.

“What is going on?” Dustin whispers to himself. “You’re serious, Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “He rules, and he’s hot! Honestly, I thought you’d be throwing us a party.”

“I—,” Dustin says, blinks as he looks around— “Wow, I really should. Wow.”

Robin and Steve work a slightly less miserable shift than anticipated. He takes her home, makes small talk with Ginger and Dave Buckley while she showers and decompresses. He lingers at her house often. Anything beats the dull fear of waiting for his father’s anger to bubble to the surface.

They watch television for an hour or so, eating the Buckleys’ leftover tuna casserole.

When Steve finally hits the road, he thinks it’ll be late enough that his parents have gone to bed.

The only light on is the one over the door in the foyer. Steve toes his sneakers off and sets his keys gently in the bowl.

A light snaps on in the kitchen. Steve sighs heavily; it can only mean one thing.

“Evening, dad,” Steve says, leaning against the kitchen doorway.

Richard Harrington’s face is sagging at the sides. He’s tired, Steve can tell, sitting there with a bathrobe over his pajamas.

“Got an interesting call today, Steven,” he says, “You’re familiar with a Pastor Carver?”

Chapter Text

He shouldn’t do it, knows he shouldn’t do it, but Steve heaves a sigh.

“Wonderful to see you too, dad—no, you first! How was your day?”

“So, you know what Pastor Carver might’ve told me,” Richard Harrington says.

“Do I need to turn right around? Right now?” Steve asks. He plants both feet on the ground, his thumbs in his pockets.

“You need to listen when I’m talking to you,” Richard says, “Have a seat.”

Steve sighs, “Can I get a glass of water first, or?”

“Have a seat,” Richard repeats.

Steve folds his lips over his teeth, takes a few careful steps to the kitchen table. It’s brand new, an almost white wood with cushioned seats. Steve still hasn’t gotten comfortable with using them, and thinks longingly of the squashed, threadbare loveseat in the living area of the Munsons’ trailer, the giant corduroy sofa in Robin’s den, the worn stools in the Henderson kitchen.

Steve takes a seat, crosses his arms in front of him. He says, “Shoot.”

“Steven, I don’t know how to begin,” Richard says. “You know I’m not a Baptist.”

Steven’s eyebrows come together. He has no idea what his father believes.

“I don’t want to give this lunatic any credence, whatsoever. So please, please tell me that I can confidently reassure him, as I did on the phone this evening, that my son is a typical American young man who is not cavorting with any boys, let alone a satanist, drug dealing scumbag—”

Steve closes his eyes.

This is part one of the Richard Harrington special. It’s the part where Richard paints the picture of Steve as the outside world sees Steve, and the corrections that Richard has had to make on his behalf.

Next, he will explain the expectation, and how Steve can align himself with it—what normal people refer to as a punishment. It’s always the same.

Steve realizes now what he’d expected: that something this deeply personal would somehow crack the brittle exterior of his father’s surface. But maybe this is all there is: like an insect, that hard exterior is what holds him together and defines his shape. There is no Richard without it.

Suddenly, Richard is snapping in front of his face.

“Steven? Are you on drugs right now?” Richard asks.

Steve shakes his head. I wish, he wants to say.

“Because if you are taking drugs, in any capacity, I’ll have no choice but to start rolling back special privileges that you know you’ve been taking advantage of since you graduated—one of the possibilities your mother and I have discussed—”

Steve wants to fall asleep. He’s suddenly so, so tired.

“I’ll be happy to inform the Pastor, and anyone else who may have heard this ridiculous rumor, that they’ve gotten the entire thing turned around and that there’s no truth to it whatsoever—”

How long has he been this tired? How long has Richard been talking?

“and if there is anything… happening, anything too disgusting to discuss at the dinner table, you know we’ll have to discuss just what and who you’re permitted w pop to see from now on—”

Steve tries to zone out. Just look at his nose, he thinks. Just look at one spot on his face and nod. Both eyes open.

He’s trying. It’s just not happening.

“And after an appropriate period of dedicated study on your part, you will start working under me at the firm, and we won’t have anything to worry about with that ridiculous job you’ve been working, or that ridiculous girl who is frankly, I thought, the most we had to worry about, son—”

Steve scrubs his jaw, itching at the day of stubble that’s gathered under his chin.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Steve says, simply. Richard looks at Steve, open-mouthed.

“Excuse me?” Richard asks.

“None of that is happening,” Steve says, meeting his father’s eyes with perfect clarity. He expects some amount of regret, some amount of fear, but it’s not happening inside of him. It’s like he has no remorse left for his father. He says, “I don’t know what I want to do yet, but I’m nineteen. I don’t have to do it here. And I’m definitely not working at the firm,” Steve says.

“You must be on drugs,” Richard says, his tone flat. “There’s no other possible explanation for this complete disregard of basic—”

“And as for my boyfriend, he’s a good guy. You’d like him, if you weren’t such a prick,” Steve shrugs.

“Boyfriend?” Richard says, disbelieving. His eyes are huge and watery. “Prick? Have you lost your mind?”

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head, “In fact, I feel like I’m thinking very clearly.”

“Steven, you’ve been sitting here at home, eating our food, sleeping under this roof for months now with absolutely no progress—we’ve allowed you to have your friends, your freedom, your job—and what’s come of it? Nothing but this—asinine behavior! What in God’s Name are you talking about?”

“I’m dating a guy,” Steve shrugs. He smiles unwittingly as he thinks of Eddie, of all of his qualities, physical and emotional. “He’s really nice. Creative. Kind. Great kisser.”

Richard’s mouth moves without making sound for a few seconds. Steve is still smiling.

“I—I refuse to listen to this. I won’t be made sick in my own house,” Richard says, standing up. He points at the stairs. “Go to your room, Steven.”

Steve hops out of his chair.

“That was easy,” Steve says, stretching to his full height. He feels incredibly tall, light on his feet as he ascends the stairs, not looking back at his muttering, cursing father as he does so.

When he gets to his room, he doesn’t stop to undress. He starts to pack: t-shirts he really likes, jeans he really likes, two sweaters and a jacket. He only has one large bag, but he also has a box of trinkets he’s kept since childhood—things like photos, a pet rock, a book he made in grade school.

The furniture in his room is all brand new. He doesn’t have any sentimental attachment to any of it. He pulls open his drawers, finds a few tapes and notes and baseball cards, which all go in the box. He heads to the en suite bathroom to gather his toiletries.

He wonders where he’ll go.

Robin’s bed is a good overnight crash, because he’s done it a million times—but Ginger and Dave would find out eventually, and the only way he’d be able to stay over with their knowledge is by putting a ring on Robin’s finger. While there are scenarios in which he can see that happening, it won’t be any time soon.

Henderson has offered up his couch, his bed, shit, his cat’s bed? more times than Steve can recall. Mrs. Henderson would be surprised to see him and hear of his troubles—but he can only imagine she’s open minded, with Dustin for a child.

The only parent-type adults who already know about him and don’t seem to care are Chief Hopper and Wayne Munson. What a tempting idea it is to stay at the Munson trailer. He imagines lying in bed next to Eddie, sharing a good night kiss. He gets a little hot thinking about being in bed with Eddie, who’ll cover him with his body and kiss the air out of him. He thinks about waking up next to him and watching him wake up too. He thinks about putting on a black metal band tee shirt after a shower, just to tease Eddie, see how much he’d like it.

He smiles thinking of Eddie. Crossing the room with his duffel slung over one shoulder, he goes for the door handle. It doesn’t budge. On autopilot, he twists his fingers to flip the lock.

He looks down.

The lock is no longer on the inside.

Chapter Text

Steve looks at the knob for a solid minute, considering the implications.

Richard must’ve gotten the call, weighed the options, and decided, not only to take Pastor Carver at face value, but to follow up by locking Steve in his bedroom all within the last few hours.

Steve huffs a laugh.

“Well, shit,” he says.

He lets his duffel slide down his arm and walks to the single window beside his bed, flipping the latch and tucking his fingertips under the sash. There’s a twenty foot drop, straight to the concrete patio, but he needs to at least breathe the night air—if only to clear his head.

The window doesn’t move. Steve tries again. He changes the angle. He tries again.

It doesn’t move.

Steve checks the tracks of the window. He finds screws in the tracks, holding the window closed.

“What the hell,” Steve whispers, “Am I fucking dreaming?”

He listens for footsteps on the stairs, the sound of Richard and his incoming lecture, but there’s nothing.

Steve spins on his heel and looks around. He thinks, why don’t I have any tools in here?

He sighs, looking around. Almost nothing is made of metal. Almost nothing is really here, he thinks, and flops himself down on his bed. Though the adrenaline is coursing through his system, he wills himself to calm down.

I always make stupid decisions when I don’t calm down, he thinks.

Though, sometimes, he makes excellent decisions under stress. He decided that he and Eddie would be better off as boyfriends than as perpetrators. He decided to poke and prod at Eddie’s reserve until he got kissed for it. He decided to stay next to Eddie all night long; he settled into his side and he slept there.

They’re comforting thoughts. He’s got half a boner before he realizes it, thinking about the previous night, being wrestled to the ground before Eddie’s slurred Can I kiss you?

He sighs. It’s going to be a long night.

Steve rises a few times, renewing the search for anything that could unseat the screws from his window. The screws are not only driven in deep, they’re at the most awkward angle. Steve breaks several pens trying to nudge either one of them. He always lies back down in a huff, staring at the ceiling and the still-bright ceiling light.

“Shit,” he says, mouth tacky and dry.

He thumps the pillow, then folds his hands over his chest.

He supposes the first person to notice his absence will be Robin. He doesn’t always pick her up, but it’s always a situation where they assume he will, and discuss it if he won’t. She’ll ask Dustin what’s going on, if she sees him.

Eddie. He never called Eddie.

Steve knows his own reputation. He wonders if Eddie does, too. He doesn’t want Eddie to think about Steve like that, as if Steve doesn’t think about him, think of him as special.

Steve thinks about Eddie all the time.

He did even before this whole mess—was always wondering what Eddie thought of him, what he said about him, when they’d get to see one another again.

It’s when he’s lying there, feeling sorry for himself, that he hears the rock on his window.

He sucks in a breath and sits up in bed.

There’s another rock. He sees it plick off of the window. It’s definitely happening.

“Shit,” Steve says, and scrambles to the windowsill.

It’s Eddie, standing there twenty feet below on the concrete. He looks just as handsome from twenty feet in the air, the patio lights creating sharp contrast on the planes of his face. He’s looking up at Steve’s window, and he’s smiling.

Fuck.

Steve smiles back, puts a hand on the window.

Eddie makes a motion for him to open the window.

Steve tries, visibly.

He mouths, “locked in!” but Eddie’s face is all confusion.

Steve looks around at the window, the ledge, the latches. He wonders whether he should just break it.

And then he remembers Nancy’s lipstick. He’d kept it around for sentimentality’s sake—she’d left it here one night, a nice deep berry pink.

Now it’s a tool, he thinks.

He doesn’t bother with words, knowing that it would be difficult to write backward. He draws a big lock, a key. He shakes his head dramatically, waving his hands as if to say “not a chance”.

Eddie nods, backs up. He stands there for a few beats, looking up. Steve thinks about throwing something through the window, just to get to him. The things in here—something’s gotta be heavy enough.

Eddie blows a kiss. It’s heartwarming, until he walks away.

“Fuck!” Steve grunts through clenched teeth. He’s walked away, just like that. “Fuck!”

Steve throws himself on the bed. What to even do? The baseball, basketball trophies could go through that window, easy, he thinks. Then what? Launch himself through broken glass to the concrete patio, twenty feet below?

“Fuck,” Steve says to himself, hot with frustration. “Fuck, fuck fuck.”

To make matters worse, Richard is awake. Steve can hear the stirring at the end of the hall, the creak of the floorboards, and Steve will absolutely get a lecture about the noise, the time, the way he’s been given this second chance just to behave like an insolent child.

A tear slips from one of his eyes, toward his hairline, and he knows Richard will see his red eyes, the fact that he’s been crying. His chest starts to heave, silently shaking his body, his bed. There’s nothing to do but suffer through it.

He sits up, sniffing to swallow his tears.

“Fuck,” he says, and blinks to clear his vision.

As the lock clicks to announce his father’s arrival, Steve braces his shoulders, sterns his facial features.

And in walks Eddie Munson. He’s wearing jeans and heavy boots, his leather jacket and denim vest. His hair is a mess around his pale face.

Steve stares at him with wide eyes and open mouth. Eddie slowly starts to smile, his teeth exposed and white.

“Princess,” he says, “You don’t have a lattice.”

Steve laughs, throwing a hand over his mouth. A tear falls from his right eye.

“Baby,” Eddie says, his face creasing with concern, “You’re crying?”

Steve stands and with a few quick strides, throws himself onto Eddie’s body. Eddie allows his arms to fold around Steve, his face finding Steve’s neck and shoulder. Steve squeezes his eyes shut, allowing the last of the tears to slip through. He can’t say anything, his throat thick with mucus and tension. Eddie lifts his feet off of the ground, for just a moment. Eddie smells like the outside, the winter air and dry leaves.

When Steve pulls back, he intends to say something impactful. The feelings are there for it; he wants to declare something, to make the moment.

But that’s Eddie’s job, right now. Eddie looks at him and his eyes sparkle with joy; he’s smiling like he can’t stop and it’s taking up the whole of his bright, beautiful face.

Eddie sets him down, his arms loosening. He looks all around Steve’s face, both eyes, his mouth. He holds Steve by his neck, his jaw, his face; his fingers are cold and the pads of his fingertips are rough and broad.

Steve closes his eyes, thinking he might cry again, when Eddie kisses him, his mouth relaxed and warm. Steve’s heart might burst in his chest. The nerves of the moment have given way; blood floods his limbs and heart and with it the knowledge that he’s leaving this house behind—and when he does, Eddie’s hand will be in his.

“Let’s get out of here?” Eddie asks. Steve can only nod.

Eddie takes up Steve’s duffel.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Steve cracks.

Eddie shrugs, “I live to serve, my lady.”

Steve, box under his arm, holds Eddie’s hand as he leads him to the front door.

And so it’s bizarrely anticlimactic, but it’s a moment that feels unreal, imbued with a fairy-tale-type glitter and shine. The air is crisp and cold as they load Steve’s things into his car, and Steve doesn’t want to let go of Eddie’s hand to allow him into his own van, but he’s comforted by the idea that they don’t have to discuss where they’re headed.

Steve doesn’t bother with his things as he follows Eddie inside the trailer. They walk hand in hand, straight toward the bedroom, where the clutter and darkness already feel something like home. Eddie’s mouth is cold when Steve kisses him, his lips broad and perfect. He smiles against Steve’s face.

“You told Dustin you don’t want it to end,” Eddie says, and Steve huffs a disbelieving laugh.

“That kid—needs to stop spilling the beans whenever he wants to—”

“Did you mean it?” Eddie asks. The vulnerability is there, just enough for Steve to see.

Steve nods. He says, “I think I always meant it.”

Eddie seems surprised, “Yeah?”

“You know what I mean,” Steve says, smiling, his face hot, his arms around Eddie’s neck. He tightens himself around Eddie, wanting to feel every bit of the length of his body. He kisses him again.

“Wait,” he says, drawing back to look at Eddie once more, “How did you know what window was mine?”

Eddie shrugs, “I didn’t. I tried the other one first.”

Steve nods, impressed. “That’s fuckin’ brave.”

“It paid off,” Eddie smiles. “I rescued the princess.”

Steve huffs, “Only, Richard Harrington was the dragon.”

“He’s insane,” Eddie says, “He locked you in your room? He didn’t even lock the front door.”

Steve thinks again of Eddie, opening his door and freeing him. Steve thinks of Eddie willing to throw rocks at his window, break into his house, find his room without knowing what could be waiting for him.

Steve takes off his shirt.

Chapter Text

Eddie is looking in wonder at Steve’s naked chest. He walks forward, stepping one foot between Steve’s, his hand rising to hold Steve’s face. Steve wants to melt into it, feel the fibers of his skin mesh with the fibers of Eddie’s. His eyes are closed, his face is lax when Eddie kisses him.

He hums. It’s like the feeling is too much to just be quiet inside of him; he needs to let it out. Eddie kissing him feels like paradise, like somewhere too good for him to be allowed to go. It feels like he wants to do it for hours, for the whole night.

“You’re beautiful,” Eddie says. Steve smiles despite himself. He won’t ever be able to hide his pleasure from Eddie. Eddie says, “I’m gonna sound like a broken record—”

“If it’s about calling me beautiful, you can do that all night,” Steve laughs.

Eddie is quiet for a moment, enough that discomfort starts to creep into the edges of Steve’s consciousness.

“I need to know it’s real,” Eddie says, his tone heavy. “I can’t—I can’t play pretend. Even if it feels really good.”

Steve’s eyes snap open. Eddie’s are soft and dark.

“You saw what the Carvers did to the window,” Eddie says, “Your dad—”

“I’m not going back there,” Steve says, shaking his head. It feels good to say, like he hadn’t fully understood the enormity of the decision until now, and it’s liberating, beautiful in its finality. “I’m not giving this up. I’m not giving you up.”

Eddie looks sorrowful. He says, “If, if you’re straight—”

“I’m not straight,” Steve shakes his head.

“I can’t have this and lose it,” Eddie whispers, his thumb shaking as it brushes Steve’s bottom lip. “I just have to know you’re sure.”

“I’m yours,” Steve says. He can’t help but smile a little, tasting the words in his mouth. “Not just in here. Everywhere.”

Eddie closes his eyes, allows his forehead to rest against Steve’s. The hand that isn’t holding Steve’s face is broad and warm against Steve’s back. He moves it up and down, enough to make Steve shiver.

“Okay?” Steve asks.

“You’re mine?” Eddie asks.

“I’ve been yours,” Steve says. It feels as obvious as clouds in the sky, dirt on the ground. He says, “I don’t really mess around about these things.”

“Good,” Eddie says, and hauls Steve into his arms. Steve yelps with surprise as Eddie pivots them toward the bed.

“I’ve wanted you so bad,” he says, lying Steve over the bed. “You killed me with all of that maybe we should kiss—”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Steve grins.

Eddie cages him in with both arms, settling himself over Steve.

“It drove me to the end of my wits,” Eddie says, “I thought I was going to come just from listening to you talk.”

“Take your pants off,” Steve says, “That sounds like a challenge.”

Eddie is kissing him all over, laving over his neck and his chest, his shoulders and all down his arms.

“Eddie,” Steve says, trying to beckon him closer to his own face. “Let me—“

Eddie presses a wide, flat hand over his sternum, holding him down with a stare.

“Just—lie there,” Eddie says, “and take it.”

Steve nods with a swallow, says, “yeah, okay.”

Eddie is at his stomach, pressing his face to what softness he can find, breathing in, running his nose along the hair of it. He holds Steve’s hips, which makes him think—

“Will you—touch me there?”

“Where?” Eddie asks, and pressing fingers over his groin, “here?”

“Or here?” Eddie asks, and his hand descends between Steve’s legs, behind his balls, finding the firm sensitivity of his asshole.

“Yeah,” Steve says, a tiny gasp, “that one.”

“Yeah, I’ll touch you baby,” Eddie says, and unfastens Steve’s belt, works Steve’s jeans and underwear out from under his ass.

Steve feels more naked than he’s ever felt. He’s intimately aware of every inch of his skin, hypersensitive to Eddie’s fingertips.

“Damn,” Eddie says, sitting back on his heels.

Steve gestures with arms wide. “Like what you see?”

Eddie grins, looking out from under his brow. He looks almost conniving, plotting. He crawls forward, supporting himself on his hands, and licks Steve’s cock, a wet, broad lathe that has Steve jumping. Before Steve can compliment him, Steve’s dick is in his mouth—feels like it’s entirely in Eddie’s mouth, though that’s probably because one of Eddie’s hands is keeping the base warm.

“Oh, oh, fuck,” he gasps, his hand finding its way to Eddie’s hair.

“You taste so good,” Eddie says, and dives back down, holding Steve’s hips and ass in both hands. He draws back, a string of spit following him, which is when Steve realizes: he’s drooling for me.

“You sure you haven’t done this before?”

“Think I would remember,” Eddie says, then, “Let me see.” He flattens himself against the bed, slipping down, down, to nose at Steve’s balls, inhale at the crease of his thigh. He groans.

No one has ever enjoyed themselves this much with their head in Steve’s lap, that’s for sure.

Suddenly, he feels fingertips on the flesh of his ass. Through the thicket of his hair, Eddie is touching him. Steve inhales with a shudder, torn between propping himself on his elbows to stare at Eddie’s naked back and shoulders, and collapsing on the bed to close his eyes and just feel.

“Can’t believe you want me to touch you here,” Eddie says.

“Want you to touch me everywhere,” Steve slurs. He feels high, melting into the surface of the bed. He feels Eddie’s nose and mouth touching the flesh of his ass, knows that Eddie is looking at him.

“I’m so lucky,” Eddie says, just as low and relaxed as Steve feels, “look at you.”

“Hmm?” Steve hums.

“You’re perfect everywhere.”

Steve feels him prop himself up, and then there’s a fingertip—feeling different from the other fingertips, it’s wet, Steve realizes—at his hole.

“Is that spit?” Steve asks.

“Something different,” Eddie says, “more slippery.”

“It’s good,” Steve says.

Eddie doesn’t have as much trouble putting a finger in Steve’s hole. In fact, it slides in easily, though it feels huge, like the whole of Steve’s world is concentrated around that one finger.

Steve can’t help but touch himself. Thinking about Eddie down there, looking at him, feeling him somewhere no one’s ever felt him, and he’s so good, so special and all belonging to Steve.

“Shit, baby,” Eddie says, and Steve can feel that he’s staring, his breathing getting heavier as he watches.

“Tell me why you,” Steve starts, “Tell me why you went to my window.”

“You said you’d call,” Eddie says, staring at him, “you didn’t call.” Eddie kisses his hip, the crease where his thigh meets his body. He takes his finger out, puts two in. Steve can tell it’s more; the pressure is intense and seems to be grabbing his dick from the inside, making him feel more than he’s ever felt.

“And then you had to break into my house,” Steve laughs.

“And I got my princess,” Eddie says, a gentle laugh. Steve can feel a shaking of the bed that indicates that Eddie’s jerking off, and the idea is hot enough that Steve’s hand stutters. Eddie’s hand is moving smoothly, slipping expertly in and out of Steve.

“I’m gonna come,” Steve says, doesn’t even have to work for it; he can feel it already happening, coming upon him like a storm, he says, “I’m gonna come, Eddie—”

“Please,” Eddie says, and Steve comes with one hand in Eddie’s hair, holding Eddie’s head against him.

Chapter Text

Eddie gets a warm washcloth. He’s lost his shirt and pants. He’s washed his hands, and he returns just as tall and pale and gorgeous as he was when he left, backlit by the fluorescent hallway light.

Steve shivers a little when Eddie cleans him, and when he feels the touch of Eddie’s warm skin against his.

Eddie settles against him and pulls a blanket around them, and Steve moans happily. Eddie laughs silently and draws Steve in close to him, kissing his cheek, his temple, his forehead. Steve didn’t realize it was possible to like the smell of someone’s breath, but Eddie’s has a unique quality he can’t pin down, like moss and grass but sweeter.

“How was it?” Eddie asks.

“Hmm?”

“The fingers,” Eddie says, “Good?”

A laugh sputters out of him. “Good, he says.”

Steve is close enough that he hears Eddie’s lips pull over his teeth when he smiles.

“I want you to feel good,” Eddie says.

Steve tucks his leg between Eddie’s, his arm around his chest, burrowing closer. He shudders with the pleasure of it, wanting to dig in and grow roots.

“More than good,” Steve says. “It’s like… you found a new way to come.”

“A new way?” Eddie laughs, “like, different?”

“More than different. So much better,” Steve says, “I didn’t think it could get any better than just, y’know, coming. Well, you know.”

“Uh,” Eddie says.

“Wait. You don’t?” Steve asks. “How did you know—”

“I just—did what I wanted,” Eddie shrugs.

“So you’ve never tried it on yourself?”

Eddie shakes his head. Steve lies his head back down on Eddie’s chest.

He muses, “I can’t wait until we can fit your dick in there.”

Eddie squeezes around Steve’s shoulder blades. “Holy hell, Steve. The way you just—say shit.”

“Not good?” Steve asks. He has all the energy of a jackrabbit. “I can settle down.”

“Please don’t settle down,” Eddie laughs. “The things you say—I’m not going to last very long. When we can finally—make the beast with two backs.”

“What?” Steve pulls his head up, laughs, “The beast with two backs?”

“Shh,” Eddie laughs, pulling Steve against him. “I’m saying, It’s going to feel so good—”

“How soon do you think? You got what, two fingers in?” Steve asks.

“What do you think?” Eddie asks, “How did it feel?”

“Good,” Steve says, surprising himself with his honesty when he says, “It wasn’t too much. Not at all.”

“Oh.”

“Do you think we could do it tonight?” Steve asks, and Eddie laughs.

“I don’t know. You were pretty tight,” Eddie shrugs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t think you could hurt me,” Steve says.

“You don’t think my dick is big enough to hurt you?”

Steve smacks Eddie’s chest. “Fuck you man, that’s not what I meant.”

“Fuck me?” Eddie asks, “I suppose that could be next. If you want.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Steve asks, his face twisted in disgust.

Eddie barks a laugh, “I don’t know, I seem to remember someone having some experience in that area—”

“No I mean,” Steve says, “Then you couldn’t fuck me. Unless you could, somehow? No, it wouldn’t work. I mean, maybe on your birthday. If you really want.”

“We’re going to be together on my birthday?” Eddie asks, a sort of softness to his speech that Steve relishes, that makes his heart warm.

“Would that be good?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “When’s your birthday?”

“When’s yours?”

And so they talk that way, favorite foods and TV and childhood toys, until they’re kissing again, and they’re grinding against one another, and Steve begs for Eddie’s hands inside of him so that he can come in this new and different way that he knows he’ll need from Eddie from now on. They fall asleep drenched and warm with each other, with spit and come and sweat, then have a morning shower after too few hours of sleep, and come with one another again.

“I’m gonna need to pick up Robin,” Steve says, skin still wet, between desperate, searching kisses. Eddie’s hands are on his ribs, and if he keeps pulling from Steve’s mouth like this, he’s going to need to come again.

“I wanna be inside of you,” Eddie says, “Even if it’s just my hands.”

“God damn it,” Steve says, with a smile, because it’s a kind of failure of will power that feels too good to be wrong.

So he ends up on his chest, ass in the air in Eddie’s bed. Eddie’s three fingers are stretching the rim of his asshole as they slide, slippery, in and out. Steve’s hands are lazily pulling at his dick because he doesn’t want to come yet, doesn’t want it to be over.

His face is lax, his cheek pressed into the bed and his eyes closed in a kind of comatose bliss he didn’t realize he could feel, and yet he’s yearning for more; he wants to feel all of Eddie’s skin against him, his hips, his back, his legs. He wants Eddie’s dick in him, fucking him, making him feel this way, making him see stars.

“I want your dick in me,” he says, slurred from his position on the bed. “Please, Eddie.”

“We’ll get there,” Eddie says.

“Please, Eddie,” Steve begs.

“Baby,” Eddie says, his forehead coming to rest against Steve’s hip. “I can’t hurt you.”

“That’s right,” Steve says, “You can’t. Eddie, please put it in me, Eddie—”

“Fuck,” Eddie says, and Steve cheers internally, smiling like the cat with the cream when Eddie’s knees move on the bed, on either side of his thighs. His hands pull Steve’s ass apart, and Steve moans with the feeling of being exposed and examined.

“Beautiful,” Eddie says, and presses the round and full head of his dick to Steve’s asshole.

Steve moans, loud, just at the feeling of being touched with Eddie’s dick.

“I want it,” he says.

“I know,” Eddie says, “Tell me if it hurts.”

A moan cracks through Steve’s chest as Eddie pushes in. It’s large and all encompassing and Steve feels more full than he’s ever been.

“How’s that?” Eddie asks.

“It’s big,” Steve says.

“You keep saying,” Eddie says. Steve laughs with the joy of it. Eddie’s legs are touching his, and the tip of his dick is inside of Steve.

“More,” Steve says. Eddie hisses as his dick slips further in.

“Fuck, baby,” he says, gripping Steve’s hips with an iron strength. Steve wonders if he’ll have bruises.

“Please fuck me,” Steve whines, though it hurts, wanting the fullness to become the most it can be.

“You’re perfect,” Eddie says, beginning to draw out and press in again, sliding the slickness of the lube further and further in. “You’re mine?”

“All yours,” Steve groans as the last of Eddie’s dick slips inside of him, as he feels Eddie’s hips against his ass.

Eddie fucks him slow, allowing his hole to stretch to accommodate him, allowing Steve to breathe through the pressure, to relax consciously around his dick. He’s concentrating hard enough to last several minutes, until Steve begs to be fucked, and pushes back against him to meet every movement.

“Can I come in you?” Eddie asks, and Steve groans again, wanting it badly enough to hurt.

“Please,” he begs, and the feeling of Eddie pulsing inside of him, of his dick jumping when it comes, is enough to make him come just as fast. The pulsing of his asshole around Eddie’s dick is like the encore of his orgasm, pushing it through to a higher level.

He passes out. Eddie doesn’t make it to school that day.

The next morning, Steve manages to pick Robin up from her house on time.

“Look who made it down the hill,” Robin says, throwing her things in ahead of her. “Boy, you’re looking sunshiney today.”

“Good morning Robin, light of my life, crown jewel of my heart,” Steve says, “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

“Oh my God,” Robin groans, “Please, whatever it is, spare me the unholy details.”

“Birds singing, sun shining—”

“The sun isn’t up yet. It’s winter.”

“The sun shines in my heart, Robin!” Steve yells.

The sun rises, too, against the backdrop of a yellow and red sky, as the two of them meander the hills and Steve pointedly jokes around the loss of his second virginity, as he’s calling it.

Robin says through her teeth, “Virginity is a patriarchal construct meant to—”

“Be happy for me, Robin, for I’m a grown woman now—”

“I’m going to strangle you in your sleep,” Robin says.

When Steve and Robin pull up to the school, the light has crowned the trees, illuminating the sleepy souls who trail toward the school building. Steve parks and leaves the car, looking around for Eddie, who had to bring his van for purposes of chauffeuring several smaller nerds from his Dungeons and Dragons group, the aptly named Hellfire Club.

Before he can pinpoint Eddie, a smiling young man with perfectly coiffed blonde hair approaches him. He’s so caught on finding Eddie that he barely recognizes Jason Carver.

“Steve Harrington,” Jason says, his voice too deep for the boy that Steve remembers.

“Oh,” Steve says, and his near-automatic smile doesn’t quite kick in. “Carver.”

“Robin,” Jason nods toward her, and Robin’s face twists in confusion. Robin is clearly unacquainted, but knows who Jason is.

“Where’s Chrissy?” Robin asks, and Jason’s smile almost doesn’t falter. It flickers just quickly enough, his silence just a touch too long.

“Some of us have been unlucky in love,” Jason says, his head cocked to the side. “I see the two of you are going strong. How many months is it, that you’ve been driving her to school, Steve?”

Steve looks on in confusion. Jason seems to be implying—

Jason laughs, just purposefully and just quietly enough. He says, “That’s funny, I heard you were seeing someone else. Unless that happened to be? some ridiculous cover story...?”

Steve stares at him, his eyebrows pressed together, unsure of how to clarify this misunderstanding.

Luckily, just over Jason’s shoulder approaches a face that Steve adores, a face that he looked into just this morning as he had the best orgasm of his life, for the tenth orgasm running.

Steve says, “Yep, there he is.”

Eddie says, “Hey, baby.”

Later, Steve will be impressed with this moment. It’s the kind of moment he imagines he’ll tell his children and grandchildren about, however they may exist.

Their bodies seem to move in perfect synchronicity. Eddie’s arms encircle Steve’s waist. Steve reaches for Eddie’s neck, and his upper back dips at the perfect angle. Steve swoons, actually swoons, and he indulges in the sense of adoration he feels from Eddie.

They have the kind of public kiss Steve has always wanted to have. It’s one that says: you’re mine, and I’m yours, and I want everyone in this godforsaken place to know exactly the terms of our possession. I want everyone to see the way our bodies and mouths and lives fit together.

Robin says, “Jesus.”

Gareth, who’d ridden in Eddie’s van, starts to clap.

Mike Wheeler, who was trying to approach Eddie about the game, stops in his tracks and almost gets hit by a car.

Max Mayfield frowns in a disbelief that becomes a nod of understanding and support.

Jason Carver turns and walks away, unsure of how he’ll save face with no girlfriend and no plan to save his brother from his ex-girlfriend’s charges.

Eddie Munson grips the waist, bites the lip, and holds the heart of his boyfriend.