Chapter Text

You're Divine

Chapter Eight

“Surrender”

Held him close,
He kept me closer,
A tender spark began to fill.
The room with light,
And we were happy for the day,
To start again, with nothing planned.  

- Briana Marela

Steve thinks it’s all a bit muddled.

He’s been awake for a while now. He’s sat comfortably on the squishy sofa with Max and Robin, both of whom are still asleep. There’s a blanket over them all.

He knows who put it there.

And when he first woke up, he wasn’t sure if his dreams had been good or bad. He couldn’t quite put the feeling together. Bittersweet on a scale unlike anything he’s felt and the essence of it is overall something quiet, it’s soft. Dreams about worlds and shapes and people and moments, things that could have happened but didn't.

Steve doesn’t want to go back to sleep yet because he’s waiting for someone. The person whose absence stands out, always. The person he needs, loves, is.

He’s waiting for Eddie to come back, thinks he’s outside somewhere. Thinks his boyfriend is talking to the skies again, like he did before. It makes him smile, makes him warm inside.

His dreams were chaotic and soft and he felt cradled throughout each one. Steve feels like he lost a friend, but everyone he loves is still here, so maybe it was someone he made up. Weird, doesn’t make sense, but there’s no mistaking the feeling in his chest.

Eddie comes inside quietly, brings the night air with him. Cool scent of things Steve can’t quantify, but he just knows his boyfriend was outside.

Steve leans back so he can smile at his boyfriend as he walks behind the sofa. Eddie will always be the most gorgeous fucking thing Steve’s ever seen.

Like he never saw true black before and now Eddie’s shown it to him, he’s wild for it. Contrast, darkness, he is the meaning of the colour; the attraction, the nature of it. Eddie coming into any room instantly makes that room better.

Steve smiles up at him, so very fucking gone.

Eddie rests his hands on the back of the sofa, looking at Steve upside down. ‘Hey, Sunshine,’ he whispers, mindful of those around them who are sleeping. His hair is tied back and all the signs are there that he needs sleep, Steve can tell, but he’s just… he’s Eddie Munson.

He is the colour black.

He’s every fucking feeling in the world that makes Steve want to bite his lip.

He asks, ‘You OK?’

Steve reaches up, taps his cheek three times.

Eddie chuckles, captures Steve’s fingertips between his teeth before they can slip away. He bends lower, keeping what he caught and sucking the fingers deeper, tongue swirling. It’s sweet and affectionate and Steve wants to crawl inside him and live there forever.

‘Eddie,’ he sighs.

It’s saying a lot, it’s a single name in place of so much he wants to say, but he doesn’t need to say any of it. Eddie knows, he gets it, feels it too. They’re the same, they can share. Steve laughs quietly as Eddie pretends to actually eat Steve’s hand; it’s gross and it’s chaste and it’s doing nothing for his ability to get back to sleep, but he doesn’t mind. His dreams were strange. They were weird and beautiful and he’s left with a sense of longing for someone he never knew, so he’s happy to have Eddie play with him the way they play best.

Mouths. Spit. Smiles. Laughter. Love.

Presence.

Attention.

God, the fucking attention.

To be the focal point of someone’s whole world.

To be the first and only choice, every single time.

To be the one they would follow anywhere.

To be in this moment, right now.

With his fingers in Eddie Munson’s mouth, to be silly for no reason, to feel him, to be there with him.

Steve can’t put it all into words.

And he doesn’t have to.

Because Eddie gets it. He sucks his fingers, bites Steve’s thumb just a tiny bit harder before it leaves his mouth and then he takes hold of Steve’s face for a yin and yang kiss that says everything.

Steve is looking up and Eddie is looking down and they are kissing while everyone sleeps and Steve smiles into it, he parts his lips and licks his way inside the place he loves.

The phantom dream dissolves, the weird feeling melts away.

‘Stevie,’ Eddie mutters, rubbing his lips back and forth as they do sometimes. ‘My Stevie.’

Steve’s eyes flutter shut.

His fingers are damp and they have chew marks in them and his boyfriend is rubbing his scent and his spit over him like lipstick. Absolutely nothing is going to happen because Steve isn’t dislodging the girls for anything and Eddie knows that. They’re just playing, greeting, making joy wherever and however they like.

Things are still muddled for Steve, yeah.

There’s a disconnect between his internal monologue and his ability to process it verbally. His dreams are vivid and somehow murky. They haven’t really talked about anything yet and they need to. They really need to and they will.

But one thing in Steve Harrington’s life just then is crystal fucking clear.

He loves this man way too much.

*

Eddie sleeps with his back against Steve’s legs, sat on the floor in front of the sofa and Steve’s not even going to complain because he fell asleep while petting Eddie’s hair and when he wakes the next day, his fingers are still there. In soft wavy curls, dark chestnut spill that Eddie let Steve take out of the scrunchy to play with.

The kids on the floor are waking up too, they look over.

Dustin smiles and then grimaces happily.

‘They’re so gross,’ he declares.

*

Steve’s eating breakfast, he’s got toast and coffee and it’s noisy, chaotic. His house has become the house. The place where people drive to for breakfast, it’s headquarters.

Maybe that won’t last. Maybe it’s just for now, but he thinks he doesn’t mind. He’ll enjoy it while it lasts and if it fades away again, that’s OK too.

‘So the kids can’t have coffee?’ Eddie repeats with a mild squint, gesturing to the coffee machine. He’s playing it up, knows children shouldn’t have coffee and he knows exactly how Steve will react. It’s pantomime, it’s like twirling Steve around in the kitchen to that fucking song. It’s over the top and silly and completely unnecessary, but the kids eat it up.

Steve is so happy to let Eddie be the fun one.

He’s not really thinking too much about how the last few days have been for everyone, but he can tell, without having asked yet, that it was brutal.

‘We can so have coffee!’ Mike complains loudly, outraged. ‘You let us have it in hospital!’

Steve cocks a brow, lips pursed. Playing, pretending, being the still point so Eddie can twirl, for once.

Eddie glares at Mike. ‘What is wrong with you, Wheeler? Don’t you have any survival instincts, huh?’

He gets hold of Mike’s head, arm-lock time and Steve observes it all calmly, happily. Lucas and Dustin try to rescue their friend, but it’s a trap and Eddie has them all now. Steve sips his coffee, watches over the rim of his cup as the fight moves to the floor.

It’s strange, not really normal for kids their age to be so playful, or maybe it is and Steve just had a really fucked up teen era.

Whatever, regardless, he thinks it’s wonderful that three idiotic teens are currently trying to playfully defeat Eddie for no reason at all.

Be the fun one, the carefree one, let me take care of you too, Steve thinks. He looks at Max, sat beside him.

She’s with him a lot. Steve has decided it’s good. Her Mom is gone. That’s a huge, awful fucking thing and Steve knows she hasn’t really started to process it yet. He thinks proximity and presence are good things for her, for everyone. He thinks the sight of Dustin getting elbowed in the face by Lucas accidentally is excellent.

Because it makes her smile.

Steve has Max, El and Will with him at the island. He’s got the sweet three and Eddie has the noisy morons and Steve loves every single one of them.

‘Little fuckers,’ Eddie snickers, ducking free. ‘I was trying to give you coffee!’

But everyone’s forgotten about the coffee already, except for Steve, who is subtly sharing his with Max because she can have whatever the fuck she likes in this world.

Eleven asks Steve, ‘What was it like inside Eddie?’ out of nowhere. He looks over at her, unable to hide his surprise.

‘Hmm?’

‘He carried you back inside him,’ she says, matter of fact in a way he adores. ‘Your soul. He said you were golden, like the sun. Do you remember what it was like inside him?’

Robin comes down from the bathroom, towel drying her hair, dressed in what are definitely The Good Jeans that Eddie and Steve share (they are excellent jeans) and a baggy tee.

She catches the tail end of that question. Her eyes go wide, jaw dropping and Steve shoots her a, no, obviously not, kind of look before he returns his attention to El.

He wants to say, ‘Is that what happened? He carried me back here inside his body?’ and he wants to look over at Eddie, say, ‘Hey, boyfriend, is that true? You carried me inside your body because that’s the first I’m hearing of it?’

And he wants to see Eddie get briefly flustered as the swell of everything they haven’t talked about widens drastically, because Steve kind of loves it when Eddie’s flustered, when he frets.

He can’t, though.

He can’t process it into speech, it’s like a dam trying to flood through a straw. There’s only so much room and so what comes out is a bare trickle compared to the complex conversation he wants to engage in.

‘Can’t remember,’ he says with a warm, it’s all OK, smile.

That gets Dustin’s attention. ‘What do you remember? Like, could you write it down?’ He gets a notepad from a pile of papers nearby. ‘Do you remember how to write?’

‘Jesus, Dustin,’ Max complains. ‘You are the last person who should ever have coffee. It’s eight fifteen!’

 Eddie sets down the final plates of breakfast. Steve scans what he made, wonders why there’s no pancakes before…

Before he remembers.

Steve swallows very carefully, doesn’t let it show.

But Eddie, who can smell his feelings, catches his eye quickly. The gaze holds, a silent thing that asks, ascertains, reads and before Eddie can react, Robin neatly snatches the notepad away, plonks herself down at the island and loudly announces, ‘Vickie dumped me!’

*

Steve’s having a very mild panic attack.

That’s what he tells himself, that’s what he allows himself to call it, to think of it. He wedges the word mild in there, lets himself acknowledge what is happening, so long as it’s quantified minimally.

It’s not the kids fault. None of this is.

Horrible, awful things happened.

Steve was present for some of it.

He was inside, watching from behind a wall that may as well have been another world for how thick it was, as he ground up broken glass into powder and added a teaspoon of it to Eleven’s pancake mix, making sure to cook each one evenly, make them golden brown. No chocolate chips, but broken shards of glass.

He remembers the moment Eddie spilled his blood over them. He remembers thinking I knew it, in a smug, patronising manner, deciding to take full control of Eddie and just be done.

He’s remembering all of it.

Steve is remembering the fucking bathroom.

The door. Eddie on his knees, saying stop.

Exactly where Steve is right now.

It’s a mild panic attack because he’s just sitting there, knees to his chest, arms around them.

The door is locked.

He’s breathing.

He’s alive.

Everyone is.

Mild.

Downstairs, Robin is being consoled, she’s taken up all the attention and Steve could cry he’s so grateful. He knows he only has matter of seconds before someone (Eddie, he thinks) will follow.

The knock is quiet.

‘Baby?’

Steve’s throat is full of all the words he can’t get out, it’s full of horror and shame and guilt and fear. Steve is drowning in the bad and he can’t breathe, let alone answer, but he gets one hand free from the death grip around his knees and taps three times.

‘Can I come in?’

One tap.

‘Can I stay?’

Three taps.

There’s a beat of silence before he hears Eddie sitting down; the drag of his back against the door, this wooden divide between them.

‘OK. Just gonna hang out. I’m right here, baby.’ Steve cries quietly, barely feels it over the compression in his chest, the ache in his ribs, the stretch of his heart. ‘It was the pancakes? Or… lack?’

Three taps.

Steve has his head in one arm, resting on his raised knees. He’s trying to breathe, everything’s kind of wobbly. Mild might have undersold it, a bit.

‘Sweetheart,’ Eddie says. It’s level and kind, but there’s something stern in it. ‘If you pass out, I’m gonna have to break the door down. Could you… just reach up and unlock it?’

Controlling his breathing, Steve does as Eddie asked. His fingers are shaking horribly, he feels small and useless and he wants to shrink until he’s nothing, but he won’t.

He just has to ride it out.

Eddie hears the click. ‘Thank you. Can I do anything?’

Steve thinks, considers. It’s all one thought at a time, his mind is processing things the way Steve feels like he’s breathing through a fucking drinking straw. Tunnel vision, the world swallowed whole by the residual bad, no matter how dead the source is.

Two taps.

‘Whatever you need, baby, you know it’s yours. Can you ask?’

One tap.

‘You want me to guess?’

He’s so patient. So level. Steve’s hand is trembling, his body feels like it’s trying to force dry death on him. His heart is breaking.

Three taps.

Eddie won’t be angry. He won’t be cruel. He won’t lose his temper and leave, irritated.

‘Do you want me to come inside and be with you but not touch you?’

And he got it in one.

Steve exhales, relieved.

Three taps.

Eddie pushes the door slowly, carefully, with no expectation of Steve moving. He slides through the narrow gap permitted and then closes it. Steve can’t look up. Eddie walks across, sits on the floor and says nothing.

He’s just there.

Can I be with you? Steve had asked once, when Eddie needed to go somewhere high, when his skin split and new bones grew out of him and Little Bit came out to play and love and mate. Steve had just wanted to be near.

Present.

‘Glass,’ he utters after a few minutes. It’s a whisper wrought in heavy, difficult things. It’s all he can get out.

‘I know,’ Eddie simply says. ‘Little Bit knew, he caught that fucker out at every turn.’

That fucker.

It doesn’t feel that way.

The divide, the wall between consciousness as it had existed then, is dissolving. Steve is remembering these things as if he had done them, conscious choices of a true monster sinking into processed memory like sand drifting back down to the ocean floor.

But he tries to take hold of what Eddie’s offering, a lifeline he desperately needs.

‘Little Bit,’ he echoes, smiling to himself, face wet with tears, skin numb and tingly. ‘Glad. Love you.’

Eddie sighs, says, ‘Love you too, Stevie. It’s gonna pass. I’m right here. Everything’s gonna be OK.’

He makes no reference of the last time Steve said that.

It’ll come, they both know it’s coming, but for now, Steve just wants to be able to breathe. He wants air in his body and gravity and to stop feeling like he’s gonna throw up.

‘Sorry,’ Steve says when he can take in deeper breaths, slower. It leaves him dizzy, getting what he needs. ‘Sorry.’

He is.

He’s so fucking sorry, it guts him.

‘Those kids are safe and they’re annoying and they’re down there right now.’

Steve slowly lifts his gaze, knows he must look a fucking wreck.

Eddie’s just there. Six feet between them. He’s sitting with his knee against his chest, the other leg stretched out.

His hair is loose and he’s watching Steve calmly, like everything really is OK.

‘I…’

It won’t come.

None of it.

It’s all stuck.

Eddie’s jaw works and a subtle shift of his expression speaks of pain, just a flash.

‘That wasn’t you, Steve. That would never, ever be you and I’m just… if it had happened, it would have been both of us that was…’ He clears his throat, lip curling ever so slightly. ‘Violated.’

It’s an awful word. There’s only one worse for what nearly happened. Steve watches him, he drinks in the sight of him, even in this horrible moment where they’re almost talking.

Steve wants to tell him that he saw Eddie’s face when he said stop, that he could feel his despair when he thought no one was coming to check. He wants to apologise over and over until Eddie kisses him to shut him the fuck up and then he wants…

He wants Eddie to make it better. In a new way.

It’s a strange realisation. Not unsettling, but… definitely new.

Eddie looks back at Steve, line between his brows.

‘What?’ He can smell it, he scents every feeling Steve has. ‘What do you want, baby?’

Steve can’t ask for it. He thinks he couldn’t ask for it even if he had full mastery of his tongue. It’s not the time, but he does want it.

Eddie cocks his head with a frown, genuinely curious now, trying to read Steve deeply.

‘You smell like…’

Then he blinks. Surprise irons out the confusion, but it’s mild. It’s nothing like Steve’s panic attack, slowly abating.

‘Oh. Yeah. Not now, though,’ he says, as if they’re having an actual conversation. Steve nods, shaky and grateful and too far gone to do anything beyond accept that Eddie is sort of reading his mind at this point, or like. Reading his blood, the language of his scent as it radiated from his skin, filtered through his stupid heart. ‘If that’s… if you mean that. We can, of course we can, we talked about it before. Just… not now.’

Steve manages a shaky smile, rolls his eyes.

No shit, not now.

Eddie cracks a grin, seems fluent in this language. ‘I never know with you, baby boy. You’re high maintenance.’ He sobers. ‘Later, I promise. After we talk.’

Steve looks down, frowns.

He hates that he can’t talk when they need to.

‘Hey,’ Eddie says gently. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

Steve gets it. He’s still thinking about before. About this door, this place, the floor. Their house, their space.

He wants to exorcise it.

Everything bad.

And it makes him realise… he doesn’t really know… anything. About the time he wasn’t here. Like, the kids told him the movie version yesterday, they gave him the bold, beautiful underline, but he doesn’t even know how that fucking thing died.

The first thing he needs to ask, as they sit on cold tile, space between them, is, ‘Vecna?’

Eddie blinks. It’s not quite that he shutters his expression, but to a degree, he steels himself.

‘I killed him,’ he tells Steve, who waits, wants to know more. ‘I uh. I let everything choose what form they could take. I let everything be like it wanted to be and he uh, he took human form, I think. And I killed him. With my hands.’ His throat bobs. ‘On the beach.’

And Steve is staring at him fully now. No more hiding, his arms aren’t clinging for dear life, his nails aren’t digging dents into his skin.

Eddie stares back, pale and uncertain for the first time since Steve opened his eyes in Max’s old bed. Gauging Steve’s reaction, feeling him out.

He’s nervous.

Steve blinks, really looks at the man he loves.

There is, he realises, so much more than the space currently between them. There’s a gap. Missed time, lost time, and Steve is so resentful of even a single second stolen, but in that time when he wasn’t there, things happened and Steve only knows the cliffnotes version.

Eddie’s hurt too.

It’s more than being mad at each other. It’s so much worse than their dumb fucking choices made in the heat of the moment.

Eddie’s got bad inside him the same as Steve and Steve doesn’t know why he hasn’t realised it until now. Coming very slowly back into the world, one thought at a time, he was just happy to be there at first.

In the space of this realisation, Eddie has looked away again. His expression screws tight, nose wrinkling with faint traces of disgust and anger, heavy things he’s carrying alone.

Steve shifts to kneel, then pushes forward.

‘Baby.’

Eddie shakes his head, smiling like Steve didn’t see the crack. Like he can tell Steve he killed a human being with his hands and just shrug it off.

‘No, look, I. Fuck. I know it’s fucking gross. I know that. I said I’d never kill anyone and…’ His laugh is frail, weak. It threatens to snap beneath the pressure.

‘Baby,’ Steve says sternly. For god’s sake, this is when he needs to say things, to use full sentences. To stop this stupid ass shit, to shut him up. ‘Eddie.’

Eddie looks over, he’s… oh god, he’s scared.

Steve crawls across the cold tile, leaves the door behind and he pulls Eddie into his arms. Graceless, clumsy because ow the tiles hurt his knees, he half falls into Eddie, who catches him, who hugs Steve in return, gripping him tight.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispers, it’s all wet and wretched. ‘I’m so sorry, this is about you and—’

Steve kisses him.

He kisses him to shut him up, to end this train of thought.

He’s in Eddie’s lap and he is shaking still, adrenaline pure fucking him up, but he is not having this.

It’s deep and fierce, crushing their mouths together and Steve has both hands on Eddie’s face, slightly higher by simple virtue of where he sits, where he thinks he belongs.

‘You,’ he says, in between kisses. ‘Are.’ Kiss. ‘Perfect.’ Kiss.

Steve is going to kiss him forever, he decides.

Because it’s warm and it feels like sunlight bathing his insides. It is strength and the vitality of the present moment, however strange or brief. To share kisses, to make intimacy, to share all the things they love to share. Wet, hot, love me until I forget my name, love me to the centre of my being and then live there.

Eddie lets out a tiny sob, eyes screwing tight.

Steve kisses his tears, lips painted with salt.

‘Perfect,’ he says again, gently shaking his face for emphasis, to prompt. ‘Perfect?’

‘Steve, don’t.’

Steve’s gonna, though.

‘Say it,’ he demands softly, kissing down Eddie’s face, just making trails. Making footprints of wet warmth and finding the faint, silvery mark. The place he bit first, it’s so little compared to the mark Steve has on his throat, still freshly healing from that morning. He finds the mark and he rubs his lips over it, feeling Eddie shiver beneath him. ‘For me.’

Eddie’s fingers are digging into Steve’s skin, his bones. Steve would shed it all for him, he would do anything and it’s exactly what he needs in the moment. To give. To be needed. To share and love and kiss it as better as it can be for now.

They push and they pull, they take turns.

They share.

They share everything.

‘Perfect is,’ Eddie says, one hand sliding up into Steve’s hair from the back. His fingers fan wide, nails raking just slightly before he grips, holds him in this way Steve cannot get enough of. ‘N-nothing wrong or bad.’

Steve brings their lips together again, praise.

He’ll praise him until it spills over the sides, until they make the floors wet and sopping, Steve will praise and he will love this fucking man until the world is nothing but water, because they love to be wet.

‘And?’

Eddie shakes his head, eyes tightly closed, but he utters the words, ‘Good, lovely, beautiful, everything you want.’

‘You,’ Steve tells him, licking over his mouth. ‘Are perfect.’

Eddie opens his eyes; dark brown and glistening, his sorrow is etched deep. No different than a scar, than ink.

‘Not bad?’

Steve smiles, it’s so easy to be honest. ‘Not bad.’

Eddie gets Steve’s hand, puts it down the neck of his tee and over his heart. His eyelashes flutter and he shudders slightly. ‘Nothing wrong?’

‘Beautiful.’

Eddie is shaking so much it makes his breath tremble when he whispers, ‘I’m good?’

‘So good,’ Steve swears, fervent and strong. He can be strong because Eddie needs it. ‘So good.’ Kiss. ‘Beautiful.’

‘I killed him with my hands.’

Steve’s palm is over Eddie’s heart, he feels the strong, rapid thud-thump, divine engine of all that shines. He takes hold of Eddie’s wrist, brings his left hand up and puts his fingers into his mouth.

He lavishes them with attention and love. Eddie’s fingers are rougher than his, either from years of guitar or the brutal requirements of surviving in the Upside Down before, Steve doesn’t know.

He knows he loves Eddie’s hands.

His fingers.

All of his skin and all of Eddie.

Eddie’s staring at his mouth, excruciatingly exquisite as sorrow bends and twists them into one another, into what they need. Fires forge and water cools and this too shall heal, Steve Harrington will make it so.

He sucks Eddie’s fingers and them brings them out slowly, kissing the tips before pushing his own between the gaps.

His boyfriend killed a man with his hands.

Steve finds a clear moment and uses it to slowly, painstakingly say, ‘You are everything I want.’

And maybe there are better ways of dealing with things.

Maybe they shouldn’t always kiss it better.

But they’re finding their way and that way is beset with hideous debris, with residue and broken promises and the frayed ends of things that were pulled so tight they snapped.

So he holds him, kisses him, loves him.

The best way he knows how.

*

Steve gets tired around midday.

It’s a weird feeling, he’s never been nap prone before, but all he wants is to curl up in Eddie’s arms and sleep and his boyfriend seems to sense it, can read everything he wants like they’re really, truly living inside one another, and so he puts on a movie, Gremlins, and just as Nancy and Robin come back from shopping, everyone is settled in the only complete room in the Harrington house.

Castle, Steve thinks to himself as Eddie opens his arms, holding back the covers. Max is on his other side with Lucas. Will and Mike and Dustin are helping Nancy to unpack, which means eating all the good stuff before it even sees a fridge. Eleven waits until Steve sits down so she can slide in beside him. He lifts his arm in invitation and she smiles before she snuggles close.

He’s never hugged Eleven like this before. He remembers holding her hand while they fought to free Max. He’s remembering how much Vecna hurt her, this beautiful child with more power than any creature alive. He remembers how they tried to protect one another in that strange place, how she smiled and cried when Max finally slipped free.

Steve remembers the last thing she said to him before she passed out, before Hopper carried her out.

Don ’t let him take you.

Eddie is in the centre of the sofa and everyone is sort of cuddling and Steve is so tired, but he tries to stay awake as long as he can because every single moment of this is just… fucking beautiful.

He made a family room in one of the darkest places in the whole house. A locked door and a grim study, Steve made something good from everything he smashed, even if it’s ugly, tasteless. He made a place for them to gather and be happy, to heal and snuggle close, no matter what normal convention would dictate.

Fuck off, normal.

Steve has Eleven in his arms and Eddie has him and from the kitchen, Nancy yells at Mike and someone laughs, Will, definitely Will.

He falls asleep thinking how both kinds of gremlins remind him of Little Bit, and he smiles when Eddie chuckles, kisses his hair, no doubt able to tell.

Steve is so grateful to be home.

*

The day is slow.

Pleasant. Warm. He’s never alone. He eats a little, not much, he can’t stomach more than a few mouthfuls of anything, even Eddie’s soup. An ever present exhaustion is sort of always nearby, but it’s not a bad thing. It keeps him soft. Almost childlike.

Steve’s not sure what it is, decides it doesn’t matter because they’re all together and everything is lovely. He sleeps whenever he likes, kind of wants to bury himself in Eddie a lot of the time. He remembers when Eddie slept standing up in the kitchen, his arms wrapped around Steve from behind. He understands the urge now, he’s overcome with it. Tired, but happy, wanting to be enveloped in the skin scent of the man he loves, family all around him.

Nancy gently asks him a few questions after dinner.

‘Are things muddled?’

The kids are outside with Jonathan, they’re building some kind of enormous bonfire from the wreckage of what Steve and Eddie smashed and dragged outside. Steve thinks the wood must be too wet to burn, but the kids were determined.

Steve is sat on Eddie’s lap on a barstool at the island. Eddie’s talking with Robin, has his arms around Steve.

‘Muddled?’ he echoes, buying a moment, considering. ‘Yeah. A bit.’

Eddie looks over, drops a kiss to his shoulder and whispers, ‘Little bit?’ and Steve smiles, helplessly charmed as always.

Nancy has her hair tied back, she’s wearing nice clothes. She went out today and got groceries, did adult things. Steve will do that soon, he will. He’ll wear jeans and shoes and go outside and be Steve Harrington again, just.

Tomorrow.

Nancy smiles at the interaction, kind of rolls her eyes.

‘What about your speech?’

‘Still…’ he says, trying to find the right words, unable to get them out. ‘Tricky.’

‘OK, that’s fine. What about physical pain?’

Eddie shifts ever so slightly. Steve knows he wants to tell Nancy that he would be able to sense even the slightest flare of pain in Steve’s body, hyper attuned to him as he is now, he wants to make it clear that these questions aren’t necessary.

Eddie makes a circle against Steve’s palm, playing with his hand. Steve gives three taps against Eddie’s wrist and Eddie continues his conversation with Robin.

‘Not bad,’ Steve tells Nancy. ‘Tired.’

‘That’s probably to be expected. Did you wanna go for the checkup at the hospital still? We didn’t go today, but we could tomorrow?’

Steve shakes his head.

Robin looks over, pausing her conversation with Eddie. ‘Babe, you should go for the checkup.’

He doesn’t want to. The idea of leaving the house is… awful. Unbearable. The idea of being apart from Eddie?

Nope.

He smiles, says, ‘I’m fine.’

‘We could get someone to come here,’ Nancy says, discerning and kind. ‘If that’s better.’

Steve loves her, he does, but he wishes she’d stop. He doesn’t want this degree of scrutiny, not from anyone but Eddie, who wouldn’t ask things like this in the first place.

‘Maybe.’

‘OK, but like,’ Eddie says. ‘There’s a real issue that needs attention first.’

Nancy blinks, eyes going wide. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, dead serious. ‘Hopper said I have to pick a new last name.’

Steve smiles and turns to press a kiss to his jaw, wants to live inside his skin.

‘Oh god,’ Robin complains. ‘You’re gonna pick something gross, aren’t you? It’s gonna be like… Harringson!’

Steve smiles and Eddie laughs, rubbing his hand up and down Steve’s back.

‘No, definitely not, but I do have to pick something so,’ Eddie says, peering out the kitchen window. ‘Go get the brats, tell them there’s a task!’

*

‘And it can be anything?’ Mike Wheeler’s eyes are gleaming with fiendish fuckery, pen poised over the three little strips of paper each of them have been given, empty jar on the countertop.

Eddie is unrepentant. ‘Anything. You’ve got three suggestions, three tries and then Will the Wise is gonna pick one outta the jar and boom! New last name. Bam. Done. Easy.’

Robin bites down a laugh. ‘God, I hope you get one of mine.’

‘Why does Will get to pick?’ Dustin complains.

‘Because he’s the purest of heart and besides, you little fuckers can’t be trusted. It won’t be random if you stick your hand in that jar, Henderson,’ Eddie declares with a wide grin.

‘OK, but like, it can’t be a bad word!’ Nancy sternly yells over the ensuing din.

Eddie shrugs. ‘It can if they want.’

Steve watches, likes it best when things are happening around him that don’t require his energy or input. He knows this is a big deal for Eddie, which is why he’s fronting so hard, letting the kids choose rather than pick something for himself. Munson is his family name.

Wayne Munson still doesn’t know he’s alive. It’s something they’ll rectify soon, but it’s still a little bit painful for Eddie, Steve knows, having to release the name, even just on paper.

While they get to work, scribbling last name ideas on their torn up paper from a notepad, Steve idly fidgets. He’s not coming up with ideas, obviously. This is a kid thing, and he doesn’t know what he’d choose anyway. Eddie will always be Eddie Munson to him.

The colour black.

The centre of the world.

The thing he loves most.

His boyfriend, mate, monster.

They fold them up when done, drop them inside.

Eddie rubs his hands together. ‘Will, do the honours.’

Will shakes the jar first. Lucas is squinting, trying to keep his eyes on his own choices, like somehow that’ll help it get picked. They’re all watching. Outside, they couldn’t get the fire going naturally. Have to use dangerous shit like gasoline, so Jonathan says.

Careful fingers pluck a single piece of paper from the jar and Will hands it to Eddie with a small smile.

‘OK, shhh! This is an important moment, for in my hand I hold my new identity!’ He’s hamming it up so much and the kids are just so into it, even Max. ‘A momentous occasion!’

Mike is watching raptly, Dustin has his hands pressed together over his lips, like this is life or death and not a game Eddie made up to remove attention from Steve, to involve the kids, to keep the wheels turning in the necessary cogs of noisy chaos in their house.

Eddie opens the paper, reads it and then a massive grin splits his face wide.

‘Who did this?’

The kids clamber as one, desperately trying to see whose was picked. Steve plucks it from Eddie’s hand before anyone can get it and he reads the name aloud.

‘Hetfield.’

The handwriting is Max’s, easily recognisable from the brown envelope with his name on it.

The boys wail, crushed. Max rejoices with a beaming, smug smile and Eleven winks at Will like somehow this was all planned.

‘Oh, you’re all so disappointed, huh? Well sorry I got the coolest fuckin’ name in the world picked out for me!’ Eddie crows victoriously. ‘So sorry you didn’t get to name me Eddie Butt-Fuck Senior or whatever, just devastated at the loss!’

‘Hetfield?’ Jonathan echoes, peering over Steve’s shoulder to see the small piece of paper. ‘Like, Metallica? James Hetfield? That’s cool.’

Max shrugs, smiles to herself. Steve wraps an arm around her and kisses her hair. He likes the name. It’s got field in it, kind of like Mayfield. It’s got an H at the start.

It’s fucking perfect.

He thinks there was collusion between the Sweet Three. He thinks the boys were well and truly cheated.

‘OK, OK, shut up, let’s read out the losers, shall we?’

Eddie dumps the jar upside down and starts reading them out one at a time, cackling wildly.

‘I wrote it three times,’ Max whispers to Steve.

He hugs her and chuckles. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem,’ she says, leaning in. Steve never could have imagined getting to have this and it makes him bright inside. ‘It was the logical choice.’

‘Very logical.’

Robin sits beside Steve. ‘Babe,’ she sighs. ‘I need you to console me.’

Eddie is reading out the rejects.

‘OK, Fice?’

Dustin beams. ‘Eddie-Fice. Edifice! Edifice!’

Steve looks at his Robs. Empress of his Heart. They haven’t been able to talk much today and he knows she was helping earlier with the whole Vickie thing but he also knows Vickie did actually break it off with her.

He takes her hand in his, thumb over her knuckles.

‘Love you,’ he says quietly, means it. Eddie is trying to make Dustin eat the slip of paper in recompense for the atrocious name attempt.

‘Love you.’

‘Talk?’

Robin sighs, complex emotions playing about her beautiful features. Eddie and Dustin crash into the fridge.

‘I guess I knew it was coming but it still hurts a bit.’

Steve nods, strokes her skin and bones with the pad of his thumb to show he’s listening. Eddie is reading out more names.

‘Sannidiot? Wheeler, I know that’s you.’

‘Lucas made me do it! Lucas’s is worse, find his!’

Robin makes her sad pout face. ‘I just… I really liked her, but what hurts, honestly, is that I’m not that hurt, y’know?’

Steve listens and Max listens too. Chaos unfolds in the background. El goes to help Jonathan with the fire and Will comes to listen to Robin’s conversation. Steve gives him a small wink when he sits down.

He likes that the kids get to hear this kind of thing and Robin wouldn’t have brought it up unless she was OK with them listening.

Eddie cackles as Nancy helps him to unfurl a few. ‘OK, I’m actually kinda bummed I don’t get to call Hopper and tell him my new name is Eddie Assphace, that’s a real loss.’

‘Maybe you could tell her,’ Max suggests. ‘About… everything.’

Robin shakes her head. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much point, now. I should have, earlier, but things were going well and I didn’t wanna ruin it.’

‘You probably did the right thing,’ Will says gently. ‘Sometimes things aren’t meant to be.’

He looks at Steve then, something in it that Steve hopes they can discuss later. He can at least listen.

Eddie reads out, ‘Smith? That’s you, Nance, I know it.’

‘Smith is a nice, normal name!’

‘I’d rather be Mr. Fice.’

Dustin laughs like a dork.

Robin sighs, gripping Steve’s hand. ‘She was really nice about it, at least.’

‘Good,’ he manages to say. He loves this girl so much. ‘Glad.’

‘Guess it’s time for ice cream and horror movies, huh?’

She manages a smile, but he can see she’s genuinely upset. Steve pulls her into a hug while Eddie reads out, ‘Simendoppler? Is that—who’s responsible for this? Own up, right now, you’re about to perish.’

‘Guess it just hurts the way it’s supposed to,’ Robin sighs and when she lets go, they look over at the absolute scene in the kitchen, fond smiles for the easy chaos Eddie conjures. Outside, a bright burst of flame indicates that Jonathan and Eleven got the fire going, by hook or by crook (or kerosine, in this case). ‘Wasn’t meant to be.’

Eddie reads another out loud. ‘Dick? Really? Just Dick? Lack of imagination is unforgivable. I expect better.’

Nancy was helping to read them out before, but now Steve notices she’s just listening to Robin, kind of watching Robin with a little line between her eyes.

‘I feel bad, like I pushed her away,’ Robin says quietly.

‘OK, I actually kinda like this one, that’s you, Sinclair, I know your pen skills. Solid eight outta ten, but you misspelled wanker.’

‘That was the point.’

‘Still gotta mark you down, my friend. OK, what’s next?’

Nancy comes over, leans against the marble. ‘You didn’t. We were saving the world, Robs.’

Steve smiles a little despite himself. Robs.

‘I know I had to, but it still must have been not nice for her and then I couldn’t even explain. I had to lie, make up a bunch of weak excuses.’

‘Who put Harrington?’

‘That was El,’ Max informs him calmly.

‘OK, I’m not heckling the superhero. Points for sentiment.’

‘Why don’t you just take Steve’s name?’ Mike asks, nonchalant and genuine.

Eddie looks over, catches Steve’s gaze.

It’s electric.

It comes out of nowhere, and yet it was already there. Energy that flares and catches, crackles between them and elicits a smile from both.

‘Think I’ll wait a few years for that, thanks, Wheeler. Anyway, more importantly, who the hell wrote Lilbit?’

Robin looks up, grins despite her sadness.

‘That was me.’

‘Oh my god, you’re so adorable it’s gross,’ he declares, coming to join the huddle of quiet sadness and make it all bright with Eddie, with himself, with how he wraps her up in a big, clumsy hug, rocking her back and forth. ‘Absolutely gross, Buckley.’

She smiles, closes her eyes and Steve watches the pair of them hug. They’re closer than they ever have been before. They bonded during his absence.

‘Think I took second place in those stakes, Hetfield,’ she croaks, chuckling all the same.

Eddie whispers, ‘It’s her loss, babe,’ so quietly that Steve only hears it because he knows every cadence of Eddie’s voice, no matter how soft. Then he kisses her hair and says, ‘All I can say is, thank fuck for Max, you little shits would have ruined me!’

*

Eddie takes no small degree of joy in telling Hopper over the phone that he chose Assphace and managing to say it completely dead serious until he breaks out in a loud, obnoxious snort and says, ‘Take a breath, Lawman. It’s Hetfield. Yeah. Thanks.’

They sit outside around the bonfire and eat together.

The flames are high and they warm Steve all the way to his insides. He watches the wood of his Dad’s desk crackle and pop and hiss and fall prey to entropy, to the transfer of energy. It’ll be ashes in the morning. Eddie holds his hand and they watch it burn while the kids bicker and squabble and Mike Wheeler very quietly asks Robin how she knew she liked girls.

Eddie leans close, presses his lips against the shell of Steve’s ear and whispers to him how much Little Bit loves watching the fire. Steve smiles, slips his hand up into Eddie’s hair from the back of his neck. The sky is entirely without the milky light they love. Tonight marks the new moon. The night when Little Bit is his most diminished, sleeping inside, small and safe. It makes Steve happy to know he likes watching the fire, though.

After, Mike, Dustin and Lucas all have to go home.

They need to check in with the parents, spend at least one night at home for every two or three they spend away, that’s the system. Nancy, Jonathan and Robin are sort of staying in the house. Steve didn’t realise it at first, but a few of the decent guestrooms have their things strewn around.

They still don’t have a proper room set up for Max. Not how Steve wants it to be. Jonathan returned the breathing machinery, the monitoring equipment, everything, he took it all to hospital and now the room is bare, with a patched up window and poorly swept glass.

There is glass in several rooms, still.

Tomorrow they’ll start to make it how she wants.

Tomorrow, he’ll get dressed properly, he’ll start really trying to talk. It can all wait. He’s tired still. He’s sleepy.

He’s like Little Bit.

Maybe he’s connected to the moon now, too.

Maybe they both are.

Either way, he thinks it’s all OK.

The scent of wood smoke clings to Eddie when he lays in bed beside Steve that night. The house is all locked up; Will and Eleven are staying over with Max, they’re downstairs in the den and Robin is with them. Steve and Eddie offered to stay too, but she was stern as Nancy, glared at them to go get some sleep in their proper bed.

Nancy and Jonathan went out.

No one asked where.

They’ll be back, Steve thinks.

‘Hey, baby,’ Eddie says as they settle into the pillows, facing one another. ‘You did so well today, do you know that?’

Steve rolls his eyes, but leans in to kiss him.

It’s gentle, chaste, tired.

It’s a different kind of tired to anything he’s felt before.

‘Love you.’

‘I love you. So fucking much, god, you’ve no idea.’

Steve smiles, rubs his nose against Eddie’s.

‘Some idea.’

‘Oh yeah? Wanna compare? Compete?’

It’s strange how Eddie is so high energy when Steve and Little Bit are so tired. There’s some kind of cyclical balance to it. Steve thinks again of Eddie literally falling asleep on his feet the day before the full moon.

‘Nuh uh. I win.’

‘You do not win.’

Steve is already starting to drift. To sink into warm, satin-soft darkness, like an ocean of sentient ink is just waiting to welcome him home. It’s a familiar feeling, to be cradled in this way. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but he knows he loves it.

‘Shhh,’ he slurs, stroking Eddie’s face with increasingly clumsy movements. ‘Sleep now.’

‘OK, sweetheart,’ Eddie says, hushed and adoring. ‘But I definitely win.’

Steve grins before he drops off, into the waiting arms of all the loveliest black he’s ever seen.

*

He feels better when he opens his eyes.

Refreshed. Good. Clear.

Eddie has coffee and apple slices.

Steve smiles up at him, pushing to lean on his elbows.

‘Morning, baby,’ he sighs, rubbing his eyes.

‘You look so fucking cute when you’re asleep,’ Eddie tells him. ‘Coffee?’

A few sips of the perfectly made beverage slide down Steve’s throat, warm him from the inside out and it is perfect but he’ll still never forget the first coffee he made for him, the bad one.

‘I miss Little Bit,’ Steve says.

‘Yeah? I think you slept with him last night.’

Steve blinks, wrinkles his nose. ‘Huh?’

‘Last night you were…’ Eddie smiles and shakes his head. ‘I can’t describe it right, but it felt like you two were cuddling. Like you were inside me or he was inside you. I was inside you, it’s hard to explain.’

Steve thinks of inky black water, temperate and affectionate, like wings wrapping all around him in the absence of the moon, when they were small and frail and so very in love.

Hide together, I ’ll keep you safe, keep you warm, keep you here.

‘Were we cuddling you too?’

Eddie laughs, leans in for a first thing kiss, the kind that’s slow and sweet. ‘Yeah, baby. I was there too. It’s my body.’

Steve snorts against his lips, loves when Eddie’s patronising. ‘Fuck off.’

When they part, Eddie licks his lips and then bites his bottom one, watching Steve carefully. ‘You’re talking differently,’ he points out. ‘Kinda.’

Steve takes another mouthful of hot coffee, it’s so fucking good and then realises what Eddie’s saying.

‘Oh. I didn’t…’

His mind trips over itself, a great and sudden spill of things all vying for attention. He wants to test it, to see if it’s really different, but now he can’t think of what to say.

Eddie swipes Steve’s chin with his thumb and forefinger, affectionate grip that draws his attention.

‘Don’t overthink it. Here, have some apple.’

Steve peers at the plate. The slices are all neat, they’re cut up and de-cored, it’s very pretty.

‘Don’t wanna eat it l-like that,’ he says, finds very little resistance in getting the words out, only stammers slightly on the complex tongue curl of the L.

Eddie doesn’t comment on his speech, only lets a fairly wicked smile come across his features as he shifts to crawl closer. He grabs a slice, holds it between their faces.

‘No? How you wanna eat it, babygirl?’

Steve’s cheeks go red, even as he laughs, even as he puts the coffee back on the bedside table and surrenders beneath Eddie, who invades his space with slow determination. He falls back into the still-warm pillow and lifts his wrists beside his head, inviting.

Eddie puts the apple between his teeth and wraps his hands about Steve’s wrists.

‘Open wide,’ he says around the apple, leaning close but not close enough. Steve can smell the sweetness of the fruit, heady sugar and grainy flesh and all that juice, he wants it, but only this way.

He opens his mouth, writhing just a tiny bit when Eddie grips harder, leans in and kisses the apple into his mouth.

Steve takes it, bites down and lets all the flavour explode over his tongue, lets Eddie kiss him wet and messy and utterly disgusting because Eddie doesn’t even eat food, but he apparently has no problem whatsoever in helping make the experience as fun for Steve as possible.

And they’re laughing while they kiss, while Steve swallows what he can, sharp skin and soft flesh going down his throat. He loves things that grow on trees, fruit of the earth, creation for consumption, he knows he’ll never eat meat ever again.

‘Love you,’ he whispers, painting Eddie’s lips with natural sugar and spit. ‘So fucking much.’

‘Yeah?’ Eddie’s breath comes out shaky, uneven. His weight is settled almost fully atop Steve’s body now. ‘How much?’

Steve grins, wide and wicked and he flips them over. Eddie’s pliant and relaxed, lets him, even though they nearly fall off the bed in the process.

Steve kisses him from above, slants his mouth to make it deep. He wants to kiss all the way inside, he wants to kiss where Eddie lives, find his soul and lick it until it’s dripping and shiny, like the apple.

‘I love you,’ he says, the words trembling beneath the weight of how honest it is. ‘Way too much, Eddie Munson.’

Eddie’s hands are on his hips, fingers digging into the bare skin, finding bone, making rhythm. ‘Don’t you mean Hetfield?

‘You’ll always be Eddie Munson to me,’ Steve says and he knows then that whatever was locking his words up, is sort of clear now. It’s gone, washed away. He smiles wide, beams into the new kiss, rolls his hips and finds what’s hard, makes friction like fire, like they’re cold and need to stay warm when in fact, it’s already bright outside, no clouds, no rain.

‘Baby,’ Eddie utters when Steve captures his bottom lip between his teeth, sucking, biting and then letting go in a way that will leave his skin throbbing. ‘If you’re not careful, I’m gonna start calling you that.’

Steve wants to fuck Eddie.

He wants Eddie to fuck him.

He wants to get inside, to be full, he wants something and everything and it’s this feeling where he’s greedy and happy and his body feels like it could dissolve into stars, he’s just so bright with the density of beautiful things, all of them shared.

‘Call me what?’

Eddie grinds their hips together and on the back of a pretty groan that shatters in his throat, he says, ‘Too Much.’

Steve laughs into his mouth, tongues curling, cocks grinding, blood rushing like a river running home to the wide, open ocean.

‘I am a bit too much,’ he admits, pushing back to straddle, palms on Eddie’s bare chest. The bruise around his collarbone is almost entirely gone. ‘But you can’t have two nicknames for me and I wanna be your Sunshine.’

Eddie stares at him from beneath, catching his breath. His bottom lip is red and his eyes are glazed. His hands move up over Steve’s ribs where they curl around, considerate bones bending to protect and cage and it feels like Eddie loves every single one of them.

‘You are,’ he simply says. ‘And you’re not too much, anyway.’

His palms curve around the front, one hand gripping Steve lightly at the base of his throat, the other pushing his index finger into Steve’s mouth.

Steve bites, wraps his tongue around what’s given, sinful and sly, he wants to absolutely fucking ruin the man between his thighs.

‘I’m not?’

Eddie sits quickly, swift movements of a natural predator, it sends a thrill down Steve’s spine. Eddie holds his face, grips his hair as he kisses him like he cannot bear to be apart for more than a few seconds.

‘Nah, baby,’ he whispers, licking a fine mess over Steve’s mouth. ‘You’re enough. You’re just enough for how fucking much I want from you.’

The kiss turns hard, brutal, desperate. Steve wants, oh, how he wants things and the things that he wants require their rainbow of consent, three colours and a rhythmic set of rules that they let follow them out of the bedroom and into their everyday life.

‘Wait, I—’ he gasps when Eddie gets his boxers down, when they’re bare against each other. Steve’s head is swimming, it’s full of desire that burns bright against a starry sky, but he finds the patience within to stop and ask. ‘I wanna make a new rule.’

Eddie stopped when he said wait, he’s holding Steve close and scenting the side of his throat where he drinks from. They neglected to do it yesterday, Steve was just so tired.

‘What kinda rule?’

‘I wanna add a new colour.’

Eddie brings their lips together, but not to kiss, just to touch, to share breath, to look into Steve and smile with a knowing sort of wryness.

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on, then.’

His fingers are making swirls and figure eights over Steve’s hip scar, he’s panting softly and they’re still not fully naked, but they will be soon, Steve just needs to ask for what he wants.

‘I wanna… make a new thing where…’ He shakes his head, thinks it’ll sound dumb no matter the phrasing. ‘Black,’ he says, closing his eyes. ‘Want to add black to the colours. Four taps. Black.’

Eddie kind of purrs, lips trailing down his jaw, finds the radiant scar, the mark and then brings Steve’s wrist up to his lips, the other mark, the one everyone can see. He kisses where he bit and breathes, ‘What does black mean, baby?’

The mark is sensitive when he licks it and Steve shudders, cock throbbing, precome spilling from the swollen head.

‘Means more,’ he gasps, fingers sliding around the back of Eddie’s neck to find the corresponding mark, place he bit beneath the moon that night. ‘Means, harder, more… more monster.’

He can hear Eddie’s smile. ‘More monster?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘And what does more monster mean, hmm?’

Steve whines, impatient and needy. Eddie already knows what he means, but he’s making him say it, making him use his words now that he has them back, like taking a car for a good run after a jump start.

‘Means fuck me like you did under the full moon,’ Steve blurts out, eyes tight shut. His whole body is vibrating with need, with perilous desires he thinks they’re probably not ready for yet with all the things unsaid between them, but he doesn’t care, he wants it known. ‘Means fuck me up, Daddy.’

Eddie snarls against Steve’s skin, teeth dragging over his throat. Yes, yes, yes, please.

‘Gonna need a whole set of rules and talks for that, sweetheart,’ he says, low and dangerous and Steve knows he’ll get what he wants, he always does with Eddie, but he’ll likely have to be patient.

He can wait, doesn’t mind.

He’d wait forever, for Eddie.

‘Whatever you want,’ he says sweetly, almost saccharine for how it’ll rile Eddie up. ‘Just want a way of asking you for more, Daddy.’

‘Could use green for that.’

‘Not for what I want.’

‘Fuck, baby, god, you know how hot it is you asking for a fucking accelerator button, huh? You’re such a brat.’

‘Only for you.’

‘Yeah, only for me. All mine.’

‘Yours, Eddie.’

They kiss rough and dirty and Steve smiles when Eddie’s teeth catch his lip, make him bleed. He likes the taste of his own blood, salty sweet and metal. He pushes Eddie back, breaks the kiss to suck his own lip into his mouth, lets the mess bathe his tongue.

‘Oh my god,’ Eddie groans, can tell what he’s doing.

Steve’s mouth is full of lovely, red blood and he holds his boyfriend’s face, lovingly strokes his cheek with the backs of his fingers before he makes a circle at the corner of his mouth, asking.

Eddie opens his mouth, laughs like he’s dizzy and when Steve spits all that red inside he chases it with a kiss that doesn’t break until they come all over each other.

*

In the bathroom, Steve looks at the bathtub.

He’s fascinated with the crack.

Eddie sees him staring, says, ‘I thought we could get a new one, maybe.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve agrees easy enough then looks at his boyfriend and says, ‘You should break it.’

A small stitch of something like confusion and strange understanding pulls between Eddie’s brow. ‘You think?’

‘Yeah. It’ll be fun. We haven’t done that for a while and we can use the shower, anyway.’

‘Why do you want me to break it?’

Steve shrugs, looks back. ‘Just feels right. New start.’

‘Want me to do it now?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe like, yes?’

Eddie kisses his neck, licks over where he freshly drank from. It still aches in the good way, where he kissed and kissed and whispered lovely things that sank into Steve, buoyant and bright, they stopped him from dropping.

Steve doesn’t know why he wants it. ‘Yes, please.’

Eddie cracks the bathtub in half, he kicks where the split is and breaks it with an impressively loud noise. It’s built into the wall, so a few tiles come clattering down. Steve watches, happy, mesmerised.

‘That’s better,’ he says, feels like something fits better inside him now. ‘God, but you’re so hot.’

Eddie takes him by the hand, twirls him like they’re dancing while the shower water runs hot, leaks steam.

‘Don’t have to call me god, baby,’ he sighs. ‘Eddie’s fine.’

Steve rolls his eyes, groans. ‘You’re so uncool, Munson.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Eddie says, whirling him close. They’re naked, bare, filthy. Blood, come, sweat and spit, but they’ll make each other clean in the shower. ‘But you’d still have danced with me at prom.’

Steve chuckles, licks into his mouth for a kiss.

‘Baby,’ he purrs. ‘Would have blown you at fucking prom.’

‘Oh yeah? You wanna pretend—?’

‘Hey, sorry!’ Robin yells through the door. She somehow sounds like she has her eyes shut. ‘Literally just checking all’s fine, that it was a good crash.’

Steve dissolves into quiet laughter, hiding his face in Eddie’s neck. His boyfriend says, ‘It was a good crash. All fine, Robs.’

‘OK, great, we’re having breakfast outside but like, y’know,’ she says, so resigned. ‘Big house, kinda echoes. Might wanna soundproof at least one room when you’re done smashing them up.’

Steve wraps his arms around Eddie’s neck, finds the scar he gave him and as he strokes it, he whispers, ‘I think we’re done smashing, don’t you?’

Eddie snorts, kisses him and drags him into the shower, proves him quite wrong.

*

Max’s room is the priority for the day.

Max is the priority, really.

Everyone seems quietly thrilled that Steve’s speech has returned almost fully back to normal, with the exception of a small stammer here and there but Steve has the feeling Eddie told everyone not to make a big deal of it.

Jonathan and Robin went into town for a few necessities, come back with nice things and good lunch. The kids are there in full force, having checked in with their families.

When they start moving stuff, getting the visitors chairs out, Steve finds a letter.

He finds the letter.

It’s on the small table beside the bed, now absent of the life-sustaining set up. Eddie, Max and Robin are in the room with him when he finds it, picks it up carefully.

‘Oh,’ Max says softly. ‘I uh. I read it to you. While you were, y’know. Hope that’s OK.’

Steve looks up at her, something thick in his throat. He’s only absorbed the first sentence, but the gravity of it, of her reading it to him when they’d switched places, hits him harder than he thought possible.

‘Course it’s OK, sweetie,’ he says in a rush. ‘It’s so nice that y-you read it to me. Thank you.’

‘Hey, you wanna go get the bed sheets?’ Robin asks Eddie, oh so subtle, and Eddie agrees easily, winks at Steve as they leave.

Steve offers Max the letter. The bed is between them.

‘You want me to… wait to read it?’ he offers.

She looks at it and smiles, eyes glittering in the sunlight coming in from the window behind him.

‘No, you can read it now if you want. It was short, but I uh. I meant every word.’

Steve nods, looks down at the paper.

Dear Steve,

    I want to tell you a whole bunch of stuff. I want to say thank you for always looking out for us, for me. I want to say that it means a lot to me how you always had our backs. I know it ’s not easy, babysitting us all the time. I know you kinda wish you could be elsewhere sometimes.

    I really want to tell you that there were times you made me feel safe. That you stood up and you seemed really tall to me then and I felt like nothing could hurt me or the others because you were there.

    You were there when I needed you to be.

    And if I ’m not here anymore, please don’t ever forget that you matter, you’re important and that you deserve to be happy.

    You kept us safe. You kept me safe and that means a lot. It means everything to me because I really needed it and I could never have asked, so.

    Thanks for being the best babysitter ever.

    Love, Max.

And when he looks back, he’s got tears in his eyes, he’s full of all the things he feels most keenly when she’s close because he thinks he’s loved this one right from the start.

He thinks of sitting by her side in hospital, of talking to her like she was there and knows she did the same for him.

‘You were waiting till I woke up to read it, the others told me,’ Max says, looking down. ‘Eddie told me you moved me here, that you wouldn’t let them turn off the machines.’

‘It was everyone,’ he says, words thick and quiet. ‘But yeah, we wanted to bring you… home.’

Max glances around, smiling to herself as she briskly wipes her tears away, lets out a shaky laugh. ‘Kind of a fixer upper.’

Steve says, ‘I think it’s worth the trouble.’

‘Yeah?’ She fiddles with the small blue blanket, the one with his initials. ‘You think so?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I’m uh. I’m really happy you’re OK. That you’re back.’

‘Me too, sweetie.’

‘And I think I’m gonna like living here. With you and Eddie.’ When she looks up, she wipes her eyes again and chuckles. ‘You two make a crazy couple.’

‘Yeah, I guess we do.’ He knows she’s not talking about this room, the windows or the house when she said about fixer upper, but he goes with it anyway. ‘And y’know, I’ve got nothing but time so whatever you wanna do here, we can. Anything you need, want, it’s already yours.’

She takes a deep breath, seems happy when she says, ‘OK. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

*

It’s lunchtime when Eddie says, ‘We need to talk,’ and Steve wonders about what, there are so many elements undiscussed between them still.

‘OK,’ he agrees, nodding. Wipes his mouth, delicious fucking soup, he cannot get enough of it. Eddie’s sitting outside with him in the sunshine. They’re alone, the others are inside getting started on making Max’s room how she wants it. Steve can hear someone yelling about paint in hair, thinks it’s Dustin. No one’s making Steve see a Doctor.

So he feels ready. Kinda.

The sun is warm on his skin and Eddie reaches across the table to take hold of his hand.

‘Right, OK.’ Eddie’s nervous. Steve feels nervous just by default, helpless but to match his energy. ‘Your uh, your parents showed up when you were…’ Eddie visibly fights to find a word he can stomach. ‘Asleep.’

Steve goes rigid. ‘What?’

‘Yeah,’ Eddie says, tone heavy. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You—’ Steve looks to the side, his heart beating so hard it hurts. ‘You didn’t let them see me, right?’

‘Of course not. I would never, not while you were defenceless like that,’ Eddie says and Steve already knew, but the thought of them being near him while he was vulnerable makes him physically sick.

‘OK, thank you for that.’

Eddie rubs his face and sighs. ‘Baby, I’m really sorry but I fucked up. I was angry at them, I was… fucking furious and I said some shit and I uh.’ He clears his throat, jaw working. ‘I told them about us.’

Silence reigns for a few awkward beats while Steve tries to process, but he can’t, he needs to understand more.

‘What did you tell them? Why the fuck were they here? Are they still around?’ He casts a wary look about the yard as if they’re lurking nearby somehow.

‘Baby? Take a deep breath for me, OK?’

‘No, they—are they still in town?’

Eddie nods. ‘They came because Tommy fucking Hagan told his Mom he was worried about you or whatever. Hopper said they’re in a motel in town, but that was two days ago, I don’t know if they’re still here. And I said… I told them I was in love with you.’ Eddie sighs, scrubs a hand across his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, baby.’

The space between them seems like a chasm.

It feels like years have passed since Steve went over the edge of the quarry.

And he doesn’t want to ask, he wants to be over it already, but he quietly mutters, ‘What did they say, when you told them that?’

‘Your D—fucking Daniel walked out. Sylvia stayed, she tried to see you. I didn’t let her.’

Just hearing Eddie say their names makes Steve grimace.

And his dad walked out.

That hurts. Steve hates that it actually hurts.

‘They’ll come back,’ he says quietly.

‘If you don’t wanna see them, then you’re not gonna see ‘em,’ Eddie says, like it’s that simple.

But Steve closes his eyes. He thinks maybe he’s been dreading it, sort of knowing it would come eventually.

‘No, it’s OK. I’m glad you didn’t let them see me while I was… not here. That would’ve been bad. I can see them now, though.’ He laughs bitterly. ‘Not that they’ll want to see me. They’re probably here for their shit.’

Eddie says, ‘Are you mad?’

Steve frowns. ‘At you? What for?’

‘For… telling them about us.’

‘No, I’m not mad. I…’ Steve shakes his head for a moment, tries to imagine the scene. ‘I fucking wish I’d been there. Wish I could have seen you telling them that you loved me.’

‘Shit, really?’

‘Yeah.’ He permits himself a brief moment of something strong, like rope between them. ‘Were they horrified?’

Eddie nods earnestly.

‘Did they yell and insult you?’

‘A lot.’

Steve grins, even though he feels like he just got smacked around the face and not in a good way. ‘Did you let ‘em have it, baby?’

Eddie gets up, comes around to Steve’s side and drops to his knees, takes his hand and kisses it fiercely.

‘I fucking told them that they had no right to see you, that you and this place wasn’t theirs.’

Steve exhales shakily, closes his eyes for a moment.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you, Steve. Fuck, I love you so much and I promise, I ripped them apart as much as I could without actually ripping them apart. Little Bit would have preferred the latter, but I did what I could, for you.’

Steve bends to kiss him and Eddie rises up onto the full height his knees can offer, breathless and apologetic and raw.

‘I’m sorry I outed you, that’s not OK.’

Steve sighs against his lips. ‘I don’t care. I’m glad. They’re probably only still here to see if they can come get their valuables, anyway.’ He pulls Eddie up onto his lap, into the chair. ‘That must have been fucking awful, having them just show up.’

Eddie kisses his cheek, nuzzles rough and yet somehow tender. ‘It was. I… that was the first time I realised.’

Steve waits, but only silence comes next. Gently, he strokes his hair and asks, ‘Realised what?’

Eyes closed, Eddie whispers, ‘That you weren’t there. That you—you weren’t just gonna wake up.’

‘Oh baby, I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘It’s not.’

They kiss again. They’re always kissing, Steve thinks.

His blood is alive in Eddie and Eddie’s come is alive inside of him. His blood fixed his broken bones, made his heart start again, that’s what the kids told him. They didn’t tell him any of this. The grimy parts. The dark, awful moments. He thinks maybe that Eddie tried to protect them all as much as possible from that.

And they’re closer now than ever to this conversation they both need to have. This thing where they lay it all down, where they share what’s angry and resentful about their actions, but there’s a few hours still.

‘It’s OK now,’ Eddie murmurs into the kiss.

The emphasis is unmissable.

Steve knows they’re close and he’s dreading it, but if he’s learnt anything over the last two months, it’s make the most of the happy moments, and so he kisses his boyfriend deeper, takes strength from the fact that someone loved him enough to scream it at his fucking parents and lets the moment soften what awaits.

*

Nancy and Jonathan take all the kids, Max included, to go see a movie. Labyrinth or something, sounds like a DnD type of flick to Steve, who tells them to have fun, tries to pay for it and gets a harsh Nancy Scowl.

‘You can shove your money up your ass, Harrington,’ she tells him with love. ‘Anyway, we’ll be out till like, ten, OK?’

‘Got it.’ He kisses her cheek.

Robin’s spending time with her family, even though they generally suck, it’s the normal way. She still has dinner there sometimes, even sleeps in her own room now and then. Steve can’t wait for her to get back, he wants to spend time with her just the two of them and they haven’t had a chance yet. Their friendship is the kind that can wait, but he’s desperate to take both her hands in his, probably while sat on a floor somewhere, and tell her all the things that are simply labelled Need To Tell Robin This.

Jonathan hugs Eddie and says something to him with a quiet, serious expression. Eddie says, ‘Thanks, Jon,’ and lovingly smacks his shoulder with a wink.

Back inside and freshly alone, the house is quiet and the lingering scent of fresh paint hangs heavy in the air.

They’re going to talk.

Steve feels sick with nerves, with dread.

Not out of fear, but just because it’s so much.

So much needs to be said.

And he knows if he looked at Eddie and said, ‘Can we skip this?’ he knows Eddie would relent, he would agree.

But it wouldn’t fix anything.

And nothing could start to heal.

He doesn’t know where to begin. Eddie doesn’t seem to know, either. They stand around awkwardly for a few beats, before Eddie says, ‘Come upstairs?’

*

In the tower, Steve climbs out the window and Eddie helps him up onto the roof. It’s still light out, but it’s dying, fading. A wide horizon of cracking light, split with clouds.

Steve thinks of the last time they were up here.

He wants that again, he can’t wait until the next full moon, thinks of all the things he wants.

And despite everything, despite the strange tension between them as they search for how to begin, Eddie chuckles and shakes his head, dark brown eyes shining as he surveys Steve.

‘God, Harrington,’ he complains. ‘You really are a slut.’

Steve’s jaw drops and he whacks Eddie’s upper arm.

‘Fucker. How dare you? Little Bit, get out here and defend my honour!’

Eddie shivers, sort of hums and his gaze darkens.

And then without warning, Steve is being kissed within a fucking inch of his life.

‘My darling,’ Eddie purrs into his mouth as he tongue fucks his way inside, as he licks a wide kiss into existence by sheer force of will, teeth sharpening like he’s so fucking hungry. ‘My beloved, my beautiful mate, you smell so good.’

Steve doesn’t even hesitate. He throws himself into the kiss, matches the grotesque intensity and drags his wet teeth down over Eddie’s chin. He growls, ‘So do you.’

‘My boy’s wild, is he?’

‘Always wild for you.’

‘You feel bad tonight, do you?’

It catches right in the middle of Steve’s throat. Sharp, jagged, he wants it to hurt and to make all that hurt manifest, make his skin red and stinging and he was… he was so patient, wasn’t he?

He feels himself shaking, kissing Eddie is all that holds him together. ‘Feel bad, yeah.’

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ this little bit of Eddie murmurs, licking a hot stripe all the way up Steve’s throat, like he’s licking the words out, like he’s healing a wound or enjoying what spills from it. ‘You’re sad. Smell like rain when you’re sad, shall I make daylight in you?’

Steve shakes his head, grabs his face and kisses him. He loves to be up high with his Little Bit.

Fuck, he loves him, them, all of Eddie… just so much.

‘Need to tell you things.’

Easily, he picks Steve up beneath the thighs, brings them closer and lifts him like it’s nothing. ‘Mmhmm, you can tell me anything.’

He kneels, taking Steve down with him, absorbing all the impact of the shingle. Eddie caresses his face and brands a kiss unevenly, roughly. Teeth sharp as if about to feed, tongue slightly longer and rougher, he’s wild and patient and Steve feels safe from his anger because Little Bit only gets mad at other people, never, ever Steve.

‘Did… did Eddie let you come out?’

He smiles, adoring and awful and fucking lovely. His eyes are moonshine, teeth long. ‘Darling, I am Eddie. We love you. We want you to feel comfortable saying all your bad things.’

Steve knows this, shakes his head and feels silly. It’s hard to reconcile sometimes, they can seem so different. Shades of blue, one light, one dark and they are both blue, but so very different.

‘OK, sorry.’

‘What can I do?’ he asks intently. ‘Make you feel good while you talk?’

‘Um,’ Steve says, kind of wants to laugh. ‘No, not for this.’

‘What do you need, darling?’

‘I need… to talk about what I did. The bad things. That first. Please. And I want you to…’

Nudging their noses together, Eddie whispers, ‘Hurt you, baby? Hmm? Little bit?’

Steve smiles even as tears sting his eyes. ‘Yes, please. Punish me.’

There’s a weird moment where Eddie kind of inclines his head like he’s listening to something or someone. Then he rolls his eyes, says, ‘It can’t be punishment because it wasn’t your fault.’

Steve is helpless but to roll his own eyes in turn, knows exactly where that came from.

‘OK, then… physical release, whatever.’

Eddie thumbs away his tears and then licks them clean, saltwater from the source. ‘Are you using me to hurt yourself?’

‘I’m asking if I can. Please. I—we talked about it yesterday. Or, you understood, in the bathroom, I think.’

Eddie nods slowly. ‘You’re so strange,’ he whispers, like he’s only just realised it. ‘How you hold it here, alive and painful when it shouldn’t be because it’s gone. How can you keep dead things alive in your blood?’

‘It’s called memory.’

He scents him deeply. ‘It’s like poison inside you, all thick and bad. I could suck it out?’

‘No, baby,’ Steve says, blinks the tears down his face, running rivers of warm salt that Eddie licks away without asking, like it’s normal. His face is all wet. ‘You can’t suck it out. Memories are normal, they make us who we are, kinda.’

‘But these ones are bad.’

‘Sometimes life is bad.’

He kisses a big, beautiful welt into Steve’s throat, arms around him and Steve lets his head fall back, staring up at the sky. The middle part directly above him is darkest. It’s where he sees stars coming through, weak at first, they’ll be strongest when the sun leaves.

‘Tell me, then.’ That low baritone, it’s not quite Daddy, but it’s Eddie, it’s his monster, it’s the man he loves. ‘Tell me the bad things and I’ll give you what you need.’

Steve closes his eyes, lashes wet against his skin.

‘You promise?’

He feels the rough drag of tongue. He is held and safe and the moon will not love him any less.

‘I promise, love. But only what we talked about before.’ It’s more Eddie now, even with the moonstone. A strange balance between them. ‘You trust me to set the limit?’

‘You know I do.’

‘All right. Tell me all your bad things.’

Steve’s face screws up and the tears come for real.

‘I tried to kill her. I put glass in her food and I tried to feed her something that would have cut her to ribbons from the inside and she would h—have bled to death so slowly, and in so much pain and I… I made the pancakes look nice, I wanted her to want them.’ His breath is tight, forces the words to come out awkward and broken. ‘She would have died and I would have pretended to be worried. I would have called the ambulance and just before she died, I would have stroked her face and let her see that it was… it was me who did it.’

He opens his eyes, finds moonstone, monster, man he loves. Steve swallows down a sob, says, ‘Please.’

And there is no conflict there, no worried hesitation from his monster, who knows what he needs and never judges. Eddie Munson is the person who sees all the way to his centre, knows him inside and out.

Eddie’s hand cracks across his face.

Pain explodes from the contact, from that smack of skin and his cheek burns bright; shameful red and the ugly agony jars his entire nervous system. It’s good and it’s terrible and it amplifies everything to unbearable levels.

Steve doesn’t know what he wants this to do, what he hopes it’ll achieve beyond bringing balance.

‘More. Again. Green.’

Eddie smacks him again, other cheek, other hand, like he’s making it even. Steve’s ears are ringing slightly and his eyes are watering in a different way. He knows Eddie won’t ever hit him harder than this, he’s said as much when they discussed it, but Steve wishes he would. He wants to be in that small room with cruel men who didn’t listen when he cried, when he said no, please, come on!

He made the pancakes look so nice.

Steve lets out a pathetic sob, it wrenches things inside him, causes them to crack and splinter and good, he fucking needs to break them.

And then he starts talking about the bathroom.

It comes out like a dam bursting, the things that are eating him alive, co-mingled with his own sense of autonomy, with the living memory of intent, he wants to kill it, crush it, consolidate and separate.

They deal in extremes, these two, they have right from the start and so Steve feels safe asking two more times and Eddie obliges, he gives him what he needs, trusts him to know. Steve’s cheeks are red and they burn, but pain is his tether while he lets go and seeks to exorcise the horror within by sharing it.

Eddie brushes cool fingers against the flaming skin of his cheeks when he falls silent, even the gentlest touch feels too much. Gutted from the inside out, the excavation of pure rot.

Steve needed it to hurt.

And his boyfriend gave him what he needed, even as he kisses it all better. ‘None of that was you,’ Eddie tells him, stroking his hair, lips grazing hot, sore skin.

‘The glass was me,’ Steve says, eyes closed. It’s quiet, awful to say as his breath heaves and his heart breaks. ‘That came from me, I knew that. He didn’t.’

‘Just because we know how to kill,’ Eddie says, pressing a small, soft kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. ‘Doesn’t mean that we are killers.’

Steve bursts into tears; wet, messy, ugly, he’s lost to the tidal pull of grief and trauma and the sickening horror of inertia while everything fell apart. Eddie’s arms are strong and he feels safe. They are together, everyone is safe.

He grieves anyway, needs to.

And when it eases, when Steve can breathe slower, wipe his eyes and find Eddie’s lips with his own, he feels lighter.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you,’ Eddie tells him, low and fervent, like a last whisper. ‘I have loved you forever, I think and just not known who or where you were.’

Steve opens his eyes, swallows over the heaviness left inside, but it’s all him now. It’s his own grief, his own suffering and sadness, the wrought iron mass of sorrow from the shit they’ve been through.

Eddie strokes his hair back and those moonstone eyes move between Steve’s own, reading, seeking, seeing. No one has ever seen him like this. All the way to his core.

And it’s Little Bit, then.

It is so very the monster that Steve loves; the tangled combination of a man who is made of parts, who has sides; dark of the moon and full of white. Shades of blue, Eddie Munson… has a split inside him and Steve wants to lick from where it begins to where it ends and love all parts, love him to pieces and cherish them like shining treasures, like pretty metal that catches the light.

Steve feels something pull inside him, a kind of sense, maybe distant memory of a dream he forgot.

‘Thank you for waiting, then,’ he says, his fingers in dark curls, a stitch in Eddie’s brow, moonstone eyes glistening.

They’re close enough to hear the wet contraction of his throat, to feel whatever radiates between them and share it, like they share all else. To redefine the word close, to make a world of their inward facing bodies and walls of their backs.

‘I would have waited forever,’ he tells Steve, lips brushing, noses rubbing, the love language of pure touch. ‘Would do anything for you, Steve Harrington.’

Steve kisses him once, tastes salt. It’s not his, he thinks.

‘You’ve done so much. Thank you for keeping them safe.’

‘They are kin,’ Little Bit whispers, sounds so small for once. Like he wants to hide in Steve, burrow where he’s hollow and spend the night and Steve thinks it’s messy in there, he hasn’t made it tidy yet, but he knows he’d let him. He knows he would welcome him inside, this creature, his monster. ‘I tried to be strong, but I couldn’t. I wanted to follow you and leave the others behind.’

Steve makes a circle around his lower back, knows it aches there sometimes and he licks over his lips because he knows Little Bit loves to kiss that way; wide and wicked and animal, even when they’re sad, even when the moon is dark.

A touch is still a touch and love runs wets when they need it to, so he shares spit and he tastes salt and he loves him so hard he thinks it’ll scar, but they like leaving marks, always have.

‘I’m so sorry.’

When he shakes his head, when he draws a trembling breath, when he lifts those beautiful eyes, Steve feels the first increment of what is being shared from Eddie’s side.

‘You went away. You left.’

‘I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay with you.’

‘You fell and the water tried to take you.’

Forehead to forehead, Steve closes his eyes tight shut.

‘You didn’t let it, though, did you?’

‘No. I couldn’t let you go.’ The affectation, the slight depth of accent, it’s more Eddie now. ‘I couldn’t… make you breathe so I put blood inside you and told it to keep you alive. I told it and it worked, but you weren’t there.’

Steve opens his eyes.

‘I knew you’d find me, baby.’

The kiss is soft and it is wet, but they hold each other hard, like they’re not ever going to let go again. Never again permit space to stretch and yawn, because the world is dangerous and full of dead drops and Steve knows he broke his promise, he knows he did a fucked up thing, but he knows Eddie forgives him for it.

Eddie would have done the same thing, he dares believe.

Hand fisting his hair, Eddie pulls back, gasping. Sharing breath, space, time, he says, ‘Don’t ever fucking do that again.’

Steve wants to say the same, he wants to tell Eddie that he took risks too, but it’s hard when he sought him out, when Steve was the one who told him to come alone, no weapons only… the bottlecap.

‘I won’t. I promise.’

‘Swear to me this time. Swear on all we love.’ Eddie’s voice cracks and he leans fully into Steve, shaking. ‘Swear on this.’

He reaches down to touch it, to press it into Steve’s collarbone. Steve wishes it would leave a bruise, then they could match, even though Eddie’s is almost gone.

The metal is temperate, the edges ruffled and dull. It’s a little piece of something special simply because they declared it so.

Steve can almost remember something about it; someone touching it, smiling as they said, I always liked things that shine

‘Tell me what to swear, and I will.’

Eddie’s eyes are brown again and there is no light in the skies to catch and fill them, but Steve can see well enough in the dark, thinks he could imagine him from memory, could draw him even if he went blind.

‘I…’ Eddie shakes his head, looks away. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you can swear or promise because one day… you’ll break it, even if you don’t mean to.’

Neither says anything for a beat, they let the silence sit heavy in the air, let the words drift out and up into a sky full of stars. These stars know so much about them, they carry their story, even though they’re already gone.

‘Then I promise,’ Steve says, wrapping his fingers around Eddie’s where they clasp the bottlecap. ‘To let you take care of me, always.’

Eddie makes a small, broken little noise. ‘You do?’

‘Yes. Will you promise the same?’

‘I promise.’

‘Say it, then.’

‘I promise to let you take care of me,’ Eddie says.

‘Always.’

‘Always.’

‘And it’ll make a circle,’ Steve says, voice stretched, his heart is pulling itself apart. Death and love and loss and all the lovely, little things that time will consume, they are immersed in it, they are made of it. And the stars they tell their story to are in their cells because they are made of stars and stars are made of them, of these moments on a rooftop in a small town. Two strange people whose love took them to strange places. ‘A circle, like how rain finds a river and the river goes home to the sea, that’s you and me. I’ll find you and you’ll find me and I will let you take care of me, I swear.’ Steve kisses him hard, sorrow sweet in his throat, in the throes of overwhelm. ‘Can’t promise to stay forever, but I can fucking promise to be yours, Eddie. Yours.’ His voice cracks and Eddie’s holding him so tight now it will bruise, his skin will wear the weight of this embrace and Steve thinks that’s just perfect. ‘And I know you’ll always find me, no matter where I go because I love you and you love me and we’ll take care of each other, in this world or the next.’

They’re crying while they kiss and the kiss is soft and it’s wet and they are cradling, loving gently because it’s the foundation of all they hold dear.

The tenets of the world they make with every breath.

New promises are born and old, rotten things perish.

Beneath the starry sky, beneath the dark moon whose light has only just begun to fill anew, they promise and they let everything bleed between them. Into you, out of me, let me help you, let me feel it, let me love it better.

Ugly and wretched and lovely, not everything can be beautiful, Steve wouldn’t want it to be. He’s never felt so safe than up high, in the dark with the monster he mated beneath the sky who bears witness to all.

‘I’m yours too,’ Eddie promises when the kiss breaks, when they hold each other, tremulous and raw because it hurts so much but it is worth the pain. It’s worth everything. ‘I’m yours and you’re mine and I would find you anywhere, Sunshine, you hear me? There’s nowhere you can go where you will ever, ever be alone because I’ll be there too, in a little while or right away, I’ll find you and I’ll kiss you stupid.’

He laughs against Steve’s lips and Steve smiles, blinks warm, salty wet down his face. His cheeks still sting and he’s all fucked up by the things they’re saying, promising, but it feels divine. It’s their flavour of perfect; pain, mess, promises and the nature of sharp things that cut them to ribbons because they like blood, always have, always will.

There’s no better way to share, after all.

‘Yeah?’

Eddie’s tongue is in his mouth, hands in his hair, chest to chest and heart to heart. It’s all just skin and bones, they’ll shed it one day and kiss anew, Steve knows. He is alive with that knowledge.

‘Never not kissing you,’ Eddie whispers like it’s a secret. ‘Could never give this up.’

‘Don’t stop then.’

‘I won’t.’

The kiss deepens and all that sorrow twists into something else because strong feelings don’t dissolve, they evolve.

‘Wanna fuck you,’ Eddie says, like he’s never said it before, like he’s never felt this way until now. Like everything is new. ‘Wanna fuck you, baby, can I?’

‘God, fuck, yes,’ Steve utters, every sense in his body heightening like he’s been reborn. He is a hollow cave filled with the echo of pure desire and the reverb is only growing, no decay in this perfect place where all needs are nurtured. ‘Want you inside me. Need you, please.’

Clumsy and eager, they know how to undress, but it’s like they forgot and Eddie accidentally rips more than he undoes, but he never stops kissing Steve throughout and that’s more than worth the price, Steve thinks.

Spit on fingers, fingers inside where it’s tight, stretch you open, baby, you’re so good for me. Steve is lost to it, he can only kiss Eddie and hold on, grip the skin of the man he loves and give into pleasure where offered.

And then Eddie is inside him.

He’s so big and hot and it hurts because they rushed it, desperate and dumb, they couldn’t wait and Steve’s head falls back, jaw lax, eyes on the sky.

‘Yes, god, baby.’

Eddie makes wet trails over his neck, he bites and sucks as he waits for Steve to decide when he’s ready, lets him adjust.

There are such hollow places in Steve Harrington.

Like a house full of empty rooms.

Like a wide split in the earth where water collects and a lake gathers and people dare not go near the edge.

There was so much room for annoying kids who needed a babysitter. There was so much space inside for love, but Steve could never get anyone to stay the night.

Until Eddie Munson.

Until this man who fills him up, who unapologetically takes up space. Eddie fits inside Steve, he makes home where he’s hollow, he makes light where it is dark and best of all, he makes love.

He’s making pure, filthy love right inside him and it’ll stay there, it’ll take and grow and Steve will be filled to the brim with white, like the moon in two weeks time.

On the roof of their castle, in the town they saved, in the world they fought for, beneath the moon and stars who mean more to them than any god ever could, Steve Harrington kisses Eddie Munson.

Bare skin and cold wind and they’re wet, they love to be wet, to make delicious mess and leave marks, inside and out.

‘Fuck your love into me,’ Steve whispers, begs. ‘Want you to make daylight.’

*

The sun is bright and the air is cold in Steve’s lungs. He’s warm, though. He is wrapped up in skin and body heat. His mattress is breathing. It’s alive.

It’s Eddie fucking Munson.

He opens his eyes, blinks hard and then looks down, smiles wide and silly.

‘Oh my god.’

Eddie’s already awake, one arm under his head, one around Steve’s back.

‘Wanted to tell the sun about you,’ Eddie whispers, matching smile, they’re such idiots, perfect for each other in that regard. Steve hides his face in Eddie’s chest.

‘We slept on the roof,’ Steve groans. ‘Baby, your back!’

His boyfriend shrugs, kisses his hair.

‘I’m tough.’

‘Oh, are you now?’

‘Never slept outside before. Always wanted to.’

Steve softens, relaxes. He scents the expanse of scarred skin, smells himself, catches the delicate hints of sweat and exertion and whatever it is that makes up Eddie’s scent at it’s very base. ‘

‘Me too. I guess it is summer. Could have been worse.’

‘Could always be worse,’ Eddie agrees easily, stroking his bare back. ‘Nancy and Robin could have climbed up this morning and caught an eyeful.’

Steve looks up so quickly he cricks his neck. ‘OW! Wait, what?’

*

Steve is shower fresh and his ass has that pleasant ache from the stretch and burn of being fucked so good he came untouched. He’s happy and he feels like he is living his second chance, a fresh start.

And the people he loves are merciless.

‘No, it was like this,’ Robin says, tears in her eyes, face all blotchy from laughing. ‘Nance, look, you be Steve!’

Steve sighs heavily while Eddie watches from his high place on the marble with mild interest as Robin and Nancy recreate the position on the kitchen floor, the pair cackling with glee.

‘That’s kinda hot,’ Lucas mutters, clearing his throat. Mike smacks his shoulder, hisses the standard, that’s my sister, asshole!

And if there’s a weird moment where they both sort of realise they’re very close, those two girls, if there’s a beat where their laughter sort of fades and their noses brush, Steve is very busy with his coffee and the kids have already lost interest, asking how Steve didn’t freeze to death and what about bugs, huh? Did you ever stop and think about bugs, Steve?

Eddie is unusually tactful, expression neutral but Steve can tell he’s thinking the same things.

Nancy gets up first, extends a hand to help Robin before she brushes herself off.

‘Maybe you should build something up there,’ she suggests, eyes sparkling.

Robin is way too happy when she leans against the countertop, beaming and suggests, ‘Like a love shack?’

‘Oh, gross, please can you stop?’ Dustin wails. ‘This is very traumatising for me, OK? I’m traumatised! Is anyone gonna console me about the fact that my two adult friends are just freely doing it on the roof?!’

‘Adult friends sound so weird,’ Max informs him. Steve lets her have a very milky coffee, two sugars, he’s so soft for her.

‘You should be complaining right alongside me,’ Dustin tells her. ‘You have to live with it.’

Max shrugs. ‘I’ve lived with worse.’

‘But no, seriously,’ Mike says. ‘Are you guys gonna… like, soundproof?’

Eddie snorts into his mug of blood and Steve rolls his eyes so hard it hurts.

‘Wheeler,’ Eddie chastises, wipes his mouth, but he’s amused by it all, Steve can tell. He’s never once been shy about their relationship. Thinks of him crawling across the counter-top, kissing him, whispering hi boyfriend. Steve loves him for that, even if they probably do need to soundproof a few rooms. Definitely the tower.

Mike Wheeler digs in. ‘What? I’m not saying it like it’s bad! I think it’s great you’re not like most parents who are either too ashamed to express affection or passively hate each other.’

‘Parents? God, you brought such baggage into my life, Harrington,’ Eddie complains theatrically, kissing said baggage’s hair as he walks past her to microwave his blood.

Max wrinkles her nose at him. ‘Did you just call me baggage?’

‘Hello, can we get back to my trauma please?’

‘Dustin, there’s no trauma, OK?’ Steve says, buttering toast. ‘Eddie and I are in love.’

‘Oh no,’ the kid moans weakly, eyes going wide. ‘No, no! Forget it, my trauma is healed, I’m fine!’

But Eddie’s caught on now too, drapes his arm around Dustin’s shoulders, trapping him as Steve continues.

‘We’re in love and we’re living together and there’s nothing wrong with having sex.’

‘NOPE! I’m fine! I promise!’

‘And besides,’ Eddie adds slyly. ‘That was nothing to what’ll happen under the full moon!’

The kids groan collectively, all but Eleven, who is listening raptly as always. She nibbles her toast and Steve watches, forces the residual trauma within to calm.

She’s safe, he can make her food and it won’t hurt her.

Everyone is safe and everyone is there, except for Jonathan,

And Will.

Steve is keenly aware of the kid’s absence, he’s gotten used to casting around for him, seeking to either pull him back into the conversation or help get him out of one, whichever he needs.

But he’s outside today, he’s helping Jonathan clear up the mess from the bonfire the other night.

Steve glances at Robin, catches her eye and makes a cover for me gesture, which relies heavily upon their telepathy because it’s basically just him inclining his brow and nodding towards the window, but she gets it, winks at him.

God, he fucking loves her.

*

The yard needs work.

It’s a mess, they’ve just kind of put stuff out there and ignored it. Broken wood too wet to burn, chunks of things Steve wanted outside, away from him. The pool is full of leaves and dirty water.

Will is talking to Jonathan beside the pergola. He’s smiling, shaking his head and when they kind of peripherally see Steve, they share a brief hug.

‘Hey, man,’ Jonathan greets. ‘Needed a break?’

Steve grins, goes along with it. They both know he loves to be in the thick of the noise and chaos.

‘Saving myself from a migraine, yeah. Will, you want breakfast?’

The kid’s expression shutters slightly and he gives a polite shrug. It’s still sweet, it’s emphatically Will. Kid’s just naturally kind, even when he’s upset. Eddie’s told Steve a little about how things were when he was in the hospital and he can see the residual scars of it now, beneath the cloudy sun.

‘I’m OK, thanks.’

‘I’m gonna go grab a coffee, be right back,’ Jonathan says, seamlessly handing off to Steve.

‘What can I help with?’ Steve asks, looking around. ‘You’ve done a great job so—’

‘You don’t need to be out here with me.’

Steve blinks, surveys him evenly.

‘I want to be.’

Will is shuttered. Passively closed off.

‘Because you’re worried about me.’

‘Because I missed you, kiddo. Because the balance of quiet sanity is off when you’re not around and because I wanted to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘I’m really sorry.’

Will begins the process of neatening up the garden furniture, pushing chairs beneath the table, completely unnecessary, they’ll all be out here later.

‘For?’

Steve takes a deep, quiet breath.

‘For leaving.’

It’s a gamble, it’s the kind of thing he would never speak aloud or even assume with the others unless they came to him and outright said it. But Will isn’t the kind of person who would ever say what was hurting him and Steve knows that. He knows to seek the signs, to read him, pay attention, read between the lines.

‘Y-you didn’t. You came back.’

‘I was gone, though. Eddie told me—’

‘It was mean, what you did.’

Steve stops. He waits, offering silence and presence to encourage Will to go on.

And Will is pushing the chairs in; he’s working on a thankless, fruitless task, but it’s just to keep moving. Steve knows how that feels, to have your insides go rigid so the outsides have to compensate. Like it can’t be that bad if you’re still moving.

‘To Eddie. What you did to him was mean.’

He completes the task, looks away and says nothing else.

‘What I did to him?’ Steve asks, mostly mirrors with a question mark, good way to get Will to open up, he’s learnt.

‘You.’ Will shakes his head, staring at the pool. ‘You told him to take care of us.’

Steve nods slowly, follows Will’s gaze.

‘I knew it would keep him alive.’

‘That’s why it was mean.’ He says it so quietly Steve barely catches it, space between them, fresh air and the outside world, but he knows what he heard. ‘You have no idea how hard it was for him. How much he tried to keep things going.’

‘Do you wanna tell me?’

‘No.’

‘That must have been difficult for you to watch.’

‘It’s not about me!’

Will has never snapped at Steve before. Never raised his voice. It’s a long, heavy moment before he looks at him.

‘I know you did it to keep us safe. I know that. And I know why you told him to do that too, because it would keep him here, give him a sense of purpose. But it was cruel.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve says quietly. ‘Yeah, I suppose it was.’

‘You used us to keep him here. He was broken up inside and he was…’ Will’s expression falters. ‘He was getting snacks and soup, he was doing what you would have done. You made him stay and you made him take care of people and he was dying inside.’

Steve stares at Will. ‘That must feel awful.’

The kid glances at him. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘I’m not.’

‘This isn’t about me.’

‘I didn’t say it was.’

‘You’re—god, it doesn’t matter, does it? You’re back now and everything’s fine, I guess. Just. What you did was shitty.’

‘Yeah. It was. And I’m really sorry. I want to make it right.’

Will wraps his arms around himself. It’s not cold, there’s no chill in the air. It’ll be fully summer soon, stifling heat will roll in and the town will briefly forget it’s a winter town, everyone will be in shorts and the streets will be full of discarded bikes.

‘He’s already forgiven you.’

‘What about you?’

‘This isn’t about me.’

‘I hurt you too.’

‘You protected us.’

‘Things were messed up and I caused that.’ Steve moves closer. ‘I left Eddie behind and I made him stay. I made him stay by making him care and he… he would rather have followed me, but I couldn’t let him.’

‘You were selfish.’

‘I was terrified.’

Will lifts his gaze to meet Steve’s eyes. ‘You were?’

Steve lets out a faint laugh, it’s mostly an exhale.

‘Yeah, I was. I knew how bad it was gonna hurt. I knew how scared I was gonna be while I fell. I couldn’t get my head around what was going to happen once it went dark. I’ve never been so scared and I couldn’t let him follow me. I just couldn’t. And that’s selfish, you’re right. I made a mistake. I kept him here. I was mean. Cruel. Even if that wasn’t my intention.’

Will’s jaw is working, throat contracting.

‘You love him.’

‘That doesn’t make it OK. Loving someone and hurting them, even accidentally, is never OK. Eddie has every right to be angry at me and he was, he still is a little, I think. I don’t blame him. I left him out in the cold. He deserved better. I’m gonna make it right.’

It’s a long time before Will asks, ‘How?’

Steve says, ‘By bringing him in where it’s warm and never, ever doing that again.’

‘You’ll—’ Will shakes his head, cuts himself off.

‘It’s OK,’ Steve encourages gently. ‘Go on.’

‘You’re gonna die one day and he might not.’

‘Maybe. But I know we’ll find each other again, always. I promised he could take care of me and he promised I could take care of him, no matter what. I’m gonna do better this time.’

‘What if you mess up?’

‘Then I’ll keep trying. I’ll never stop trying, because no matter how far apart we drift or what happens, I’m always going to love him and those idiots in there and you and I know I can do it better. I know it, so I’m gonna.’

Will sniffles and his throat works, eyes closed.

‘Don’t leave again.’

It’s the promise all kids want.

It’s the assurance Steve is desperate to give, let it settle like the snowy Santa Claus lie; disarm and dazzle until the kids grow up, realise it was a well-meant betrayal because Santa isn’t real and everyone dies.

Steve feels his way with every word.

‘I know I did leave, before. I made a choice and that choice hurt a lot of people. I’m not going to make that choice ever again and I won’t use love to keep someone in a place where they’re miserable. I’m here. I’m right where I want to be. I promise.’

Will moves first and that’s all the indication Steve needs. He brings him close and holds him tight. They’ve never hugged before, not really. Not like this. Steve wants to hug him every day, he wants to normalise the fuck out of it for this kid who’s always outside, one way or the other.

Will is shaking, he’s all taut and awkward, gonna be a little taller than Steve soon, but not quite yet.

And the day is mild, it’ll be warm later, when the clouds pass by, but Steve holds Will Byers like it’s a winter’s day. Hand on the back of his head, arm around his shoulders, he tells him he’s sorry, everything is gonna be OK now, promise.

Will hugs him back after he says that. He lets out a low sob and Steve closes his eyes.

*

Hopper and Joyce come for lunch.

They’re giving everyone space and Steve is grateful, if not inherently smug that his house, as he thought before but now sort of knows concretely, is The House.

Eddie and Nancy make lunch together, they both take it very seriously and argue often. Steve hears Nancy telling Eddie, that’s too much garlic and chuckles to himself, knowing it’s about to go off.

Joyce brings wine and she brings a whole bunch of clothes for the kids.

‘Just in case!’ she says, hands in the air. ‘They like to stay over, so it’ll be easier.’

Steve is already thinking what room Will might like, how he can decorate it, get a drawer for those clothes. He’s certain El would like the room that faces East, it’s got this gorgeous view of the trees.

Hopper chats for a while to Max. There’s a few things he needs to tell her, about her Mom’s passing, the paperwork involved. He tells her that they still can’t reach her Dad. Eddie and Steve share a glance, both kind of wanting to go be with her while Hopper has this chat, but both respecting that she likely wants to hear these things alone.

Lunch is soup, salads and homemade pizza.

The kids demolish the pizza.

‘You’re like locusts,’ Eddie proclaims proudly, pointing out what was his creation and what was Nancy’s, demanding the kids pick sides and select a winner. Nancy’s wins, despite the healthy greens she snuck on pizza simply because hers was the cheesiest and that cheese covered all the sneaky greens.

In the kitchen, Steve is washing up and Eddie slides his arms around his middle from behind.

He moves into his space.

Steve’s eyes close, the moment stills.

And Eddie brushes his nose against the side of Steve’s throat, whispers, ‘Hi, boyfriend.’

And Steve knows he wants to feel that everyday.

Every single day.

He reaches back, hands wet but Eddie won’t mind, and touches his face, pushes his fingers into his hair and sighs with a degree of bone deep contentment.

‘Hey, baby.’

They stand there, in intimate space, just being together.

Eddie whispers, ‘I lost my nickname, you know.’

And it takes Steve a second to realise what he’s talking about. Can only feel hands around his middle, where they intersect, where they cross and Eddie’s fingertips find the scar they share through denim and cotton.

‘Oh,’ he says, mind catching up. ‘Oh, yeah, you kinda did. Little Bit fully took it.’

‘You gave it to him. You literally named him.’

‘I named you, my full moon monster,’ Steve purrs as his smile widens and he looks over his shoulder, angling for a kiss. ‘But shall I make up a new one, just for you?’

‘Hmm, maybe. You know what I remembered?’

‘What’s that?’

‘When you lost the first switch challenge.’

Steve squints, thinking back.

‘With the apple?’

‘That’s the one. You remember? You owe me a dare, Steve Harrington.’

‘Are you coming to collect it?’

‘I think I’m gonna bide my time, actually.’

‘Yeah? Just gonna spring it on me out of nowhere, are you? That’s not very nice.’

‘But baby,’ Eddie whispers. ‘You like surprises.’

Steve’s heart trips over itself and Eddie can likely smell the feeling, makes this very low growling sound, it’s all mid-throat and tongue moving over teeth, Steve wants to eat it, he wants to find and fuck it and love him from the inside—

‘Good god.’

Hopper sounds not especially thrilled and Eddie sighs, regretfully bites Steve’s jaw and then releases him. He makes no quips, no snide Lawman as he leaves.

Steve is ready for it, has been waiting.

‘Munson tell you about your parents?’

Steve glances over, has warm water and suds up his wrist again as he resumes washing up.

‘It’s Hetfield and yeah, he did. Are they still in town?’

Say no, say no, say no.

‘They are, yeah. I saw them yesterday.’

Steve feels sick. ‘Right.’

‘I told them you woke up.’ Steve looks at him. Hopper has the decency to seem mildly conflicted. ‘But I also said if they come back and refuse to leave, I’ll arrest them for trespassing. This is your place.’ Hopper rolls his eyes a bit. ‘Yours and his.’

‘And hers.’

‘And hers, yeah. Saw the paperwork for that. You’re a good brother.’

Steve frowns warily, isn’t sure he likes this Very Nice Moment they’re having, but it’s over quick enough.

‘I guess you’re gonna tell me to see them?’

‘Actually, I’m asking what you want to do.’

‘What if I said I wanted to never see them again?’

‘Then I’ll try and help make that happen, if you want my help. I know you don’t need it.’

Steve sets the last plate on the rack, drying his hands.

Around the island, everyone is there. Laughing, teasing, they’re loud and no one but Nancy cares about mess. Jonathan’s getting ice cream from the freezer and Will is sitting with Mike. They’re sort of talking quietly to one another while looking over, every now and then. Eleven and Joyce are telling a story between them of something Steve knows he wasn’t there for, years ago. Lucas is holding Max’s hand. Dustin and Eddie are working on something that requires a stunning amount of paper and coloured pens. Steve knows a game night being prepared when he sees one.

Robin is very casually looking over at Steve, checking he’s OK.

And Hopper is asking Steve if he needs help getting rid of his fuck-ass parents from bum-fuck nowhere Hawkins.

‘I’ll uh, I’ll keep that in mind,’ Steve says, nodding decisively. ‘But I am gonna see them, if I can. There’s things I wanna say.’

Hopper says, ‘Good for you, Steve. Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads-up and now I have, so.’ The older man thumbs over his shoulder and Steve releases him with a generous smile.

*

‘I wanna take you somewhere.’

‘You do? Where?’

Steve is in Eddie’s lap, movie playing loudly before them. The kids are half on sofas, half on the floor. Steve thinks he’s recognising a pattern with who likes the floor and who likes to curl up on the sofa with Robin.

And the movie is Fright Night, again. They love this dumb movie and it’s not even good quality, it’s bootleg and Eddie got it from Jonathan who got it from somewhere. It’s barely watchable, but the kids love it, so.

‘I don’t know,’ Eddie says quietly, voice just above a whisper. ‘Maybe like, the beach or something?’

The kids look back in near perfect unison.

‘We wanna go to the beach!’

‘We definitely want to go! Can we go tomorrow?’

‘I don’t have sunblock, can we get some on the way?’

‘You don’t need sunblock, you’re pasty. You need sun!’

‘Screw you, I burn in the sun OK?’

‘Ooh, if we’re going to the beach, can I get a massive inflatable?’

‘Aren’t you too old for an inflatable?’

‘You are never too old to float on the surface of the water while looking hot and bored and actually being neither.’ Robin beams at Steve. ‘I can get a floaty, right?’

*

They drive to Lake Michigan.

It’s barely a four hour drive and they split it between two cars. Eddie drives the Beemer, it’s this whole thing; he’s taking Steve somewhere. The trunk is full, it barely closed and they’re sharing the kids between them. Nancy got the girls and Lucas, Jonathan navigating. Steve rides up front with Eddie, Will, Dustin and Robin in the back. Dustin has the map.

The windows are rolled down the entire way. It’s warm and bright and Steve is excited to leave Hawkins, even just for the day. Eddie takes requests for music, everyone’s got requests. Steve puts Black Sabbath in when Eddie opens his arm to Steve as Orchid comes on. It’s a short song, but it reminds him of times in the tower when they made a little routine to care for each other.

Steve swivels, high tops out the window, leaning against Eddie.

‘If you knock the gearstick and we die, it’s so your fault!’ Dustin complains.

Steve smiles, hums along to the song.

*

Steve and Robin guard their spot. It’s got decent shade and the sand is pretty soft. Steve sits there on a blanket, watching the kids go absolutely wild in the blue waters stretching vast and lovely before him.

Robin rests her head on his shoulder.

It’s just the two of them.

Eddie and Jonathan are orchestrating a swim race of some sort and Nancy is bravely walking down the beach to an ice cream place. Joyce and Hopper politely declined to come, Steve thinks they’ll make the most of their free time.

‘This is nice,’ Robin observes happily. ‘Even if I don’t have a floaty.’

Steve wraps his arm around her, kisses her temple.

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

‘You’re mad at me.’

‘So mad. Furious.’ Robin sighs. ‘But also, forgive you, so. It’s fine. You’re here. That’s what matters.’

Steve is watching the water. He’s got his eyes on his boyfriend who is playfully drowning Dustin. His curls are wet and his skin is pale, but Steve hopes he catches a little of the sun. Eddie never ducks under. Steve thinks Little Bit is scared of the water, still.

‘Feel like we haven’t talked since I woke up.’

‘It’s been a little hard to schedule a bathroom floor chat, I grant you, but we can make do, can’t we?’

‘We can talk now?’

‘We are talking, Dingus.’

Steve grins to himself, thinking of the cold air from the freezers against his bare thighs in Scoops and how they’d kept warm by making each other laugh. He thinks of her merciless ribbing and the easy way she listened. How he’d been desperate for it, to have someone like her in his life.

A best friend.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says at length. ‘I’m so sorry, Robin.’

She looks at him, snuggling closer like it’s Scoops again and not a hot day in the shade.

‘I know you wouldn’t have done it unless you thought there was no other way.’

‘I couldn’t take the risk. I…’ Steve swallows over the lump that forms, keeps his eyes on the water, the kids, Jonathan and Eddie, Nancy coming back with a bunch of ice creams that’ll be soup in less than a minute because there’s no freezers like in Scoops and Steve knows a little something about frozen cream and sugar. ‘I found what you and Eddie wrote to each other in the bathroom, that day. The notepad.’

Eddie is grinning widely, it’s so beautiful that Steve can’t believe he gets to love that man, to kiss him, be with him, share time and share everything because they’re greedy and generous by nature; the cyclical closed loop system of how they choose to love.

The kids are cackling and splashing, Max isn’t wearing her glasses, Steve has them wrapped up in her tee by his ankle. Eleven is diving under the water and holding her breath while Will counts and Mike tries to compete, but he’ll fail, Steve knows.

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. I found it last night, clearing up DnD plans, y’know? And I…’ Steve shakes his head, keeps his focus on the scene before him. Sunlight on water and warm sand and everyone he loves, happy and safe. ‘I can’t imagine how scared he must have been. How scared you both must have been and I’m so sorry that I was the cause of that.’

‘Did you read all of it?’ she asks quietly after a long stretch of nothing. Nancy is getting closer, she has melty ribbons of ice cream running down her wrists, the sun isn’t to be fucked with today. ‘Because there’s a part Eddie underlined where he said it’s not Steve. Think maybe you missed that part, babe.’

‘I didn’t. But I’m still sorry. Gonna be sorry for a while.’ He nudges her. ‘That OK?’

‘What does that entail, exactly?’

‘Eh,’ he shrugs. ‘Mostly just saying sorry anytime we talk about something bad that happened.’

‘Like it’s your fault?’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘Then I, in my infinite wisdom, will permit your sorry-A-thon and simply say, no problem, each time.’

‘Because you’re the best.’

‘Because I am indeed the best, Harrington, don’t you ever forget it.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you.’

‘You like Nancy, right?’

Robin sighs again. She’s got a gorgeous sigh.

‘Is this payback?’

‘It’s definitely payback.’

‘For Eddie? Because I was supportive.’

‘You cornered me while we were scrubbing floors.’

‘Hey, floors are our sacred place for honesty.’

‘A grand tradition I am upholding, Buckley. So?’

Nancy’s has to dump the soggy cones into a trash can and she is covered in ice cream, all down her wrists and forearms, on her feet, even her legs. She looks pretty when she’s mad, always has. She’s got something else under her arm.

They’re both watching Nancy Wheeler as she washes herself off in the waters of Lake Michigan.

‘Fine, let’s do it,’ Robin says. ‘You’ve got thirty seconds before she gets here.’

‘We’re glossing over the fact she’s with Jonathan.’

‘Absolutely not glossing, but I take your point.’

‘We’re skipping past the part where she’s straight leaning.’

‘As if I would ever trust your instincts about such things, but fine.’

‘Let’s get right to the part where you like her.’

Robin chuckles. Nancy, Max and Eleven are coming back to headquarters for shade, towels and drinks, most likely. ‘Yeah,’ she answers easily, his best friend, Empress of his Heart, now and forever. ‘I like her. She’s hot. On the inside, y’know?’

Steve snorts and bites his lips into his mouth.

Robin groans. ‘Not like that!’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘I just mean… she’s fiery. She’s bright, y’know? I wanna see her get mad at someone on my behalf. I wanna like, watch her fire off a few rounds in a field and see if it makes her cheeks go red.’

The girls are almost there. Max and El are holding hands, bumping into each other now and then as they laugh about something one of the boys did.

‘Babe,’ Steve says heavily. ‘I don’t wanna alarm you, but I think you might be gay.’

‘God, do you think so?’ she whispers back. ‘No, that’s not possible. Because that might mean that Eddie is gay and there’s just no way, right, Harrington?’

Steve scowls and loves her even harder than before.

‘Ahoy, ladies!’ he greets brightly, knowing it’ll make Robin laugh. ‘How’s the water?’

‘It’s nice, you should go in,’ Eleven says, sitting beneath the shade of a beach umbrella. Steve can feel the peripheral cool coming from their skin, wet droplets of lake water clinging and grabbing sand.

Steve thinks he’ll only go in with Eddie, holding hands, wants to make sure his boyfriend isn’t having any bad feelings about the last time they were in a lake together.

Nancy sits down with a huff.

‘The ice creams melted?’ Steve ventures sympathetically.

‘Yeah,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘But I got you this, here.’

She hands Robin a large, flat rectangle of clear plastic and something heavy inside.

Robin squeals. ‘You got me a FLAMINGO?!’

Nancy beams, all rage towards the inevitable entropy of cold things that melt suddenly forgotten. ‘A floaty flamingo, it’s all they had. I hope it’s OK?’

‘It’s gorgeous, I love it, I’m gonna treasure it, keep it in my room forever and use it as a chair!’

Steve’s smile never wavers but he happily winces internally at her enthusiasm, bookmarks it for later, when he’ll gently tease her about it.

As if sensing his future plans, Robin drags the plastic monstrosity out of the pack and gives it to Steve.

‘Oh, I get to blow it up, do I?’

‘You’re the man, sweetie,’ she trills and he thinks if the girls weren’t there, she’d had said something else, something about his blowing skills.

‘Robs, you coming in?’ Max asks, rehydrated and apparently ready for more swimming. Steve finds the plastic cap, thinks this is gonna take a lot of breath.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Hey, wait!’ Steve says, reaching for the hamper. ‘Wait, you need more sunblock.’

Max sighs, makes a face but relents. Robin snags the bottle, says she’ll do it and then El, after having finished off a sandwich, goes with them back into the water.

Nancy gives Steve an apologetic smile as he starts breathing life into a fucking flamingo ring made to be sat in.

‘Sorry.’

He shrugs, gets to work.

‘Just thought Robin would like it.’ Steve can’t really talk, he’s aggressively breathing into this thing that smells of newly formed plastic and chemical shit that reminds him of being a kid for some reason. Nancy turns to look out at the water.

‘Eddie seems happy.’

Steve nods, wipes his mouth, says ‘Yeah,’ and then resumes his task. Fucking god this is gonna take like fifteen minutes.

‘I was…’ Nancy sighs, frowning deeply. ‘In the hospital, I think I pushed him too hard.’

Steve has heard very little about The Hospital.

There are whole chunks he knows nothing about, despite having the peripheral knowledge of them. Like the outline of a shape that’s yet to be filled in, he knows that this chunk of time was fucking awful for everyone.

In the wake of his silence, breath into plastic, Robin will love floating around all smug and superior, Nancy shakes her head, plays with the sand.

‘When I asked him to help us hold things together for the kids, he did. But it… It wasn’t what he needed and I think I made things much worse. I expected him to be like you,’ she says, lifting her gaze to Steve, who dutifully continues to blow up the inflatable. ‘The way I know you’d put the kids first and pretend things were OK for them. I expected him to be like that but then when I went back to get my stuff, your first night home, I was in my room and I got to thinking about a few things. I thought about when you and I were together. You were always there for me. You came with me every week to Barb’s family for dinner and you didn’t know Barb, or her family. You dressed up as Tom Cruise because you knew I liked Tom Cruise.’ She laughs, but it’s a little wet. ‘I’ve always just thought that’s who you were and that’s how people should be. But Eddie’s not like that, in the best way. He’s different, he has different ways of caring and I think that was the first time I realised that what I expect of people is sometimes… unreasonable. That maybe it’s not good to ask everyone to be exactly what I need.’ She looks out at the water. ‘It’s unfair.’

The flamingo isn’t even half filled, it’s saggy and empty and Steve takes a break, holds his thumb over the cap to keep what air he has managed to get inside, inside.

‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘You’re a good person, Nancy Wheeler, OK? I wanted to do those things for you and you’re right, I would have tried to put the kids first. You were doing your best.’

‘I’m still sorry and I’ll tell him as much later. I’ve uh.’ She shakes her head, so much about her is quietly reverent and regretful just then. ‘Never seen anyone cry like that before. When your parents came.’

Steve blinks. ‘Eddie cried?’

‘He screamed first. He wouldn’t let them near you, told them to get out, that it wasn’t their house anymore and you weren’t their son, but then,’ she says softly, holding Steve’s gaze. Brown eyes, brown curls, there had been a time when Nancy Wheeler was all Steve Harrington could think about. ‘He said you were gone and he… he just broke down. Hopper caught him before he collapsed and he cried and I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Steve’s focus is drawn back out to the water, helplessly searching out Eddie, his boyfriend, his love, his mate. Eddie is looking over, like he could sort of tell they’re having this kind of conversation, but his concern is well masked.

‘He’s crazy about you,’ Nancy says and Steve can’t look away. ‘It’s the real deal, ‘y’know?’ She reaches over, takes his hand in hers and gives a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m really happy for you both.’

Eddie looks away first, Dustin is actively vying for his attention and Steve knows Eddie’s weak for the kid, the way Steve is with Will, the way they both are for Max, for literally all of these noisy, messy little fuckers.

The kids so often come first and Steve knows he should never have weaponised that, the same way Nancy did, but…

He knew what would happen if he didn’t.

Cruel to be kind, he thinks, but it’s an uncomfortable thought and he knows later, he’s going to have to ask Eddie a lot. Because Steve has shared and he’s cried and he told Eddie all the bad inside him, but Eddie still hasn’t told anyone what happened in the Upside Down. Not really.

‘Thanks,’ Steve says, drags the pink plastic floaty back and finds where he left off. The plastic is all wet with his spit, it’s gross and he thinks Eddie would take over, lick it all up and smile like a shark while he did it.

Nancy Wheeler is watching the water and then she reaches over, steals the pink monstrosity.

‘Hey, you go swim. I’ll inflate.’ He’s about to protest when she grins wryly. ‘Come on, we shared spit before, I’m not squeamish.’

*

The water is cold and Steve’s skin is all like what the fuck as he wades out. The sand is soft, his bare feet detect all the changes, little sharp things, plants. He feels nervous despite the fact he’s a strong swimmer, always has been, despite the fact he’s swum in oceans on the other side of the world, all over this planet.

Eddie’s hand is in his before it’s even past his knees.

‘Hey, Sunshine,’ he greets warmly. ‘Come to play?’

‘Maybe I missed you.’

‘You definitely missed me.’ Eddie glances back towards their spot. ‘Is that a flamingo?’

‘Nancy got it for Robin.’

‘It’s fucking huge. Robs is gonna be so smug.’

Steve grins, fingers laced with Eddie’s. ‘So smug.’

Eddie leans in and kisses him. There are people everywhere, it’s a hot day and this beach is popular. Eddie doesn’t seem to care, he kisses Steve and his thumb rubs over each of his knuckles. Steve briefly thinks what his boyfriend would do to anyone who dared comment.

‘You smell good, baby,’ Eddie whispers when they part.

‘I do?’

‘Uh huh. C’mon, come help me drown the kids.’

*

The kids are eating lunch on the shore, Nancy and Jonathan are overseeing. Robin is floating, she’s in heaven on her pink plastic boat. Sunglasses and a Sanpellegrino, she’s drifting and happy, so they let her be.

Eddie and Steve are swimming together.

They can see the shore, make out the umbrellas, but otherwise they’re far away, drifting out further with each rhythmic push-pull of the waves.

Eddie’s lips are wet and they’re treading water while holding hands and he says, ‘I can feel her in the water, you know?’

Steve smiles. ‘The moon?’

‘She’s in all of it. All the water, even in people.’

‘You think that’s why we like it wet so much?’

Eddie laughs. His curls look near black like this, water splashing their faces now and then. It’s cold but Steve’s body has adjusted and so now it just feels cool.

‘One of many reasons.’

The sun above is unobscured, perfect, glaring.

The water is cool and it’s got the moon in it.

‘I fucking love you.’

Eddie draws him nearer. ‘You do? I had no idea.’

‘You’re astonished, right?’

‘Gob-smacked. Don’t think our friendship can survive this shocking revelation, to be honest.’

Steve says, ‘Wrap your legs around me, I’m the better swimmer. Come on, I’ve gotcha.’

Eddie sighs very softly when Steve takes his weight, treads water harder to support them both in these depths, but he’s always been a good swimmer.

‘Remember when you took your shirt off in that boat?’ Eddie says, arms around Steve’s neck, lips brushing against his cheek. ‘I thought I was gonna die.’

Steve snorts and then he nuzzles him. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. Like, I’d seen you before, obviously. Seen you bare in the showers a couple’a times, but you were so…’

He hums thoughtfully, quietly kisses Steve.

‘I was so what?’

‘Hard to put into words when it comes to you. It’s always out of reach, the right name, the right phrase. I just remember seeing you and you looked at me and I thought, god fucking damn it, you’re still as gone for him as ever, huh, Munson?’

Steve keeps them afloat. ‘You made me want things for the first time,’ he whispers over the endless lapping of lake waters, of this strange ocean that isn’t an ocean, it’s landlocked, but it’s so big you’d never know the difference. ‘You touched me and I felt it for hours after.’

Eddie sighs. ‘I couldn’t help it. Just wanted to be near you, touch you, tease you, god. Your serious face, your little frown whenever I’d say something and get all up in your space.’

Steve touches his nose to Eddie’s. ‘Like this?’

‘Not this close, baby, I wouldn’t have been able to resist.’

‘Yeah you would. You’re a good guy, Eddie Munson.’

‘Steve, if you did this to me, even before, I would have kissed you.’

‘And I would have kissed you back.’

‘Even in front of the others?’

Steve swallows hard, closes his eyes. ‘Even in front of the others. Think I was a little bit gone for you too, y’know?’

Eddie’s legs are around Steve’s waist and treading water is second nature to Steve, he’s always been a strong swimmer, always known how to avoid riptides and keep himself above water, so he holds them up and he kisses the man he loves.

‘I’m so fucking glad I got to come back,’ Eddie breathes into the kiss. Their lips are warm and their skin is cold and Steve tastes salt, he tastes Eddie. ‘To have this.’

‘Me too,’ Steve says, means it, means several things at once because they were both gone and yet they both came back. Second chances, rebirth. ‘Is Little Bit OK?’

Eddie angles his head to deepen this one kiss he gives him, it’s a dirty kiss, all slow and slutty and it makes love spill warm in Steve’s blood. ‘We’re fine. You’ve got us.’

‘I’ve got you,’ Steve promises. ‘Not gonna let you go.’

Eddie smiles in the next kiss, licking deeper inside where it’s wet and hot and Steve kisses back the same way, tongues playing, curling like snakes, they’re equally gross and Steve is so happy when they’re gross together.

‘Promise?’

Steve kisses down the side of his jaw, finds that first bite. The place he drew blood from, where Eddie begged him to sink his teeth. Steve says, ‘Promise,’ before he bites again.

*

On the drive home, Steve rides with Eddie and Max in the backseat. Jonathan drives the Beemer and Robin is upfront. Poor Nancy got all the kids.

Max is in the middle and she’s fast asleep, leaning into Steve. He’s got his arm around her while she dozes. Her hair smells of salt and sand, she’s tired from all the swimming and sun, he thinks. Her fingernails are painted black, Eddie did it for her this morning. There’s a chip already, but it looks good.

Eddie holds Steve’s hand. He’s looking out the window at all the places, the things they see as they make their way back to Hawkins. Lot of new places, new things. Steve wants to go with him wherever he likes, he wants to go to the fairground with Eddie. Go on rides, win dumb toys, eat sticky candyfloss right from Eddie’s fingers and lick it up when it sticks.

His hollow places are filled with ideas, with desires and the gentle bloom of hope that in time, he can have all of them. He can have everything he ever wanted because with Eddie, everything is possible.

Everything and more.

Eddie looks away from the window and smiles, inclining his head. He sighs gently, squeezes Steve’s hand.

With his lips he shapes the words.

Steve shapes them back.

Language of silence and sight, of reading.

Eddie reads Steve all the time, he scents him, he studies him. Steve thinks if he never got his speech back, Eddie would have made it work seamlessly for them. He thinks they are like jagged pieces of the same whole, split and lost, misshapen like sea glass with time and the force of water, but they still fit together. Glass is only liquid sand and everything is only cells.

And all cells began in the sea, didn’t they?

There was just one, once.

How lonely it must have been.

How it must have longed for a friend.

Eddie watches Steve with gentle adoration, like he can read all these silly, abstract thoughts about cells and oceans and the creation of companionship. A cell splitting itself simply to not be alone and behold, all life on this lovely planet began.

Max sleeps in Steve’s arms. He’s her brother now and forever, would die for her in a heartbeat and he would live for her too, that’s as valuable. Family is more than blood and blood is no more than cells and they all share cells. Every single person in the world is family already, they only have to choose those they love best and offer them inside where it’s warm and there’s snacks and the ability to care, to love, to listen.

Steve is sleepy and his mind is starting to drift, casting off with silly thoughts that he maybe won’t remember later but for now, he thinks he’s got it all figured out.

Life.

This world.

Cells and oceans and celestial beings and Eddie Munson, holding his hand.

Steve drifts, safely anchored.

*

‘Baby.’

Eddie’s tone is soft, but serious.

Steve opens his eyes quickly, heart flooded with adrenaline. He looks around. The car, his car. People outside are talking. Nancy sounds like she’s ten seconds from getting her twelve gauge.

Steve’s parents are outside his house.

‘Ah, fuck.’

‘Yeah,’ Eddie says. He’s half in the car, half out. Max is with the others, Robin guarding them well. ‘Sorry. What do you wanna do?’

Steve gets out of the car and the attention of his parents swivels onto him with a snap that makes his heart clench.

‘Hey guys,’ he greets coolly. It’s an excellent start. They look tired, frazzled, at least for his parents, and they clearly don’t like being greeted in such a way. Steve closes the door, walks around the other side to Robin. ‘Could you—?’

‘On it,’ she says. ‘C’mon, let’s go get ice cream and invade my parents’ house. They’ve got a hot tub.’

The kids agree easily enough but Max gives Steve this look, like she’s offering to stay if he needs it. Steve winks, gives her a smile that is all for her, little sis, and shakes his head.

‘Steven.’

‘I said you’re gonna wait!’ Nancy snaps at Sylvia Harrington, whose eyes widen.

But she does wait.

They both do.

Nancy comes to Steve while the kids pile back into the cars. ‘I’ll stay if you want, back you up.’ She says it so fiercely, it makes him smile.

‘I’ve got this, but if anyone needs shooting, you’re who I’ll call, Wheeler.’

She grips his hand, kisses his cheek and then glares at his parents before she snaps at Mike to haul ass into the car, quit staring.

Eddie hasn’t taken his eyes off of either one of them.

It’s the kind of thing where only Steve senses the degree of silent danger his parents are truly in. Eddie’s like a shark, he can be placid and calm and the water won’t even ripple, but he is Steve’s monster and these people…

These people have hurt Steve, in the past.

When the cars pull away, it’s just the four of them.

‘Is he staying, then?’ Steve’s mom asks, quietly scathing, nodding at Eddie like he’s an inanimate object.

Steve heads towards the front door. It’s new, their keys didn’t fit the lock, otherwise he knows they would already have been inside.

‘It’s his house too,’ he tells them.

*

They follow him in. Eddie stays very close to Steve once they’re over the threshold and where Steve goes right for the kitchen, Eddie walks backwards, kind of watching them.

He hears the door close.

His insides are writhing.

The kitchen is still trashed from breakfast that morning, when everyone was getting ready to leave and Robin was yelling about her bathing suit having a hole in it and Jonathan was calmly asking Eddie if he ever still got hold of any weed because he kinda wanted to get high that weekend and Eddie laughed, said sorry, being dead kinda ruined his contact list.

Now Steve is making coffee for himself and only himself, he’s gonna be petty as fuck and he’s…

He’s shaking.

But that’s OK.

Eddie is here.

They are two, three really.

Three versus two.

He’s got this.

‘So.’

Steve waits and then turns, machine noisy, coffee scent strong and acrid, it’s a lovely burning smell that he associates with being woken by the warm mouth of the man he loves before they make daylight together.

His parents stand there awkwardly, looking around.

The walls have been stripped, scraped back.

The art was torn down.

Anything they chose to exude taste and wealth has been destroyed.

His dad speaks first.

‘You look well.’

Steve smiles bitterly. Eddie hops up on the countertop, knee to chest, he’ll keep watch, but he’s giving Steve space, autonomy, agency to do whatever he needs to here.

‘Yeah, I am.’

‘We spoke to the doctors and they said you were very badly hurt in the fall.’

They spoke to doctors. They went around him, went to the hospital. They asked questions. They have never cared before and now, when he wants them gone, they’re here.

‘I was, yeah.’

He turns to press the button that will dispense his coffee. It fills the cup slowly. Steve wants to do reckless shit, like get the jug out of the fridge and fill another cup for Eddie, just to make them see how alien they are here.

How little they belong.

Steve holds the hot coffee in both hands, he likes how his palms burn.

‘What do you want?’

His mother purses her lips. ‘You’re our son.’

‘Am I?’ He looks over at the clock; just after seven at night. ‘OK, if I’m your son, then I’ll give you ten minutes. Call a cab right now, ten minutes.’

His dad shakes his head, says, ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

And from up high, from his marble tower, Eddie very subtly clears his throat. Steve hears the rapping of his nails, four fingers making four taps.

He’s offering monster. Black.

But Steve doesn’t need him to be that.

‘Then I’m not talking to you.’

‘Are you all right now?’ his mom asks, moving closer. Her heels clack on the floor. ‘You seem all right.’

Steve shrugs, silent.

Fuck you.

Fuck you both.

A degree of frustration passes behind her eyes.

‘We’re your parents, Steve. We are allowed to be here.’

Eddie snorts with laughter, it’s very soft but it’s so quiet in there that everyone hears it. Steve’s parents look at him in perfect synchronisation, near identical cold glares. There’s a reason they stayed together and that reason was more than money. When united in hatred, these two were truly something.

‘And if anyone should leave, it’s him.’ Steve sips his coffee. ‘This isn’t anything to do with him, he’s not family.’

‘I want him here.’

They’re silent for a beat until his Dad steps closer, asks very flatly, ‘What have you done?’

Steve looks up from the surface of his drink and for a moment, he feels very small. Like he broke something special, more special than he ever was, and now he’s in trouble.

Then he realises Daniel isn’t even talking to Steve.

Eddie simply says, ‘I kept your books. Those were nice. I cracked all the spines and dog-eared my favourite parts.’

Steve’s dad pales. ‘You… you’ve been in my office?’

Eddie says, ‘You don’t have an office here.’

His mom looks like she’s on the verge of admonishing her husband when the man stalks towards the den, silent and furious. Steve hates that he feels sickly dread curl in his guts, that he knows he must go a little pale but it’s all right, Eddie’s there with him. He knows he’s safe.

Sylvia looks at Steve. They’ve got the same eyes.

‘What happened at the quarry?’

‘I fell.’

‘Did you…?’ She shakes her head, shoots Eddie a darkly venomous glare and lowers her voice as she looks back, light brown eyes glittering. ‘Baby, did you jump?’

‘Call him that again,’ Eddie threatens calmly. ‘See what happens.’

‘He is my baby. He’ll always be my child no matter how you corrupt or distort him!’

‘I’m not a child and I’m not your child and you’re not gonna speak to my boyfriend like that.’

Sylvia Harrington’s mouth twists, her cheeks colouring.

‘It’s true, then? You’re… together?’

Steve thinks he’s found the perfect way to get rid of them. He thinks he’ll just yell it, loud and proud, kiss Eddie in front of them and that’ll be that. It’s a comfort, knowing he has the keys to ridding himself of them forever, but it’s also devastating.

That the happiest part of his life will drive his parents so far away with no hope of recourse.

‘What does it matter to you?’ Steve glances towards the den, wishes he could see the look on his dad’s face. ‘Your shit’s long gone. We smashed it up.’

‘Like common criminals.’

Steve grins wide, tongue in cheek. ‘Common as they come, mom, it was fun. And you know what, I think maybe I knew you’d come back one day, because I left all the glass on the carpet upstairs, just in case.’

‘Steven, we gave you this house in the understanding that you’d take care of it!’ His dad is angry, voice clipped, loud.

Eddie kind of gives him this up and down look.

‘Watch your tone, Daniel.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t talk to him like that.’

Steve takes in the red tint of his dad’s cheeks, the anger in his eyes. Steve thinks of all that wine, the Colt. How the desk had burned like any other wood. How fucking great it is in there now, for the kids. Eyesore of a room, he loves it and his dad probably couldn’t hate any room on earth more.

‘I did,’ Steve says coolly, doesn’t know where this strength is coming from, but he loves it. ‘I took care of the house. I ripped it to pieces and threw out what was rotten and I made it something good, something I liked. I made it into a home. I live here now with Eddie and Max and the kids can come stay whenever they like and it’s never quiet, not even at night.’

The Harringtons share a look.

‘You’re not gay,’ his Dad says, looking down at the floor. ‘You’re confused and we left you alone and…’ He shakes his head. ‘That must have been difficult. You weren’t ready, so you were vulnerable and this filth insinuated himself—’

‘Whoa, don’t use big words, dad, I’m just a dumb waste of space, remember? Not even good enough for community college.’

His dad glowers. ‘You’re coming back with us.’

Eddie gets down off the counter-top, but Steve lifts his hand, bids him hold, wait.

‘Am I?’

‘Tommy told his mother you weren’t yourself. You’re not yourself, I see that,’ his mom says quietly. ‘I’ve never seen you like this.’

‘I’m happy, that’s why.’

‘You’re not well, Steven. We’re staying in California for six months, they’ve got the best doctors, the best psychiatrists—’

‘You believe in god?’ Steve asks, cuts right across.

They stare at him. ‘What?’

‘Do you believe in god?’

Daniel says, ‘Of course.’

Steve nods. ‘I don’t. I don’t believe in god. I haven’t for a really long time because I would pray to god at night and beg him to send you back to me.’

‘You were always safe,’ Sylvia snaps quietly. ‘You were allowed to have your friends over as often as you liked and we let you spend whatever you wanted, you know that.’

‘I was not safe,’ Steve says. He has to close his eyes now. ‘My friends only wanted to stay over so often. Money meant nothing to me and I wasn’t safe. I couldn’t sleep.’

He opens his eyes.

The last time he saw both of them was when they asked if he wanted to go with them. Casual, disinterested, hoping he’d say no and he gave them what they wanted.

Now they’re staring at him like he’s a ghost.

‘I couldn’t sleep when you were gone and you were gone…’ Steve laughs. ‘Since I was thirteen. Few days a month, here and there, but that was worse, because I’d get used to having you there and then you’d leave again and I’d have to start over. I needed to sleep. I was tired.’

He thinks he’ll never be able to make that word full enough. That he won’t, no matter how hard he tries, be able to make them appreciate the weight of what it means to be tired for years on end. To be small and terrified in your own home. To cry so often it felt normal. To become numb to everyday cruelty because there was exhaustion in his blood that sang off key, like death.

Sylvia shakes her head. ‘You had everything you needed.’

‘If you think that, you should have gotten a dog instead of having a kid,’ Steve tells her flatly. ‘And dad, you’re right, I’m not gay, I’m bisexual. Eddie’s my boyfriend and he lives here and this is my house and when you leave, I don’t ever wanna see you again.’

Daniel looks at Eddie. ‘He’s not right. There’s something about him, like he’s not…’ He can’t bring himself to say it, even.

Steve wants to laugh, to weep, to scream. He wants to tell his parents all the shocking things he and Eddie do here, in these walls. He wants to tell them that they fucked him up more than the fall in the quarry. He wants to get hold of his boyfriend’s face and kiss him, so the last thing they see before they leave, breaks their hearts. Justice, but it would be hollow.

He smirks. ‘Human?’

Sylvia shakes herself. ‘We want you to come with us.’

‘I don’t want to go with you, anywhere, ever.’

‘You jumped into the quarry,’ she says, like she knows it. ‘You were—when you were younger, the other parents would call me, tell me that you’d been messing around near the edge. You tried to kill yourself.’

Steve says, ‘I did kill myself. I died. The very last piece of your son is buried in the lake. Go there and mourn if you want. Nothing here is yours and you’re unwanted in our home.’

She falters, blinks rapidly.

Daniel’s jaw works.

‘Steve. Can we… can I talk to you? Just for a minute?’

‘I gave you ten minutes and you’ve done nothing but waste them.’ Steve looks at the clock, can feel himself starting to wobble. ‘You have less than one minute left, then I never want to see either of you again. If you try and take me, you’re gonna find out that there’s no god, only the moon. And her favourite monster is my fucking boyfriend, so say what you need to say and then fuck off.’

Seconds slip by, they’re wasting them and they don’t even know it, but Steve doesn’t hate them for it. It’s how they are, how they’ve always been. Wasteful, indulgent, selfish. Money meant nothing, so neither did time.

Steve knows the difference.

Would burn every dollar in his account for a single second of time with the people he loves.

His mother shakes her head.

‘What can we give you?’

‘Nothing. I don’t want anything from you. I’m happy. Just leave me alone.’

He sounds young, even to his own ears. Leave me alone are words he could never conceive of until now, especially towards them.

And he won’t be alone. He’ll never be alone again.

But he needs them to leave.

Daniel nods. ‘All right. Can I call a cab?’

‘Let me get that for you,’ Eddie says, going right for the phone. Daniel Harrington watches him with a degree of loathing so intense it makes his eyes shine, but he doesn’t object.

‘Ten minutes are up,’ Steve says while Eddie makes the call. ‘Have a good life.’

He doesn’t comment on the fact that their wedding rings are missing. He says nothing about how tanned his mother is, while his father looks like he’s not seen the sun in years. He doesn’t care.

Eddie hangs up and Steve is about to drink the rest of his coffee, when his mother closes her eyes, says, ‘If you’re really happy, then that’s all that matters. If you’re… with him, or whatever, and it makes you happy, really.’ When she opens her eyes, Steve can see something steely there, something difficult. ‘Then I’m glad for it and I… wish you all the best.’

No offers of  maybe one day, no apology.

It’s the best he’ll get.

It’s nothing like what he might have needed, once.

But Steve isn’t a kid. He’s not small.

Eddie’s fingers link with his and he finds a heretofore undiscovered pocket of strength.

‘You too. Both of you. Take care.’

He says it because he’s pretty certain this is the last time he’ll ever see them. Last looks, a final conversation.

He may as well make it lightweight.

Decent.

He’s better than them, after all.

They turn away awkwardly. They leave one at a time.

His dad looks back at the door. Steve hears the cab approaching, sees the lights.

‘The photo I kept was of one really nice day we had together. I kept it because it made me happy to remember. I only had one,’ he tells Steve, brow furrowed. Sylvia has gone on, she was always first to leave. ‘I hope you take lots of pictures of nice days, Steve. I hope you have thousands of them.’

The door clicks shut.

Steve is already in Eddie’s arms when he starts to cry.

*

When they go bath shopping, Eddie comes too. He ties his hair back and wears what he lovingly calls A Steve Shirt and thinks he blends in just fine. Steve thinks it’s funny, the idea that Eddie Munson could ever blend in, but no one seems to recognise him and even so, what are they gonna do? Tell the cops?

Eddie gets in every single tub, pulls Steve into a few.

‘This one, definitely this one!’ he says about nine different baths, he’s like a kid.

But they find the clear winner right at the back.

‘Oh my god,’ Eddie sighs reverently. ‘We found her.’

It’s a freestanding tub, absolutely massive and it’s all brushed copper.

Steve pays for it and Eddie is gleeful.

In the car, Steve has the keys in the ignition, but he pauses, doesn’t start the engine yet.

‘Do you,’ he starts. ‘Wanna go see your uncle?’

Last night, Steve cried a lot.

Eddie held him and he loved him and it was quiet, ugly; the shapeless exorcism of grief and the passing of things long since broken. Steve feels like an orphan and it’s the best feeling in the world, even though he’ll wear the scar always. Isn’t sure he will ever like quiet rooms in the dark, will always be uncomfortable when grown-ups just leave, like it’s fine.

The kids are off doing things.

They’re outside. Bikes and cash and Steve thinks the arcade’s gonna do well today. Everyone’s coming for dinner later, it’s game night.

For now, it’s just them.

Steve and Eddie.

‘I uh.’ Steve looks over. Eddie’s staring ahead. ‘Hopper told me where he’s staying. Do you… is that OK?’

‘Of course, baby.’

Eddie manages a shaky smile and a nod.

‘Then yeah. Please.’

They hold hands the whole way there.

It’s a small apartment building.

Eddie looks up from where the car’s parked.

‘Third floor, three sixteen.’

‘Want me to wait here?’

Eddie whispers, ‘Come with me?’

Steve smiles softly. ‘Sure. I’ll follow your lead, OK?’

Eddie kisses his hand before he releases it.

*

The door opens and the man standing there is someone Steve recognises. He saw him last with Dustin, the man who pinned a fresh missing poster up for his nephew.

Wayne Munson goes still, he blinks.

Steve sees the emotions come in; slow, mired with disbelief that Eddie helps to break by saying, ‘It’s me.’

Wayne puts his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, like he’s checking it’s OK and Eddie shakes his head, moves into an embrace that his uncle welcomes, meets, provides.

*

When Eddie introduces Steve, Wayne shakes his hand. His skin is rough, warm. It’s a good handshake and because Eddie said, ‘This is my best friend, Steve,’ Wayne does the thing when he puts his other hand atop where they clasp.

‘Good to meet you, Steve,’ he says quietly. ‘Can I make you coffee or sum’n?’

‘I’ll have one, please,’ Steve says.

Eddie declines, he’s walking around the apartment, checking the place out.

‘I’m sorry you lost your stuff,’ Eddie says when Steve sits down on the sofas. Small, comfy things, navy blue and well worn. ‘The trailer—’

‘Where have you been?’ Wayne asks in a rush. It’s not angry, but Steve can hear the concern, the worry. It’s how he feels when one of the kids comes close to getting hurt, leaves him all like, do you know how scared I was? ‘Eddie, I thought you were…’

Eddie turns, he looks at his uncle with a degree of quiet tenderness. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘I should have told you sooner, but. Well. This is hard to explain. I did die. I died in a bad place and…’

Steve can see him debating it. Whether or not to tell him what he is now. It’s a hard decision to make and Steve will support him, whichever way he leans.

‘And Steve brought me back,’ he says, eyes bright, smile even more so. ‘He saved me and he kept me safe from the cops, helped me lay low.’

Wayne goes to Eddie, takes hold of his hands.

‘You died?’

‘I’m fine now, see? Completely fine, promise.’

‘Are you?’ his uncle persists. ‘Because you used to lie about shit like gettin’ hurt when you were a kid too, and if it’s ‘cause of hospital bills, I’ve got a bit saved up—’

‘No, no,’ Eddie says firmly, shaking the hands that hold him, smiling brightly still. ‘I—look at me, don’t I look OK?’

Wayne Munson touches Eddie’s cheek.

‘You look OK, yeah,’ he says in a hushed voice. ‘Like you’re about to cry, but healthy and handsome, like always.’

Eddie’s breath catches in his chest, his brow pinches, expression collapsing. Wayne pulls him into his arms again, holds him tight.

‘Whatever you need, I’m here for. I see that cop sniffin’ around, I’ll kick his ass.’

Eddie manages a weak laugh. ‘Nah, he’s helping me, gave me a new—well, helped me start over.’ When Eddie pulls away, Wayne gently pats his face.

It’s a degree of familial intimacy Steve has never witnessed before, not from anyone older than him. He thinks a lot of things in that moment. He thinks how Eddie has always been so generous with love, with kindness and affection.

Maybe… because he was shown how.

‘And you’re OK? What can I do?’

‘N-nothing, I promise. I’m just… things are better now, so I wanted to come see you.’

Wayne takes the seat opposite. He’s made coffee for everyone, three empty cups, help yourself. A few cookies on a plate that he pushes unsubtly towards the boys’ side.

‘So.’ He clasps his hands together, fixes Eddie with an earnest look. ‘Where you stayin’?’

‘With Steve,’ Eddie says, pouring coffee for Steve and himself. He’s gone down the human route. ‘We’re uh, living together.’

Wayne nods slowly, no change in his expression.

Eddie dips a cookie into his coffee and then seems to realise he can’t do anything with it.

He taps Steve’s thigh twice.

‘Can I try?’ Steve asks, reaching over to pluck it from Eddie’s fingers before the dividing line of soggy and solid breaks. He puts the whole thing in his mouth. ‘Thanks. These are lovely, Mr. Munson.’

Eddie’s uncle doesn’t seem to have missed any part of the interaction, but nor does he seem to judge it.

‘Neighbour makes ‘em. Nice lady. Her son can’t drive worth shit so I take her shopping on Fridays.’

‘Yeah? What are you driving?’ Eddie asks, lifts the coffee to his lips, but won’t drink it.

‘Chevvy sixty eight.’

‘Yeah? She run OK?’

Wayne inclines his head, expression softening even though he’s frowning.

‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘No, I’m not, I just.’ Eddie’s about to dip another cookie, weird habit that Steve’s never noticed before because Eddie hasn’t eaten anything except his blood since they lived together and before that, Eddie hadn’t really had much time for things like cookie dipping or even hot coffee. He catches himself that time, sets it down on the plate. Steve will eat it, get rid of the evidence. ‘Just if you need a truck, for work or whatever—’

‘What do you need?’ his uncle asks, cutting right across him. ‘You’re the kid.’

Eddie sighs, rolls his eyes with a shaky, wry smile.

‘I’m not a kid.’

‘Well, you’re my kid,’ Wayne says gruffly. ‘And you’re all shook up. I know you. What’s goin’ on?’

When Eddie can’t find the words, when he stares down at the cookie he can’t eat and the coffee he pretended to drink, Wayne clears his throat.

‘Is this your… boyfriend?’

Steve and Eddie look up at the same time.

‘Huh?’

‘Because that’s fine if so, no need to get all tangled up about it.’ Wayne Munson shrugs reasonably. ‘Just, if that’s why you’re out of sorts.’

Steve and Eddie share a look, they’re speaking in a language entirely of their own, Little Bit right at the centre.

Steve gives a tiny encouraging smile, inclines his head. It’s Eddie’s choice and he’s fine with whatever he decides.

‘Um,’ Eddie says at length, ground floor baritone. ‘Yeah. This is. Steve’s my boyfriend.’

Wayne gives an exaggerated nod and then looks at Steve with a tiny hint of a smile. ‘You treating him right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Steve says, he’s always been good with the parents, just not his own.

‘Well, no need for sir, now. I suppose if you’re goin’ with Eddie, you’re family.’

Eddie pushes their fingers together. He’s working very hard to control his breathing, to keep himself even.

Steve thinks he knows now why he’s waited so long before seeing Wayne. Not because he was dreading it, like with Steve’s parents, but because Eddie knew how nice the man was going to be. And how much harder this would be, simply because of that.

‘How long you two been together, if I can ask?’

Eddie closes his eyes briefly. ‘Um. Two months? No. No, three weeks.’ Steve holds his hand, wills all his strength to him. ‘Three weeks.’

Steve cannot believe it’s only been three weeks.

‘And you’re living together?’

‘That was before,’ Eddie says. ‘We were friends first.’

‘I’m happy for you.’

He sounds it. That’s the difference, Steve thinks.

‘Wayne,’ Eddie says, looking up. ‘I had to change my last name.’

‘Cos of the cops.’

‘Because of everyone in this town who wanted to burn me at the stake,’ Eddie chuckles hollowly. ‘I just. I’m really sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘Our family name, it’s…’ Eddie trails off, breath trembling. This is hard for him because of how much love there is between them. Steve’s never seen it before this way. The people he loves have no boundaries, they know about monsters and magic and shit like losing a last name means nothing to them. ‘I can’t take it with me.’

Wayne leans in closer, he reaches across the table and gets hold of Eddie’s free hand.

‘You think I care about that? Eddie, I thought you were gone. If I never see you again after today, I will go happily through this world knowing you’re all right. That you’re safe, you got yourself a nice man here who’s got good manners and a whole lotta hair, like you.’ Eddie laughs, blinks tears down his face. Steve smiles, thumb making circles over Eddie’s palm. ‘You don’t need to worry about anything except bein’ happy, like how you made me today.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Damned right. Ain’t nothin’ in a name and the only time I was proud of it was when the school called me to say you beat up another bully. You’ll make me proud, no matter what you call yourself, no matter where you go. You already have.’

Eddie takes a serrated breath, it shudders every inch of the way down and Steve can feel his own eyes stinging in the corners.

‘I’m still laying low, kinda.’

Wayne nods. ‘I understand.’

‘But we’d love you to come by for dinner,’ Steve says. ‘Anytime.’

Eddie’s uncle smiles, looks down. ‘That sounds nice, thank you. Whereabouts are you?’

‘It’s the big place out near Lincoln Park.’

Wayne looks at Eddie, then Steve. ‘Are you Steve Harrington?’

Eddie groans softly, but there’s humour in it.

‘Wayne.’

Wayne’s giving Eddie this little look. ‘I knew it.’

‘You knew nothing, quit it!’

‘Knew what?’ Steve asks, looking between the two.

‘I’m not saying nothin,’ Wayne chuckles. ‘But that reminds me, one second.’

He pats Eddie’s hand and heads into a different room, leaving them alone for a moment.

‘You OK?’ Steve whispers, kissing him. ‘You’re doing so great.’

Eddie nods, presses a very swift, fervent kiss to Steve’s lips in return. ‘Hurts like hell.’

‘I know, baby. You’re amazing.’

Wayne returns with a box, the kind of thing teachers pack up when they leave, standard issue. It’s full of paperwork, a few bits and pieces, folders, books.

‘The cops took these from the trailer, evidence for when they were try’na press charges, prosecute. They gave it back a month ago, said the case was closed. Everything else went when the trailer was swallowed up, but. Well, here you go.’

He gives the box to Eddie, who sets it on his lap, carefully looking through. School reports, what looks like a leather journal, a metal box, a very ratty old bear, plus a few other things Eddie doesn’t get out.

‘Some stuff was to get fingerprints, some stuff for DNA, I don’t know. I’m glad they took it really, wouldn’t be much else otherwise.’ Wayne smiles a little and taps the journal. ‘I saw the name Harrington in here more’n once. Eddie talked about you sometimes, too.’

Eddie groans, but he’s smiling, hand over his eyes.

‘Anyway,’ Wayne says. ‘I’m glad to have these go with you. I checked your box, made sure they put it all back.’

When Eddie comes out from behind his shaking hand, he seems a little more level. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Wayne says and again, Steve can tell he means it. The older man sits back, seems very pleased. He looks out the window, eyes bright. ‘So, you got any good stories to tell?’

*

Game night is a spectacle.

They turn all the lights off, candles everywhere, windows open so they flicker sometimes. Eddie insists everyone dresses up, including the adults. Robin spectacularly misunderstood and arrives dressed as a dragon, demanding to know why Steve wasn’t dressed as a dungeon.

‘I can be the dragon!’ she insists when Eddie despairs, but has to give her points for the tail she’s made out of stockings stuffed with cushion filler.

‘There’s no dragon in this campaign!’

‘Sounds dull,’ she teases, helping herself to the frankly ridiculous amount of snacks on display. Steve feels like he bought the whole store after they said goodbye to Wayne. He thinks both he and Eddie are overcompensating for different reasons; Steve doing it to spite his parents, Eddie doing it to honour his, to honour Wayne. ‘Everything is better with dragons.’

When the kids arrive, they are hyper as fuck. Their costumes are amazing and Dustin makes everyone turn on the full lights to appreciate his stitching.

And Steve is on snack duty, but he gets pulled into Eddie’s lap pretty much every time he walks past.

His boyfriend is more hyper than the kids.

Steve thinks he can’t wait until later when they can play a game or two of their own.

Jonathan shows up without Nancy, tells the kids she’s not feeling too great. He’s dressed as an elf; is clearly kind of dying inside, but he’s a great big brother and no one gets into this shit like Will and Eddie.

‘Can I get a beer?’ he asks Steve, as pre-game chat begins.

‘Sure, man. Here.’

Steve’s got water, but they clink their glasses and watch for a moment. Eddie is cackling with fiendish glee as the kids demand to know more details.

‘We broke up,’ Jonathan says quietly. He’s mostly watching Will. The great big smile across the kid’s face, eyes wide, he’s so into it.

Steve looks over. ‘Huh?’

‘Me and Nancy,’ Jonathan clarifies, not raising his voice. ‘I broke it off.’ He looks over at Steve, smiles. ‘It’s all right. Been a while coming, to be honest.’

‘Is she OK?’

‘I think so. She wanted a little space, asked if I could come tonight. We’ll tell everyone tomorrow.’

‘Are you OK?’

The kids are screaming about something. It’s happy screaming, just like it was a happy crash before with the bathtub.

‘You know, I feel pretty good. I love Nancy and she’ll always be my friend but I couldn’t remember any of the reasons why we were together,’ Jonathan says, sipping his beer. ‘I’m gonna move out tomorrow.’

‘You wanna come stay here?’

Jonathan looks at him. ‘Really?’

‘Of course. Got a ton of room.’ Once he’s vacuumed up the glass. ‘You’re always welcome, for as long as you want.’

‘That would be great. I mean, a lot of my stuff’s here anyway, but we were gonna go back properly after this weekend, so. Guess I’ll just hang here for a day or two. Thank you so much.’

‘No need to thank me,’ Steve says, looking at Will again. ‘We’re family.’

‘Yeah,’ Jonathan sighs, looking down at his costume with a wry grin. He even has the ears. ‘I think we are.’

*

It’s three in the morning and Eleven is asleep with Robin in the den. Lucas is passed out at the island, head in his arms.

Max, Dustin, Will and Mike are all fighting it.

Even Eddie is yawning now and then.

Steve calls time when Mike half falls asleep on his elbow which slips and almost headbutts the marble.

‘OK! That’s enough dungeoning for one night, thank you! Everyone go get some sleep, right now.’

‘Baby, you don’t understand,’ Eddie tries to tell him, but even Will doesn’t protest. He goes with Max upstairs, Steve has already made a room for him for whenever he wants to stay over. The others trudge off to the den, half carrying Lucas.

Max kisses Steve on the cheek before bed, says, ‘Night,’ while rubbing her eyes behind her glasses.

‘I didn’t realise it could go on that long,’ Steve admonishes, blowing out the candles. There’s already light outside. False dawn, but still.

Jonathan tells Eddie he’s staying for a few days.

‘Awesome,’ Eddie tells him. ‘Glad you did it, was for the best.’

‘I know. Feel a lot better.’

Steve blows out the last candle.

Pink, grey light comes in from outside. Eddie hugs his friend, says, ‘Night, Jon,’ and then he wraps Steve up in his arms, bends to grab him beneath the thighs. ‘Bed time, baby?’

He carries Steve to bed and sometimes along the way, they’ll kiss. Eddie’s got makeup on still, eyeliner and glitter, because Lucas said he wasn’t dressed up enough and Robin knew where Nancy left her good stuff.

In the bedroom, Steve strips off and looks around.

‘Can we paint in here tomorrow?’

‘Sure,’ Eddie answers, rifling around for the comfy tee he loves best, the one they take turns wearing so it smells of them both. ‘You got a colour idea?’

‘Not really, want you to choose.’

Eddie smiles, settles on his side of the bed.

‘Yeah? Shit, don’t say that unless you…’ He yawns, it’s so fucking cute. ‘Mean it. I’ve got ideas.’

‘It’s our room, yours and mine.’

‘Yours and mine.’

‘So I want you to make it how you like, ‘cos I’ll like that too.’ Steve slips beneath the covers. It’ll be daylight soon, but a few hours is better than nothing. They snuggle close, kissing soft and slow.

Eddie looks at his hand.

He’s got a new ring on his little finger. It came from the metal box Wayne gave him, was his grandma’s.

Steve lifts Eddie’s hand and kisses the ring.

‘Love you so much.’

‘Love you too.’

‘Wanted to fuck around, but too tired now.’

Eddie sighs. ‘Your fault for wanting six kids.’

Steve snickers, eyes closed. ‘Fuck off.’

‘Doubt it. Night, Sunshine.’

‘Night, baby. Night Little Bit.’

‘We’re the same, you know.’

Steve kisses him. ‘Not quite.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Can tell.’

‘What can you tell, babygirl?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Steve groans. ‘I’m too tired to fuck. And you’re different, is all. Like, there’s sides to me too, but with you it’s more.’

‘Four taps more?’

‘Yeah.’ Steve smiles, sleepy and drifting already. ‘Four taps more. Can’t wait to see what god awful colours you choose tomorrow, baby.’

‘Me too, sweetheart. Night.’

‘Love you.’

‘Love you, too.’

‘Love you more.’

‘Steve?’

‘Mhmm?’

‘Shut the fuck up and go to sleep.’

And there’s daylight coming in slowly.

The house is full.

They should sleep.

But Steve giggles, noses closer to find lips for kissing, skin for licking, Eddie for loving.

He’s greedy. He is thirsty, even when he’s exhausted.

‘Make me,’ he whispers and revels in the low groan Eddie lets out as he rolls on top, calls him brat and kisses him, all warm and languid.

There’s daylight on the covers.

And they fall asleep kissing.

October 30th 1987

Nancy Wheeler is wearing a lot of eyeliner.

‘It’s too much, right? This is too much.’

Eddie Munson looks over from the mirror. ‘Nope. You look great.’

This is the third time she’s second guessed her outfit.

There is not going to be a fourth.

‘I’m gonna wash it off.’

‘Wheeler, I applied that myself. It looks awesome and if we’re late, Steve will be mad.’

‘He’s literally never been mad at you about anything.’

Eddie snorts, adjusts his makeup in her mirror. ‘Shows what you know and he’ll be mad at you, not me. I’m way too pretty for him to be mad at.’

Their room, Robin and Nancy’s, is so girly it makes him kinda wanna throw up. Maybe recreate it a little. Pink and magnolia, plenty of fairy lights. There’s a clear Nancy corner. A highly organised desk with papers, folders, pens.

There are also an unholy amount of plants.

The room is pink and green by virtue.

Eddie winces. His lower back throbs and his shoulders ache like there’s trapped heat beneath the skin.

Nancy looks over, adjusts her long hair. She’s a great Alyson Reynolds. Eddie thinks she suits the look, makes her seem more intimidating, for one thing.

‘Cramps?’

‘Yeah. Not so bad.’

‘You know where the ice packs are.’ And he does. ‘Want me to do your lipstick?’

Eddie smacks his lips together. ‘Babe, I’ve seen that movie a hundred thousand times. I know how he wears it.’

‘OK, but you know you need to blot, right?’

‘Is that like… a period joke? Because we’ve talked about this. The full moon is kinda like my period, but not enough for you to be mean about it while it’s happening, because I’m a little sensitive about it to be honest. This is a painful emotional and physical experience for me and while there are parallels, some of which are even really fun to explore because you know Steve, he’s got a real thing for bl—’

‘Blot your lipstick, Eddie!’ she yells, eyes closed, hands over her ears. ‘Blot your fucking lips, oh my god!’

‘Oh.’ He blinks. ‘What’s that?’

She shows him with a tissue and then rolls her eyes.

‘I wouldn’t be mean about your time of the month.’

‘You have been in the past.’

‘And you said it wasn’t cool.’ She adds more hairspray, her curls flat ironed for this occasion and she needs to suppress their typical vitality. ‘So I stopped.’ Nancy looks over. ‘Time?’

‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

‘Cool, I didn’t ask for your opinion about the quantification of it, though, I think I asked what the time was?’

‘Babe, maybe it’s your time of the month.’ Eddie snort-laughs again and for karmic reasons, a cramp hits at the same time and he knocks his elbow on the dressing table. ‘Ow, fucker! Six twenty two, so your dork-ass cat clock tells me. God, your room is like… overdosing on girl.’

‘Shut up, at least it’s not like your room.’

‘Dare insult my art, Wheeler.’

‘OK, this has to be it now.’ She comes and stands in front of him. ‘This looks good, right? I’m clearly her?’

Eddie’s done with his makeup anyway, thinks he looks fucking outrageously hot and Steve is gonna stammer and go red and lose it when he sees him. He thinks he might get arrested if he goes out in public like this, which he’s gonna.

He can’t wait to see the look on Hopper’s face, best of all.

When he realises what Eddie and Joyce have done.

‘You’re clearly her,’ he says, tone serious because no one fucks with Nancy Wheeler, especially on a night she has to dress up. Especially on a night when without the other four characters, she is, in all honesty, unrecognisable. ‘Even without the others.’

‘Shut up, liar. You look good.’

‘I look hot, right? Confusingly so?’

‘The pants are not leaving a whole lot to the imagination, there.’

‘This is the costume.’

‘You could have… like, maybe gone with shorts.’

Eddie gives her a deadpan stare. He likes this mascara, makes him feel all dramatic every time he blinks. ‘Shorts are not part of this costume, Nancy.’

‘OK,’ she says, raising her hands. ‘You wanna go get a drink?’

‘Is that your subtle way of telling me to drink my red and improve my mood?’

‘It’s my subtle way of telling you to get your practically bare ass up off of my very nice velvet stool and go downstairs and terrify a few kids into questioning their sexuality. I gotta tidy in here.’

Eddie knows better than to tell Nancy not to tidy if she says she needs to tidy.

‘OK, you need help?’

‘You can help by leaving,’ she says with strain, but her tone is kind. He has made kind of a mess on her dressing table, but it’s worth it because he’s finally doing it, dressing up as what he’s always wanted to. ‘And for the record, you look fucking amazing. I need to be there when Hopper realises, though, OK?’

‘Don’t worry, everyone’s gonna be there for that,’ he tells one fifth of the Breakfast Club in her pink and green room with an unholy amount of plants, a queen sized bed that is covered in soft toys. He hears her chuckling as he goes.

This weekend is gonna rule.

*

‘Holy shit, babe!’

Steve Harrington shakes his head. ‘I look dumb.’

Robin Buckley skids to a halt from where she ran into the room. The frown wrinkles her nose. ‘What? No, you look… y’know. Great. Anyway—’

‘No, I look not good,’ he complains. ‘This isn’t a good costume.’

‘Steve, I have gossip, OK? Shut the fuck up and listen!’

‘What gossip? And why does your outfit look fine? Like, if nobody gets who you are then you’ll just look gorgeous anyway. I look—’

‘Suzie Bingham has ruined everything!’

Steve sighs. ‘This flannel is itchy and what?’

‘Suzie, you know?’

‘I think I know who Suzie is, Robs, I heard her name a trillion times. What’s happened?’

They’re in the guest room of Robin and Nancy’s place. It’s full of boxes. Most of them say Robin on them. Things she and Nancy are still arguing about what goes where.

Robin is wearing the pink top, chunky belt, the brown skirt and boots. Her hair is loosely curled and, for dedication purposes, she has the lipstick in her bra and everything. Apparently Nancy will find it adorable.

Her eyes are very bright.

‘So,’ she says. ‘Max told me Dustin was supposed to tell Suzie months ago that they were all doing group costume.’ Steve nods, knows this. It’s been on his radar forever now. The perfect group outfit, the nights of sewing, the arguments of Backpack Yoda VS. Costume Yoda and a dozen other elements. ‘But he didn’t! He, like, forgot or something, whatever. The point is she just arrived and she has two handmade costumes for her and Dusty Bun and no one wants her to feel bad, least of all Dustin, so he’s broken ranks.’

Steve’s jaw actually drops a bit. He briefly forgets about the flannel shirt and how much gel is in his hair. ‘What? No, they’ve been planning it forever.’

‘I know! And it’s all Dustin’s fault, but like I said, no one wants to make Suzie feel bad or left out, so now they’re scrambling for replacements!’

Steve bites his lip, thinking. ‘Erica’s already refused to get involved weeks ago.’

‘That’s a polite way of putting it.’

‘And everyone else is already dressing up as a group thing.’

‘I know!’

‘You need to be less excited about this,’ he reprimands. ‘This is a big deal. I’m gonna go talk to them.’

‘You look great by the way.’

‘No I don’t, but thanks. What costumes did Suzie make?’

‘Oh you’ll see!’ she squeals. She’s had way too much candy already. ‘YOU’LL SEE!’

*

‘What the hell,’ Steve asks calmly. ‘Is a Falcor?’

Dustin Henderson looks very torn. And fluffy.

And scaly.

‘It’s the dragon from Neverending Story, OK? I’m Falcor and my Suzie Poo is Atreyu and she has worked very, very hard on these costumes, Steve. So no one is gonna say anything that’s not abundant praise, you got it?’

Steve sighs. ‘I mean, you look great. It’s a great costume.’

Dustin’s bottom lip wobbles. ‘It is. She sewed each scale on by hand.’

‘Wow. And she looks…’

Steve gestures to the other side of the lounge, where Suzie is decked out in what frankly looks to Steve like peasant garb with a chunky necklace, but she’s beaming and happily explaining all parts of the costume.

Dustin, meanwhile, is a very fluffy white dragon with a massive papier-mâché head and a long, gleaming tail.

‘Please help.’

‘OK, how can I help?’

‘Take my place. Be Chewy.’

‘I can’t.’

‘OK, be C3PO then. That’s what… I was supposed to tell Suzie she was dressing up as.’

‘Did you just forget, man? That’s not like you.’

‘I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks and she said how excited she was for Halloween, the costumes and I just thought I’d told her!’

‘How?’

‘It… she kept saying she couldn’t wait to see me looking all fluffy! I didn’t twig.’

‘I’m really sorry, man, I can’t just abandon my own group costume.’

‘You look like a hobo.’

‘It’ll make sense when we’re all together, OK? No need to be snippy, Henderson.’

‘What about Eddie?’

‘Uh, no. Eddie’s more excited about his costume than any of you.’

Dustin scowls. The effect is somewhat lost considering he’s wearing a giant happy dragon.

‘They’re never gonna forgive me.’

Steve looks over at the group. Max, Will, Mike and Lucas glance over at that exact moment, briefly pausing their enthusiastically happy conversation with Suzie, and glare.

‘We’re gonna figure something out.’

Robin comes over, offers Steve a pink lemonade in a red cup. ‘Good news or bad news?’

‘Oh god, what?’

‘Well,’ she says, patting Dustin’s shoulder. ‘The good news is, you’ve been replaced. Suzie too.’

Dustin’s eyes go wide. ‘Really? Really? By who?’

‘Well, that’s kinda the bad news,’ she says, looking over her shoulder. Jonathan and Argyle are being welcomed by the kids. Jonathan Byers is wearing a blue vest with blue jeans, atop the Andrew jacket he no doubt would have worn, a golden C3PO costume is shoved into his arms. Argyle, who already had on his Brian shades, studies the extremely furry Chewy costume and then loudly makes the sound.

‘What?’ Steve yells indignantly. ‘No!’

‘Suzie’s happiness must be protected at all costs!’ Dustin snarls as Suzie herself comes bounding over. ‘She is my darling, my love, and she worked very hard to make this for me. Suzie Poo!’

‘Dusty Bun!’ she trills, the pair greeting with cheek kisses and then nose rubs. ‘You look radiant, my sweetling!’

‘I-I feel radiant,’ he says, just beaming at her. ‘I feel like I’m about to swoop down and rescue you from Gmork at any moment.’

‘And then off into the dark space of residual debris we go,’ she exhales with evident longing, cradling his face. ‘To find the Empress!’

Steve gets hold of Robin’s forearm, whispers to her, ‘Is this how I am with Eddie?’

‘Much, much worse.’

‘God.’

‘And you two look…’ Suzie trails off, wincing slightly at Steve and Robin. ‘Very… nice.’

Steve glares at Dustin who smartly takes Suzie’s hand and offers to give her a tour.

When they’re out of earshot, Steve says, ‘I’m gonna kill that kid.’

‘No you’re not, he’s your favourite.’

‘He is not my favourite. Max and Will are my favourites. He’s the original. That’s different. I can kill the original.’

Robin sighs. ‘I can’t believe I put all this on for nothing.’

Nancy comes down the stairs, says, ‘What do you mean?’

The girlfriends get a look at each other for the first time.

‘Oh my god.’

‘Oh my god, you!’

‘No, you!’

Steve groans faintly, looks around for Eddie.

‘You look so pretty!’

‘And you look so gritty and like, you’re gonna write poems about your lost virginity and use blood for ink!’

‘Nance, where’s Eddie?’ Steve whines.

Nancy doesn’t answer, though. She’s currently enthralled by Robin, all decked out in her pink and brown, her hair bouncy. Steve is regretting every single time he and Eddie have subtly played the switching game in front of other people, knows he deserves this to a degree.

‘Honey, you look delicious. You’re so floofy and pink, like a snack!’

Steve looks over at Dustin, makes a very clear you’re dead sign with his finger over his throat and Dustin grins guiltily, holding Suzie’s hand.

The party isn’t quite in full swing yet and nor will it be until later, but there’s still music playing and drinks flowing and Argyle is pointing out that parts of this Chewy costume will be a little too small, but he’s happy to make do.

And then a pair of arms encircle Steve from behind.

‘John Bender, you’re looking distraught.’

The voice is low, rough. It’s Steve Harrington’s favourite.

He is instantly safe, beheld, loved, warmly ensconced and balance returns to the world.

‘Hi, baby,’ he sighs, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall of his boyfriend. ‘Missed you.’

Eddie kisses his neck. ‘Missed you too. You look hot.’

‘I do?’ Steve huffs, turns around. ‘I mean, it’s all for noth—’

And then he forgets how to breathe.

Eddie is…

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fucking hell.

Jaw lax, eyes rounded, Steve takes in the sight of his boyfriend from the feet up. Chunky heels, fishnets, suspenders, black pants that are pushing the borders of acceptability, the gloves, the corset and the pearls.

And the makeup.

Steve’s knees go a little weak.

‘Oh god.’

Eddie smiles wide and wolfish, red lips stretched as his tongue comes out to taste the lipstick a little, like he’s sampling it.

‘Stevie, we’ve talked about this. You can call me Eddie.’

Steve is suddenly not in the mood to be teased.

‘I wanna fuck you in that.’

‘What, you like it baby?’

Steve runs his palms over the fishnets, feels like he got hit by a truck of absolute, disorienting desire. ‘Uh huh.’

‘Use your words, princess.’

‘Wanna fuck you like this, god you look so slutty.’ He kisses Eddie, slips his tongue right inside. A dense haze of arousal settles into his skin like mist, Steve is mad for him, he wants to drag him upstairs and make a mess of him.

Eddie returns the kiss, hands sliding up his back and into his hair. ‘Oh yeah? What makes you think you’re gonna be fucking me, hmm?’

‘Cos I know you’re achy and tired and it’ll—mmm—make you relaxed before tomorrow night.’

‘That’s a really good point,’ Eddie whispers into his mouth. Steve realises very distantly that he’s wearing the lipstick now too, that they’ve made a big, red mess. ‘But your night looks pretty booked up, baby. Don’t know if you’ll find time for me.’

Steve thinks he’s gonna drag Eddie into the fucking pantry at this rate, fuck. Full moon always has their desire drastically heightened and ever since last June, Eddie’s not the only one affected by this time of month. Steve finds himself impossibly hot for Eddie when the moon gleams pure white, he feels like he wants him all the time.

This costume is just the cherry on top.

‘God, you’ve got fucking great legs,’ he moans into another kiss, deeper, harder, fuck who sees. ‘I wanna wear ‘em on my shoulders and get my tongue into you and—’

‘Will!’ Eddie greets brightly, breaking the kiss.

Steve scrambles to recover. It’s like swimming through treacle. He blinks a few times, slaps on a friendly smile.

Will is dressed as… Steve squints, thinks… Obi Wan Kenobi.

Kid looks great, regal. His hair is shorter, it’s styled well, kind of messy and pushed back. He’s taller than Steve now.

‘Oh my god, you’re actually wearing it,’ he says, eyes wide, grin evident as he looks at Eddie.

‘Of course I am, this is my dream come true!’

‘My dream come true,’ Steve can’t help but mutter. He glances behind Will. ‘I can’t believe Dustin.’

‘Wait, what happened with Dustin.’

Will sighs. ‘Yeah, but no one wants Suzie to feel bad, so. Sorry your group thing got ruined.’

Steve feels like Nancy just found out at the same moment because she lets out a very shrill, ‘What?!’ and is immediately shushed by Robin.

‘Your group thing got ruined?’ Eddie echoes.

Steve drags him to the kitchen.

*

Nancy and Robin always have blood in their fridge. They keep it in a metal canister marked DO NOT TOUCH!!! The metal is cold under Steve’s fingers as he pours some for Eddie into a red cup half filled with icy salt water. The blood swirls, diluting quickly.

Steve tells the story while he pours himself another pink lemonade, no alcohol tonight or tomorrow, full moon is a special time.

‘Oh man, the guys are pissed?’

‘They look like they’re gonna hang him at dawn, but it got resolved anyway. Jonathan and Argyle are filling in.’

‘Which means no Breakfast Club, oh baby, I’m sorry.’

Steve shrugs. ‘It’s not a big deal, it was Nancy who wanted it.’ He wipes his mouth, still staring at Eddie. The kitchen is a hot mess, but it smells great. Everything has bats or pumpkins on it, everything is spooky. Cupcakes are almost done, cookies are cooling on the side.

Steve and Eddie hosted last year, when it wasn’t the full moon, and they’ll host next year, but for now, he’s impressed with how much effort the girls have gone to.

‘You look way too hot.’

Eddie’s hair is especially bouncy, his lipstick is fairly ruined, but he’s wiping off the mess with a napkin, using the reflection of the fridge to do so. The fishnets and suspenders have Steve in a bind.

‘You ruined my lipstick,’ he pouts.

Steve sighs, checks they’re alone and then crowds into Eddie, pushing him carefully into the fridge.

‘Wanna ruin you, fuck. No idea how sexy you are.’

Eddie chuckles low in his throat and pushes his ass right back against Steve, making him groan. ‘You get so fucking horny on the full moon.’

‘Nothing to how you’ll be tomorrow,’ Steve whispers, biting his ear. ‘Just love you. Love today, love tomorrow, love those legs, fuck.’

‘You gonna fuck me right here, where anyone could see?’

And no, obviously not.

But they like to play.

They always like to play.

So Steve drags his tongue along the outside of Eddie’s jaw, bites gently and says, ‘Can’t help myself. Need you, sweetheart. Need to fuck you right here, get inside you and fuck you and make you all mine.’

Eddie makes a small whimpering noise, he mewls.

‘Gonna fuck all the aches right out of me?’

His back is exposed and Steve gently brushes his lips where he knows it hurts, where his wings are growing, solidifying. Bone and skin and membrane and Steve wants to lick them, play with them.

And his lower back, where that beautiful tail will come out tomorrow, that’s always sore the day before. Steve puts his whole hand there, offering heat and pressure. Eddie groans, head tipping back.

‘Wanna give you a bath tonight,’ Steve tells him, sucking a lovebite into his neck. It’ll fade within minutes, but he doesn’t mind, he’s got his teeth marks in Eddie where it counts. ‘Get you all warm, wet and happy.’

‘Fuck, Steve.’

‘Sound good?’

‘Sounds so good. Love you.’

‘Fucking love you, Eddie, my god.’

‘Baby, we probably can’t fuck in the kitchen,’ Eddie sighs, grinning.

Steve mock pouts. ‘But I wanna.’

‘When we get home, we’ll fuck wherever you like. No kids.’

‘No kids,’ Steve echoes wistfully. ‘We can be so loud.’

‘You’re always loud.’

‘Now I can be louder. And take care of you, that’s what matters.’

Jonathan walks inside, he backs his way in which is smart because he sees nothing and it gives them a chance to part. Argyle is with him, plus Lucas and Mike.

‘Hey guys,’ Jon greets with a grin. ‘Helping with snack duty?’

‘Of course,’ Eddie agrees, stationing himself behind the massive bowl of punch. ‘How’s it going?’

Steve busies himself with filling bowls; chips, popcorn, hard candies. ‘Max, you look great.’

She grins and twirls. ‘Right?’

‘The best Han Solo that ever solo’d,’ Eddie agrees. ‘Extremely cool.’

Her hair is braided down her back and she has the shirt, the waistcoat, the pants plus the gun in a holster. Lucas is… Steve can’t remember.

‘And Boba Fett!’ Eddie cheers, saving the day. ‘Man, that must have taken a long time to make it look that good.’

Lucas has the helmet under his arm. He glares over his shoulder. ‘It did, which is why a certain betrayal stings so bad.’

‘Oh get over it,’ Max tells him, grabbing a handful of popcorn. She has her contact lenses in for tonight and Steve thinks she just looks beautiful. He’s never not blown away by her, how each day she becomes more lovely. ‘Jonathan and Argyle are filling in, so it’s cool.’

‘Man, you look off the charts good,’ Jonathan tells Eddie. ‘Holy shit. I’ve got my camera ready for when Hopper and Joyce get here.’

‘Perfect. I just need more lipstick.’

‘Oh yeah, I see Steve borrowed it,’ Max teases.

‘Also,’ Jonathan adds, looking at Steve. ‘Nancy is pretty upset. She says we need to do group pictures before Argyle and I get absorbed into Star Wars.’

‘Oh shit, yeah,’ Eddie says. ‘Baby, what are you gonna wear now?’

Steve huffs. ‘I’ll figure something out.’

*

Nancy has hired an actual fucking photographer, she’s gone and set up a whole area with a backdrop because of course she has. Steve, Jonathan, Argyle, Robin and Nancy pose together for the Breakfast Club pictures of Nancy’s dreams, except in almost every one, she and Robin are kissing.

The photographer is thankfully someone with a lot of patience and a friend of Nancy’s from the newspaper. She’s a smart girl, Nancy, wouldn’t have chosen a person they couldn’t be themselves around.

‘Are we gonna kiss?’ Argyle asks Jonathan when Robin tries and fails to do the Lipstick Trick and Nancy snatches it, shows her how it’s done.

‘Yeah, that’s perfect,’ Steve says, getting in between the two couples. ‘I’ll stand here, looking left out.’

Robin cackles and they wedge Steve in between, each couple posing a perfect kiss while he looks despondent.

‘You really should’a been Brian,’ Argyle tells him when they part, patting Steve’s shoulder.

‘I have John Bender energy,’ Steve insists. ‘Robs, the pictures are done, stop making out.’

The kids trickle in and out.

They’re pretty much used to it by now.

‘OK, you can change now,’ Nancy sighs. ‘My dream was briefly realised.’

‘We got pics, babe,’ Robin consoles her. ‘We’ll frame them!’

‘Sorry again,’ Jon says to Steve. ‘What are you gonna… do?’

‘Change, I guess. It’s OK. There’s fake vampire teeth layin’ around somewhere.’

Eddie seems to hear him from the next room. ‘What? You wanna be a vampire? Really?’

Nancy sighs as Jonathan and Argyle go change into their Star Wars gear. Eddie comes rushing into the lobby, his heels making a fine racket on the lovely hardwood. He’s reapplied his lipstick and Nancy viciously scrubbed away what was around Steve’s mouth.

They’re decent for now.

‘Seriously? Can I dress you? No way are you having fake teeth, by the way, that’s tacky as fuck.’

‘I mean, I don’t know what we’re gonna do,’ Robin says. ‘Me and Nancy look silly now too. The safety of group costume has dissolved.’

‘And it’s all Dustin’s fault,’ Steve grouses.

Eddie is trembling with excitement, hands prayer style over his red lips. ‘Oh my god, this was meant to be.’

Nancy shoots him a look. ‘What are you planning?’

‘Oh, nothing, just gonna need a lot of hairspray and my big, black coat!’

*

‘You are way too obsessed with that movie,’ Steve observes while he helps.

‘It’s a fun movie, now shut up and make Nancy more Star. Robs, looking great.’

Robin is pretty thrilled. ‘So ready to be David.’

Steve does her hair. It’s pretty much all gel now, slicking it back and up to make a mullet. She’s making her face pale, adding eyeliner.

Mike Wheeler comes to check.

He’s wearing his Leia costume, kind of rocking it actually and Steve is glad the kid’s embracing it. There’s been a lot of embracing over the past year and a bit.

‘Oh cool, Lost Boys?’

Rob snarls in the mirror. ‘Lost Boys!’

‘I apparently get to be Michael,’ Steve sighs. ‘Even though he’s the worst character.’

‘You’re gonna look so good in your shades, baby,’ Eddie tells him distractedly. ‘Nance, you’re pretty much done. Just get the skirt on and look ephemerally hot.’

‘You made my hair look great,’ she says, like she can’t quite believe it.

‘Almost as good as mine, now come on, up. Go tend to guests. I need to lay down.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Mike says. ‘That’s why I came. Hopper and Joyce just arrived.’

Everyone freezes, looking at each other.

And then it’s a wild scramble to get downstairs.

*

Joyce is hugging Suzie and complimenting her costume while the others hang back.

Steve jumps the last three steps, needs to see if Joyce has swung it and…

She has.

Joyce is actually wearing a full on wig and it’s a good one. The exact right shade, the curls, the bobby pins. White jacket, pink dress. She is so perfectly Janet, and Hopper…

Robin screams with glee.

Hopper’s got the hideous beige jacket with the logo, Joyce must have ironed it on, the terrible grey pants and fake glasses.

And Steve can see why he agreed because really, it’s barely even a costume when you don’t know the movie. He’s basically just wearing glasses and they’re fake to boot.

‘You look so good,’ Max tells Joyce, biting her lips into her mouth. ‘And you, Hop.’

Eleven is hugging her Dad. Little superhero is Luke Skywalker, got the lightsaber and everything.

‘Uh huh,’ he says warily. ‘Joyce chose it, said I had to, and it’s… well, I pictured worse, so.’ He sighs. ‘Yes, we’re couple costuming. Haha.’

‘You look gorgeous, honey,’ Joyce tells him, scanning the room, clearly looking for one person and one person only because their costume isn’t a couples thing, it’s very much for three. ‘Oh, there you are, Eddie!’

The kids have their hands over their mouths. Eddie is, of course, at the bottom of the stairs, clinging to the banister in dramatic fashion.

‘Momma J!’ he greets, doing the voice, oh dear. ‘Look at you! So innocent and youthful!’

Hopper makes a face. ‘Good god, is that… even a costume?’

‘But of course!’ Eddie croons, full ham. ‘It’s our costume. Yours, mine and Joyce’s. We’re The Rocky Horror Picture Show!’

Joyce is hugging Hopper while he squints.

‘What’s that now?’

‘OK, pictures!’ Nancy yells, dragging the photographer over. ‘Those three.’

Eddie comes in between Joyce and Hopper, arms around both, lifting his knee in Hopper’s direction.

‘Big smiles!’

‘Wait, what is happening?’

‘Happy Halloween, sweetie!’

The moment is immortalised, the kids are cackling, clinging to one another so they don’t fall down. Jon whistles, Argyle applauds sagely. Robin is howling and even Nancy is clapping and cheering.

Eddie leaves a big, red kiss mark on Hopper’s cheek and Steve thinks he’s gonna pee himself laughing.

The photographer gets it all.

*

‘And this is a movie the kids have seen?’ is the part Hopper gets stuck on. He’s got a glass of bourbon in his hand and a cigar, recompense for the prank. He looks at Eddie, who is helping Eleven with her fencing moves and looks vaguely murderous.

‘It’s a great movie, landmark theatre!’ Eddie yells without looking away from El. ‘Gotta give these kids an education.’

‘An education in what? The pale shade of a man’s sunless thighs?’

Steve nearly loses his drink.

Robin helps it go down, whacks his back.

‘I’m gonna get that framed so big,’ Joyce giggles, pouring herself a generous wine and two for Robin and Nancy.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘I would though, Hop,’ she says with a happy grin. ‘I really would.’ She looks at Steve. ‘Honey, you’re not dressed up.’

Steve sighs. ‘I was. But then—’

‘I’m gonna do him in a minute,’ Eddie says, voice all silky, gaze all snarky, he’ll never miss an opportunity to rib the former Chief of Police. ‘Got plans.’

‘We’re doing Lost Boys,’ Nancy explains, drinking her wine. ‘It was kinda last minute.’

‘You make a gorgeous Star,’ Joyce compliments. ‘And Robs, look at you. Perfect David, so fierce.’

‘I do feel very fierce, Joyce. Can we do a picture on one of the kids bikes? Like with you behind, y’know?’

Nancy grins. ‘Like it’s a motorcycle? Oh definitely.’

‘What the hell is the name of my character again?’ Hopper asks, downing his drink in one.

‘Brad,’ everyone answers at the same time.

‘And you’re Janet?’

Joyce smiles. ‘That’s right, babe.’

‘And… Mr Juvenile Delinquent there is… what? The Rocky Horror?’

‘Dr. Frank-N-Furter,’ Eddie answers, fluttering his eyelashes.

‘So who the hell is Rocky?’

Eddie sighs. ‘Steve refused.’

‘I did, I drew the line. Plus I’m not shaving my chest for anything.’

Eleven nods, says, ‘Your chest is great.’

Hopper pours more bourbon. Nancy and Robin are whispering and giggling. Eddie shows El a few finishing moves for her lightsaber and then she goes with Joyce out into the fray.

‘What time are we leaving?’

‘Like, half an hour.’

‘OK. Is it safe to go out there or am I gonna see kids making out?’

Eddie looks at the door, mildly grimaces.

‘You’re probably safer in here.’

Nancy giggles loudly. Hopper rolls his eyes skyward.

‘I thought my days of worrying came to an end when El and Mike called it off,’ he mutters into his glass.

Eddie grabs his red cup, left unattended but everyone knows better than to drink anything red in any of their houses. He pats Hopper’s shoulder.

‘Then you realised they’d only just begun, huh?’

‘Baby, I need you to help with my costume,’ Steve says before Hopper loses his shit. Eddie’s always poking him and most of the time it’s fine, but Hopper is around a lot of kids tonight and it’s inevitable that he’s gonna see his daughter making out with her girlfriend at some point, so better to let him steel his nerves with alcohol for now.

‘Whatever you say, gorgeous,’ Eddie says, letting himself be dragged away.

*

Eddie takes it very seriously.

Because see, this costume requires something new.

And Steve thinks he’s just been waiting to do it.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course,’ Steve tells him, sat patiently. ‘Just hurry up, before the kids come piling in.’

Eddie got the clean needle, it’s all sterile, he’s done this a hundred times before.

And it’s funny really, because they’ve tattooed each other a bunch of times in the last year. They wear each other’s ink and words and shapes and they’re planning more, yet Eddie’s beside himself over an ear piercing.

‘This is so hot,’ he says like he can’t help it. ‘OK, I’m focused. You ready?’

‘Baby, you put ink in me six times. I’m ready for—OW!’

‘That’s a brave girl.’

‘Oh fuck you and ow, that hurt.’

‘Gonna pull the needle out now, put the earring in. When we get home, I’ll put a stud in it, OK? This is just for now.’

Steve’s cheeks are all hot as Eddie pulls the needle out, it drags a thin trail of lava-warm pain through the point of entry and then when he slips one of Nancy’s dangly earrings in, he bends to suck the whole thing into his mouth, metal and all.

‘Ahhh,’ Steve moans, weird sensation going right to his cock, stupid and treacherous, it’s gonna be half hard all night thanks to those legs.

‘There, all clean now,’ Eddie whispers, licks down Steve’s throat for good measure.

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not part of the process.’

‘Part of my process. OK, leather jacket and then bite marks.’

Steve nods, lets Eddie clear away the needle and stuff before he looks up at him from the chair.

‘Eddie,’ he asks, all whiny and babygirl. ‘Will you bite me for real?’

Eddie grins slow, eyes low lidded. ‘Are you serious?’

‘It’ll look so good if you do it. No fake blood, no silly marks.’

‘Baby, you’ll drop.’

‘I won’t, not if you just bite a tiny bit and don’t drink.’

Eddie lifts him up and out of the chair. The guest room is all very neutral, boxes everywhere. There’s a rather tempting bed that Steve kinda wants to know the feel of it, but they won’t because it’s rude to fuck in other people’s houses.

‘You expect me to bite you, make you bleed and then not drink it?’

Steve wrinkles his nose, smiles. ‘A little bit.’

‘Oh, you’re asking for trouble, aren’t you?’

‘C’mon, like you don’t want the town seeing your marks in my neck all night.’

Eddie’s growl is inhuman, it’s the happy warning of what will emerge tomorrow. He gets his fingers around Steve’s throat, scents his feeding mark.

‘Fuck.’

‘Come on, gimme what I want, Daddy.’

*

‘Wow, that looks very real,’ Suzie points out intently when they’ve hit around twenty houses. ‘I like your dedication.’

Steve just smiles at her, says, ‘I like your costume too, the necklace looks so cool!’

‘Oh thank you,’ she says, lowering her voice. ‘Between you and me, I felt bad that no one asked my Dusty Bun to do a group costume with them. I’m so glad I took the initiative.’

The streets are full of people and even though there are plenty of adults, plenty of teenagers, he still feels certain that they are, en masse, too old to be trick or treating.

But he’s certainly not going to let that stop anyone.

The kids are having an amazing time. They’re laughing and holding hands, stealing the best candy. Dustin’s dragon head keeps getting caught on people’s porch plants.

‘You did a great thing,’ Steve tells her.

He’s out with the kids, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan and Argyle. Hopper, Joyce and Eddie have to stay behind to open the door to trick or treaters. Steve hopes some of them have cameras.

As they move onto the next house, pumpkins and straw everywhere, fake skeletons dangling, Will falls into step with Steve.

‘Lost Boys, huh?’

Steve nudges him. ‘It all worked out OK.’

‘Did Eddie bite your neck for real?’

‘Eh, it was easier.’

‘And you got your ear pierced.’

Will’s the first one to notice. Steve gives him a sideways grin.

‘Are we in observing mode?’

Will laughs, twirls his lightsaber. ‘No.’

‘Cos I can play too.’

‘Steve.’

‘Think I caught sight of you making out with somebody behind the tree over there. So weird, but it looked like Mike Wheeler?’

‘Shut up!’ he grouses, but it’s all happy, it’s relaxed, even though he blushes. Kid’s been out for almost six months. Steve is kinda proud of the path he and the other adults have carved for these kids. Kinda insanely proud of being the Fruity Family that no one in Hawkins would dare make a slur to the faces of, for reasons that are the stuff of small town legend.

The weird girl.

The missing boy.

The bent ex-cop.

The one who really looks like that serial killer.

The ones with the house you don’t wanna go anywhere near on a full moon.

‘Hey,’ Steve adds softly. ‘All that matters is that you’re happy. Are you?’

They lean on the fence of the next house, watching the others go running to the door with a bunch of local kids. El is holding a little girl’s hand and showing her how to kill someone with a lightsaber. Max and Mike are arguing about something, like always, Lucas attracting all the local teen girls with his costume and being very cool about it.

Nancy, Robin, Jonathan and Argyle are chatting pleasantly with the old couple whose house the kids are pillaging for candy. It’s only the day before Halloween, too. Tomorrow will be pure carnage.

And Dustin and Suzie are making out.

‘Am I happy?’

‘Yeah.’

Will inclines his head, considers. He’s still on the outside sometimes. He’s quiet now and then, but there is always someone to offer him aside, to ask for help with a salad, to see if he wants to talk.

Steve will always be that someone.

‘I think so, yeah. Mike’s different now. He’s… well, just different. More like himself, I don’t know. Things are good. I’m happy. Are you happy?’

He slides his gaze over to Steve, who answers with a lopsided grin. His ear is still stinging and his neck throbs and tomorrow night, he’s gonna get fucked up.

‘I am,’ he answers, dragging Will into a one-armed hug. ‘Very happy, kiddo.’

‘I’m sixteen,’ Will protests, even as he hugs him back. ‘Not a kid.’

‘You’ll always be a kid to me.’

‘I’m taller than you.’

‘So is Robin. Hey, what’d you guys get?’

*

The party runs pretty much all night, but Steve and Eddie leave at ten thirty. Steve could have stayed longer, but Eddie is exhausted.

Jonathan drives them home and Eddie falls asleep in the back. It’s not uncommon and he did so well. Steve holds him and kisses his hair, makeup all smudged.

‘He OK?’ Jon asks from up front.

‘Tired. You know how it is, full moon tomorrow.’

‘He did great, considering.’

Steve kisses Eddie’s forehead, smiles when his boyfriend snuggles closer, seeking out the scent of his skin.

‘He always does. You and Argyle sticking around for a bit, or headed back Monday?’

No, we’re gonna hang out for the week.’

‘Awesome, come round for dinner and movie night?’

‘What day?’

‘Like… Tuesday?

Jon smiles in the rearview as he pulls up, gravel under tyres, their castle awaits. ‘See you Tuesday then, Harrington.’

*

Eddie helpfully walks while he leans into Steve and they get inside their house. It’s quiet and dark but Steve smiles, because he is never, ever alone.

‘Let’s get upstairs, baby, yeah?’

Eddie nods sleepily, clinging to Steve until he’s set down upon the bed. He wakes up a little when Steve undresses him.

‘Naughty.’

Steve smirks, looks up from where he’s kneeling at the foot of the bed, pulls his high heels off.

‘Hardly.’

Their room is pretty tidy for once. Clothes put away, bed half made. Steve has three lamps he really likes, they’re always on because they’re very low. A red and black lava lamp, a small stained glass lamp in the shape of a flower that the kids got them as a new room gift once it was painted and done, plus the lamp Eddie once saved, knowing Steve would like it.

Their walls are charcoal grey covered in writing. In chalk pens of all colours, the walls are drenched in song lyrics, poems, limericks, notes, drawings, doodles, sheet music and a few things Steve thinks he hasn’t discovered yet.

He loves their walls and he loves their new bed (it’s sturdy and wide) and he loves all things that don’t match; like the purple tartan cushion Eddie bought because he loves to remember that Steve once had tartan walls in the most hideous colour or the giant stuffed bat toy Steve won for Eddie at the last fairground trip. They named him Big Bit at the same time and then made out with the cuddly toy between them and Robin had mock vomited at the time, said, ‘Just get hitched already, you absolute losers.’

‘But I like you waking me up in a naughty way.’

‘So do I, but not when you’re all achy and tired, baby. Let’s get you changed and then if you want you can have a bath?’

Eddie hums, considering.

‘Do wanna bath, but do also want you to fuck me in these tights.’

Steve unhooks the suspenders, rolls the fishnets down.

‘Just wanna take care of you for now.’

‘Mmkay.’ Eddie sighs, curling up. ‘Hurts, baby.’

‘I know. Gonna make it all better.’

Steve is very good at making it better by now.

*

The bath is deep and warm and there’s room for them both, especially with Eddie in between Steve’s legs, back against his chest. Steve washes his hair, it takes a while to do it like this and he’s not doing the best job of rinsing away the soapy suds, but Eddie won’t care. It’s to make him feel better, it’s to soothe his aches and pains.

‘Feels good,’ Eddie slurs after a solid hour of water dripping and soapy lather over his skin and now Steve gets his hands over his lower back, his upper shoulder blades. Steve touching him always helps. ‘Making me feel so good.’

‘Yeah?’ Steve kisses his shoulders, licks the skin. ‘Can I do anything else?’

Eddie grins lazily, eyes shut.

‘Make it even better?’

Steve smiles into the crook of his neck, pushing his hand lower and lower, leaving Eddie’s back until his fingers follow the clutch, slip inside.

‘Like this?’

His boyfriend makes a slow, slutty moan. It’s all drawn out, all long and it cracks from the stretch. Steve’s middle finger and index push gently inside, stretching and scissoring, seeking the special place.

‘Uh huh.’

‘That’s it baby, just relax. Gonna make you feel so good.’

‘Always do.’

Eddie’s body is tight with tension, with the change that always takes a toll that Steve is happy to offset however he can. This learning curve has been mostly smooth, discovering what helps, what doesn’t.

This helps.

Eddie is weirdly submissive in the days before the full moon. He becomes sleepy and affectionate and needy now that he trusts his monster never to hurt Steve when he emerges. The first time, he’d fought it as hard as he could, but now he doesn’t. Eddie trusts and he lets Steve take care of him.

‘More,’ Eddie pants gently, his chest rising and falling faster now. ‘Feels so good.’

Steve pushes three fingers in and French kisses the bite mark on Eddie’s neck. It’s still sensitive, even though there’s no such thing as bite dominance anymore. Eddie makes all kinds of sleepy, happy noises and Steve fucks him slow and deep, strokes his body from inside and drags pleasure to the surface.

Eddie’s back goes taut like a bow when he comes and Steve tells him how much he loves him, Eddie’s cock pulsing in the water, candles all around casting long shadows. Their tub is copper and it’s plenty big for two and no matter how wild they’ve gotten in it, there’s not a crack to be seen.

‘Good boy,’ Steve whispers, sucks on his earlobe and runs his free hand up over his chest. ‘My good boy.’

*

Steve feels kinda keyed up, he’s high energy and extremely fucking horny but he’s content to wait. Eddie’s in bed, hair damp from the bath, snuggled beneath their satin sheets, because Little Bit’s a slut for the finer things.

Eddie is sleeping, so Steve goes to check everything is locked up. To turn off the lights.

It’s still strange to him, making it dark on purpose.

He thinks of his younger self in this place.

The walls are all new, they’re unrecognisable. Barely a single piece of furniture remains that hasn’t been replaced, but it’s still the same shape, even with the summer house outside, the hot tub, the pool now turned into a skate park. The interior is very different; they’ve knocked down walls to make a few rooms bigger. Steve likes it open plan down here.

His heart is racing, excited and anxious for tomorrow. Worried about Eddie, always, because it hurts him each time and no matter how beautiful they make it after, no matter how careful, the transformation is brutal, both sides.

Steve wipes down a few surfaces.

The kids are all staying over with Nancy and Robin and Max has a room of her own there, with them, so she can stay whenever she likes, but this is her home. This is where she lives with them. She’ll be back in a few days. Steve already misses her.

He looks around. It’s dim and it should be scary, but his boyfriend is a monster and Steve, deep down, is a monster too. The kind that would kill anyone who came to hurt his family. The kind that catches the gazes of people who whisper loudly about the weird noises coming from the Harrington residence when the moon shines bright, he holds their gaze until they look away first.

Rumours about the weirdos in the big house near the woods, he encourages them. Let them be afraid, let them think twice before calling any of his kids a single fucking name. When teenagers swear blind they caught sight of a great big thing with wings flying over the moon, Steve smiles.

Hawkins is a small town and it’s seen its fair share of monsters, good and bad, so no one is brave enough to try and break in. No one wants to know more about the strange family. They’re small town, they just want to live their lives.

It’s been over a year since he’s seen anything resembling a monster besides the man he loves. Eddie told him a while ago all about what had happened. That night. The upside down.

The world that waited.

He’s told Steve all of it, more than once, because there’s something about this story that Steve just likes, even though it makes his throat full and his heart twist.

He drops the cloth into the sink and stares out into the yard, reaches to hold his bottlecap

It always soothes him.

Makes him feel a part of something bigger.

Steve looks around, smiles to himself.

This place is his home. This town is his home.

Neither are perfect. Neither are the fresh start he often thought about when he was younger. They needed a lot of fixing up, a lot of rescuing, lot of mess.

‘Worth it,’ he whispers to himself, to the house, to the town, to the near full moon outside and the stars that know their story.

Steve Harrington turns the final light off.

And he smiles in the dark.

*

Eddie sleeps in the next day.

Steve sits outside with his coffee in the cool morning sun and breathes in the clean air, chases it with a cigarette. Just one, the kids aren’t there to complain loudly, so he thinks why not. He actually kind of enjoys the quiet.

The leaves, the trees, the coffee.

Then he goes inside to start the day.

First, he double checks supplies in the newly improved tower. There’s a bed built into the floor now, well reinforced with a very firm mattress. They have treasure chest style boxes in all corners but one, the shadow corner, which is Eddie’s place to go when he transforms. The floor is painted black and covered with resin, easy to clean.

There’s no rain forecast for tonight, so he throws a few blankets onto the roof above.

In the shower, he opens himself up, like always, only now he slips a plug inside. It’s not huge, because Eddie likes to fuck him open most times, but it’ll just make everything easier, quicker.

Steve breathes slowly, fighting off arousal as his body adjusts to the intrusion. It levels out, but he has to bring himself to orgasm in the shower. Thinks about Eddie’s teeth, his moonstone eyes, that tail and then he’s gone, coming all over his hand, over the tiles in less than ten seconds.

*

By the time Eddie pads barefoot downstairs sometime around three, Steve is almost beside himself. He wants to play. He wants Little Bit, he wants—

‘Oh babyboy,’ Eddie purrs, all rough and low and sleepy still. ‘You’re so hot for me, huh?’

Steve groans, rubs his eyes. ‘It’s never this bad. How are you feeling?’

Eddie inclines his head, opens his arms.

‘Tired. In pain. Gonna be a big one tonight, I think.’ They embrace for a long moment, then they kiss for a while. Kissing just to kiss, slow lips and happy smiles, despite their affected states. ‘Hope the town kids choose tonight to come by and see if the rumours are true.’

‘You’re such an exhibitionist.’

‘Like you’re not.’

‘God, you need to shut up or I’m gonna fucking come just thinking about it.’

Eddie’s grin goes wide, even though he’s tired still.

‘Oh, you’re both gonna make a mess tonight, huh?’

Steve nods, kisses him again.

‘Love that you’re so turned on, baby.’ Eddie scents him, cocks his head. ‘You’ve got something inside you that doesn’t belong.’

‘Just to make things quicker.’

‘You’re gonna be in trouble for that.’

Steve shudders. ‘I hope so.’ Then he breaks the embrace, reaches for the still warm blood he’s fresh from gifting. ‘Here, drink up.’

*

The kids call to check in and Robin does her usual, asks if they need anything, roughly what time it’s OK to come by. Steve walks the steps with her, knows it’s part of their routine and he’s happy to meet her needs while she meets his.

This will never not be dangerous, to an extent.

For his boyfriend is a monster, and though Steve has a high opinion of monsters simply by association, Eddie is dangerous too.

There’s a reason they call to check in. There’s a reason he always has bandages in every room of the house. Every wet thing in Eddie’s body is geared to heal and nourish Steve in some way, but it is also designed to feed upon him and, well, better safe than sorry.

Steve makes himself an early dinner. It’s soup and grilled cheese and he plays music while he heats it up. Eddie sits in his high place, knee to chest like always. He’s starting to feel the approach of the true pain now, but he smiles to see Steve singing along and dancing sometimes.

‘Play that song for me,’ he says, leaning on his knee.

Steve looks over his shoulder, licks soup off his thumb.

‘You want me to dance, too?’

‘Just wanna hear it, see your pretty face when it starts.’

Steve finds the tape, lets it play.

The feeling stirs in his chest. It has never diminished since that very first time. Bright as ever; some things, he thinks, never really fade.

And Eddie sings along quietly, smiling.

*

It’s always a long day as the moon approaches, but they spend it touching and mostly bare. Steve’s skin on Eddie’s helps a lot so they snuggle together beneath a blanket in the living room, watching TV on the recliner. Eddie sleeps again, it’s the last time he’ll sleep before the moon rises.

Steve kisses his hair and massages the bones that grow beneath his skin. He loves all of Eddie’s bones and his scars and the pieces that were bitten off, consumed. Sometimes Steve thinks he loves Eddie so much he wouldn’t mind if Eddie consumed him whole. He thinks he forgives the bats, even though he doesn’t want to eat meat anymore and hasn’t for a long time now. When Joyce makes meatballs, Steve just has the red sauce and pasta with extra cheese.

When Uncle Wayne comes to visit for dinner, Steve will cook meat, Eddie will too and the kids, they’re carnivores, except for Will, he doesn’t like meat either. They adjust. There are still plenty of delicious things in this world.

Steve sighs and he can feel the approach of the moon in his own blood.

They are linked, he and Eddie’s monster.

Bonded.

Bound.

Mated beneath the moon, they belong.

And Eddie is his monster and his monster is Eddie, but Steve Harrington privately thinks it’s wonderful to be loved by two halves of the same whole, to have the distinction.

If he listens close enough to Eddie’s heartbeat, he thinks he can hear the sound of his own name in the pulse, Little Bit calling out to him.

Steve smiles.

Kisses Eddie’s skin.

And waits for darkness to come around.

*

Eddie always needs to be somewhere high up to transform. They don’t really know why, but it doesn’t matter.

Steve goes with him, he’s holding him in the final moments before he goes into his shadow corner.

‘I’m right here, baby,’ he says, pulling down his boxers and kicking them aside. The moon is rising outside, her light bathes Steve’s skin and makes it tingle everywhere she touches. ‘I’m here.’

‘St—Steve,’ Eddie utters, his eyes rolling, he’s getting lost. ‘Don’t—hurting.’

‘It’s OK, I’m gonna stay with you and it’s all gonna be fine soon. Here.’

Steve leads him into shadow.

‘Don’t touch.’

‘I won’t.’

Eddie hates to be touched when this is happening. He thinks he’ll lash out accidentally, hurt Steve.

Steve knows he wouldn’t, but he respects whatever boundaries Eddie sets here, or anywhere.

Steve kneels where he always does and Eddie slips into shadows and darkness, the natural contrast of the moon as she gains height

And it’s unholy, this process.

It is horror incarnate.

The moon makes everything black and white.

Eddie’s body splits. His skin tears. New bones force themselves out, they grow like bamboo, rapid and gruesome. The sounds he makes while it happens are always terrifying, like he’s choking on his own blood, like it hurts so much he wants to keep it a secret from Steve, who wishes he could feel it, share it, split it between them.

Only when Eddie screams does the pain reach its height.

Steve closes his eyes, breathes slow. Warm blood reaches his knees and Eddie’s scream trails off.

He fights for breath.

He’s levelling out.

Steve puts his palms in the blood like it’s paint and puts those hands over his chest, makes himself all messy, like he’s gift-wrapping something especially nice.

And then he hears a small laugh.

Throaty, breathy, deep.

Steve smiles helplessly.

‘Darling,’ the monster purrs, crawling through his own blood to greet Steve. Eyes brighter than the moon, blood all over him in thin ribbons and there are the wings. Bloody and new from the harsh birth, they quiver before they stretch.

Steve greets him with an open mouthed kiss, brow pinched, heart lurching because he loves this monster, he fucking loves him so much. He so rarely gets to have Eddie in this way.

‘Little Bit,’ he pants into his mouth, tongue catching on the teeth already, but why not? Make it red and warm, they love to share. ‘Daddy.’

‘Oh, Daddy’s here,’ Eddie snarls happily, yanks Steve into his lap and smears his own blood all over Steve. ‘You made yourself so pretty for me, didn’t you?’

Steve nods, chases his tongue, wants to suck on it.

‘Pretty for you, Daddy.’

‘What a good boy you’re being.’

Steve can feel blood around his lips, it’s his, he knows the difference in taste. The arousal is leaving him drunk, he’s so fucking gone for it.

‘For now,’ he whispers, taking hold of Eddie’s face like he owns it. He smears the red around those lips, draws them back to see the teeth. Fucking shark, he wants to have every single one of them in his skin, he wants terrible, bad things and each one makes him so fucking horny he thinks he’s gonna come just from sitting in Eddie’s lap, holy shit.

‘You smell like fire,’ Eddie whispers, catching Steve’s index finger between his teeth and biting until the skin parts to permit the escape of blood. Eddie sucks it like a lollipop. ‘You wanna be bad, I think.’

‘Want you, Daddy, just you,’ Steve moans, eyes crossing at the feel of Eddie drinking his blood and it’s nothing for them, but he’s sensitive and he’s been very, very patient. ‘Gonna fuck me?’

‘Want to drink this fire from your blood first, Sunshine.’

Steve writhes in his lap, impatient and so needy he thinks he might cry. ‘Fuck me while you drink me.’ He feels the tail sliding up his bare back, feels it when it wraps around his throat and chokes him just once, playful squeeze of serpentine sentience. ‘Anything, please.’

‘Open up.’

Steve lets his mouth fall open and his head fall back. The tail slips inside, presses his tongue just to tease, but Steve’s gag reflex is solid and it holds steady while it pushes down, down, down…

Eddie lifts him by the hips, runs those razor sharp talons down Steve’s back,  shallow cuts wherever he likes, they’ll be healed by tomorrow if Steve drinks his blood, which he will.

‘What is this?’

Steve has to blink himself back to reality, was on the verge of an orgasm that would have drowned him, just being throat fucked by this part of Eddie, but now it retreats, slips away.

‘Huh?’

He’s breathless and shaky and his cock is bleeding precome. Eddie’s talon taps the flat surface of the plug inside him.

‘This.’

Steve grins wicked and sloppy. ‘You don’t like it?’

‘Nothing inside you but me.’

‘Thought it’d make it easier.’

Eddie scoffs and pulls the plug out much too fast, makes Steve whine, all high and nasal, because now he’s empty and sensitive and desperate.

‘I don’t want it easy.’

‘No?’

‘I want to fuck you open, get my tongue inside you until you scream, I want to watch your body struggle to take me.’

‘You can do all those things, Daddy.’

Eddie gets hold of Steve’s chin, moonstone eyes narrowing. ‘You’re such a whore when she’s full, aren’t you?’

Steve’s answering smile is grotesque; it’s all animal, it’s bloody and spit-slick and he extends his tongue, hungry for any taste of the man he loves. ‘Am I?’

Little Bit grins to match.

They are a pair beneath the moon.

‘More monster than I am, Steve Harrington.’

Their kiss is messy and sharp and Steve wants to eat and be eaten and when he feels Eddie’s cock push inside him, he screams into his monster’s mouth, but not for mercy, for more.

More.

He taps four times, blood positively bubbling.

Four taps on Eddie’s upper arm and Eddie draws off the kiss, drags his long tongue out, grinning.

‘You want more, baby?’

Steve is stretched and full, but he’s lightheaded, his skin feels too tight. He wants to shed his skin, he wants to drop just to be caught, he wants to get bred and all of it, brutal and beautiful, because no one loves him like Eddie. No one.

‘Make it hurt.’

‘It already hurts.’

‘Not enough.’

Little Bit chuckles. ‘Make Daddy mad then, sweetheart.’

Steve let loose a happy noise, dragged through the trenches of his desire, it comes out like a whorish moan.

And then he smacks Eddie across the face.

The crack is satisfying and it births new shades of black between them. All the lovely things that come out to play when the moon is full and the dead rise.

Eddie’s jaw goes lax, eyes fluttering shut.

Steve repeats the motion, harder that time.

The monster laughs softly, and when he opens his eyes, they shine brighter than before. His teeth grow longer.

Steve has only ever seen this once before.

Eddie’s skin darkens, he loses his pallor, replaced by an inky grey. His eyes turn pure black surrounding the white and his wings shiver, the bones stretching the membrane out as fully as they can in this wide space.

‘Bad boy,’ he declares and then Steve is slammed into the floor. It knocks the wind right out of him, leaves him scrambling to breathe for a moment. ‘You wanna play, hmm?’

‘Y-yeah, I wanna play.’

‘You want to know how it feels to be afraid, my darling?’

Steve closes his eyes, grits his teeth.

‘If you’re up to it.’

He waits for impact, for a kiss, for teeth, anything.

Eddie simply withdraws.

He moves away, pulls his cock out and leaves Steve achingly hollow.

‘Ngh, wait, what?’

Eddie stands, heads for the window.

When he looks back, he smirks.

‘I’ll give you twenty seconds to run,’ he tells Steve. ‘Then I’m coming to get you.’

Steve blinks. ‘What?’

‘Twenty seconds and counting, baby,’ Eddie says, hops up onto the sill, open window, his wings furling to fit. ‘Then it’s hide and seek.’

*

Steve thinks he’s never run so fast in his goddamn life.

He’s naked as the day he was born and running blind through the woods. Terrified, turned on, fucking trembling with excitement and silly things like survival instincts that only make the game more fun.

Twigs and branches hurt his feet, but he runs. He cuts a path through the trees with only the moon to find his way.

He runs and his lungs burn and he comes to a clearing, a gap between the trees.

The moonlight blinks in and out.

Steve looks sharply up, gasping.

The moon smiles down at him, the stars twinkling gently. She is always happy to see her darlings playing, so Eddie has told him. Steve takes a deep breath and then runs flat out through the clearing.

He can feel himself being watched, he feels the loving eyes of his predator on his skin as he pelts towards relative safety.

And then he hears the whoosh of wings.

The wind telling tales.

He closes his eyes, prays he has the timing right and throws himself down, just as Eddie’s talons graze his underarms.

He hits the soft ground hard, his forward momentum sends him into a painful roll and then he hears something ahead of him landing too. He looks up in time to see Eddie styling it out into a graceful fucking skid, his wings thrown wide like a parachute.

Steve has skinned his knees and hurt his ribs, but he is laughing. He’s got tears in his eyes.

Eddie looks back.

Naked in the moonlight, he’s so gorgeous.

Steve wonders what people would think if they saw this.

The thought makes him laugh harder.

‘You’re crazy, Steve Harrington,’ Eddie chuckles, no small degree of awe in his tone. ‘And yet you’d still better run.’

Steve runs back into the woods, legs burning, knee wet with blood and he hears Eddie chase him on foot.

It takes less than a minute.

Eddie tackles him to the ground, captures him with ease and then they’re in the leaves and the dirt, they are wild things, growing and kissing and finding fresh blood wherever it has spilt.

Steve gets briefly on top for a moment.

This pretty fucking triumph where he gets his hands around Eddie’s wrists and slams him into the ground.

‘Mine,’ he declares, spits blood right over Eddie’s lips, makes a red mess like with the lipstick and laughs softly. ‘Mine.’

Eddie barely has to flex to throw Steve off, to trap him beneath superior strength. He cages him in with arms and wings and he sinks his teeth right into Steve’s neck without another word.

Steve makes a loud noise, it’s almost a scream but too wanton, too fucking wet. The pain and pleasure come clashing together, harsh waves that slam Steve into the rocks, he writhes beneath his monster and wordlessly begs for more.

The sensation of loving consumption, of his cells going to live in Eddie for a while; of sharing with sharp things, or sharing with spit, or the slip-slide of sweaty bodies fucking come deep enough to make Steve taste it, the method simply doesn’t matter.

Steve wants to live inside him, this man, this fucking monstrous thing, who wears his ink, who wears his love inside and out.

They are animals, monsters, wholly other.

Steve hopes someone sees, he hopes it strikes fear into any and all who would ever dare look toward his beautiful family with even the frailest intent to harm. He hopes people whisper always about the monsters of Hawkins, Indiana.

Eddie slings Steve’s thigh over his shoulder, bites again, shallow this time, but he doubles the sensation by slamming his cock home where it belongs, right inside Steve. The stretch is exquisite and Steve screams proper then.

He hopes it fills the skies.

Steve has Eddie’s tongue down his throat and his cock in his ass and all this fucked up love in his heart, but it’s not enough to come yet because he’s greedy and he’s selfish and Eddie loves him anyway.

‘Tail,’ he begs when he can shape words, when Eddie draws back to smack the underside of Steve’s  thigh hard, leaves a mark. ‘Gimme the tail.’

Eddie fucks him harder into the earth.

‘Beg.’

Steve slaps his face and his laugh is swallowed up by lips and tongue and teeth again and Eddie repays the sentiment by smacking his ass cheek fucking hard. Steve wails into the kiss, eyes filling with tears.

‘Beg.’

‘Please,’ Steve gasps, riding the high of what delights pain can bring his pleasure-fucked nervous system. He is like the immortal who wants to feel death because all else leaves him numb. ‘Please, fuck me with your tail, come on!’

‘Desecrate you, hmm?’ Eddie whispers, breath ragged. ‘That’s what you want?’

His wings are getting wide, they’re making shade from the moon, the sky, the world entire. Steve knows he’ll come soon, knows all the signs. First time is so fun, and he wants to come too, wants that tail inside him.

‘Yes, please, that’s what I want, Daddy. Please.’

‘Open up first.’

Steve opens his mouth obediently, tongue flat against his chin. The tail dips inside, gets good and wet and then just as it leaves, Eddie holds his lips parted with his fingers dig into Steve’s cheeks.

‘Pretty,’ he praises as he spits in Steve’s mouth and then pushes the tail in alongside his cock.

Steve almost chokes on what he’s given and Eddie laughs, clearly meant it to happen that way.

‘Too much, sweetheart?’

He makes the circle.

Steve gives three taps in return.

He wants to fucking come.

The feeling of the tail wrapping around Eddie’s cock, of the tip seeking out Steve’s prostate, it hits suddenly, it wipes the smile right off Steve’s face.

Like a black hole in his fucking core, he’s already cramping with agonising pleasure, it’s gonna be big, it’s gonna swallow him whole, this orgasm.

‘Oh god, oh god!’

‘Why do you beg to a god you don’t believe in?’ Eddie asks in a whisper, like they’re kids sharing secrets.

Steve blinks tears down his temples, thinks his salt will live in the earth here forever now. His blood too, his come if he’s lucky.

‘Because I don’t want it to stop,’ he answers in a hiss, gripping Eddie’s hair and dragging him down for a kiss that’s more of a clash, a harsh punishment, a declaration of the love they birthed in water with soap, that now grows wild and wicked under the light of the moon. ‘I don’t ever—ugh, Eddie! Please, please make me come, Daddy. Make me come all over you, fuck!’

Eddie kisses him deep and ruthless and the pace turns frantic. Steve’s gonna have bruises on his upper thighs, he’s going to be tender and sore for weeks.

The sensation of what is fucking him is too much, especially this hard, and Steve is finally getting what he needs. Thinks there’s some truth that nickname that’ll never take, because he’s already Sunshine, he will always be Sunshine, even when the sun itself is long gone.

Eddie comes inside him with a ragged, guttural moan and Steve’s orgasm hits a second later, smashing him into wet, wild pleasures, into the power of things that come to kill him but find him altogether too lovely to kill, so they give him the little death instead, they will love him into oblivion and keep him forever.

Steve is babbling, he is howling and Eddie lets him. He laps at the blood from his neck and spills himself deep inside Steve, fucks him into the dirt and pins his wrists above his head and Steve can feel the love in every inch of him.

He’s bleeding, he’s aching, he is stretched and every breath hurts to fill his lungs.

He’s so happy he could cry.

And he feels the urge to slip into darkness and drift for a while. He knows he could, because Eddie is two seconds from doing the same, always does after the first time, but Steve thinks it’d be better if they were back home for that.

‘Baby,’ he says, stroking Eddie’s wings.

Eddie shudders to life, giggling slightly.

‘Tickles.’

‘I know, sorry. Baby, take me home.’

Eddie draws back, blinks a little clarity into his eyes.

‘Home?’

‘Uh huh. You’re gonna pass out in a minute and when you do, I’ll be all alone here, vulnerable.’

Eddie snarls and Steve gets to see every single one of those teeth. ‘Kill them.’

‘So take me home, yeah?’

Eddie grunts, kisses Steve’s throat as he lifts him up, but keeps his cock very much inside. It’s still completely hard, will be for a while. They know the process by now.

Eddie staggers to his feet, has to use his wings for balance. Steve clings on, ankles locked around his back to keep Eddie inside.

‘Home.’

‘That’s right, baby.’

Eddie scents the air.

‘Far.’

‘It’s not. We can walk if we’re—’

Eddie takes flight without warning.

Steve grips tight, primal terror viciously crushed by the absolute, incomparable thrill of getting to fly with his boyfriend, his mate in this way. It’s only ever happened twice before and both times were like this. Especially wild, the kind of thing where Eddie had told Steve to run.

It’s sickeningly swift, how high Eddie can get, how massive his wings are when actually in use. The wind washes over Steve, makes him instantly cold, but Eddie’s arms are all the way around him as they cut through the sky.

And another time, Eddie might take him higher.

He might still, later tonight.

One time, he took Steve so high that Hawkins looked small. They looked down together and Eddie whispered, ‘I’ve got you, Steve. I’ve got you.’

Steve Harrington has always been drawn to the dead drops.

But even he had clung a little tighter to Eddie then, felt grateful for the strength of his wings, for all of him.

That’s not tonight, though.

Eddie lands with graceful precision on the roof of their home. His wings compensate for the drop by giving an extra beat, a gorgeous flex that stirs up downdrafts to cushion the landing. He’s so good at flying, even when he’s literally still inside his mate.

Steve kisses his face and Eddie walks them over to the blankets, crashes to his knees.

‘Did good, huh?’

‘Did so good,’ Steve praises intently. ‘We’re home now, I’m all safe.’

Eddie kisses him.

It’s gentle.

Soft.

His breath trembles over Steve’s lips.

‘Couldn’t love you more if I tried,’ Eddie groans and then Steve is taking his full weight as he slips under, goes into his strange little drift after the first orgasm and Steve sighs contentedly.

He kisses his hair and holds him tight.

‘You always find a way.’

*

Eddie is dreaming of beautiful things.

Of cloudless night skies and the moon’s song to her monsters, none so beloved than Eddie. He dreams of stars and the pieces of them that live inside the man he loves.

Steve Harrington, his sun, his greater star.

And he dreams of flying, of kissing, of chasing.

He is happy in his dreams for he knows everyone he loves is safe.

So it’s strange, then, to be awoken unexpectedly.

His monster kisses him awake.

Go be with him while I drift, he beckons generously.

Eddie stirs awake. Hmm?

For the surprise, remember? He won’t expect this, you in this form. Go on. I’ll watch.

Eddie comes around slowly, he’s waking up in his own body. The… surprise? Oh.

Oh.

You ’re sure? This is your time.

My time is your time, we can share. I want it to be you and I want him to be surprised. Go on.

Eddie is almost fully back in his own body. It’s… strange to wake from a dream so suddenly and find new appendages. Usually, he wakes when the sun rises and very slowly. This is more of a crashlanding, but he doesn’t mind.

Steve Harrington is all wrapped around him, kissing his face and humming a song.

Thank you, he tells Little Bit, means it. Love you.

Love you too. Make sure you say it just like we planned.

Promise.

Steve looks at him, concern instantly blossoming.

‘Baby? Your eyes are different. Are you OK?’

Eddie’s cock is still inside him. This is the part where Little Bit drifts, a kind of daze intended to help what he put in Steve take. Steve is all bloody and bruised and he’s just glowing.

And tomorrow, Eddie will give him blood and make it fix him up, make him better, so he doesn’t despair, feels nothing beyond the smallest twinge of natural guilt for being stronger.

‘Stevie,’ he gasps softly, like he’s been running. ‘Hey.’

‘It’s you?’

‘Just for a while, we’re…’ He grins. ‘Sort of sharing.’

Steve kisses him.

‘Missed you.’

‘Missed you too, always. Are you having fun?’

‘Mmhmm. Got to fly, a little.’

‘Oh, bet you liked that, huh?’

‘Yeah. Are you all right?’

‘Was dreaming about you. Us.’

‘Good dreams?’

‘Always good dreams.’ Eddie sighs, closes his eyes and extends his wings. He usually only gets the awkward daylight hours to be in this body this way, so it’s lovely to stretch how he wants, to feel the true breadth of what he is.

The form he chose to keep.

The gift he was given.

He opens his eyes, looks down at the bottlecap.

They haven’t really talked about it much.

There’s a gift in the metal, so Little Bit has told him. A small piece of something extraordinary, a hidden seed.

It could make Eddie human.

It could make Steve more than human.

Or it could just be a bottlecap, forever.

Steve has already said he wants to be Eddie’s human, he wants it how it is now, for as long as it’s meant to be. And maybe that’ll change, maybe everything will change except the way they love and kiss and hold one another, every moment of every day, because life is meant to be beautiful and like fuck is Eddie wasting a single second of it.

Steve wears it every day, his favourite little piece of metal, gifted by Eddie, by the parts of him that are drawn to shiny, glittering light.

And it suits him, but Eddie wants him to have something a little more.

‘Little Bit let me come, because I know what I wanna do with my dare,’ he says, leaning in to kiss Steve. His boyfriend chuckles, kisses him back, fingers in his hair.

‘Oh really?’

‘Uh huh. Watch.’

Eddie sucks his own fingers into his mouth.

Hands that killed a man last year, but Steve had licked them and loved them, accepted him as he was.

Eddie finds the ring he got from the metal box, the band his grandmother left him that he hid from his parents all those years. He wears it on his little finger and it comes off easily when wet, most things do.

He keeps the ring in his mouth, sucks all the excess spit, revels in the metal smack on his tongue and then lifts Steve’s hand to his lips, finds that special finger and sucks it in.

Eddie uses his tongue to get it over the tip.

To crown and decorate, but he leaves it loose.

It’s a choice, after all.

Everything is.

And then he opens his mouth, lowers Steve’s hand between them.

The moon is high, she gleams bright and the stars are singing, they’ll sing this song to one another long after they’re gone.

Steve Harrington stares at the ring.

His eyes are slightly wide, he’s shaking a little. Efforts of exertion, weight of overwhelm or maybe just surprised.

A shuddering little breath gets free as he looks up at Eddie. The bottlecap catches the moonlight, creates a bronze flash of ethereal iridescence that could never, ever compare to the perfect, soft shade Eddie loves most.  

Steve touches Eddie’s face.

The world is holding its breath.

And Eddie Munson says, ‘I dare you.’

-Epilogue-

He drifts.

He likes to drift, to float, and know that he is tethered, always and forever in these cells.

There is such comfort in that.

When he spills inside his love, inside the human who showed him water and soap and touch and kindness, he feels like he is caught between the sky and great, blue sea.

Between home here and death there.

And it is a lovely way to be.

He drifts and reaches for what remains of father. Mother is new and she circles the word he is sworn to protect, but father asked to be dissolved and he misses him sometimes.

The connection is lost, but like humans who speak aloud the names of those they miss, so the memory of father will remain in the blood he created and the skin and the bones. In memory, good and bad, until he too is no more and this world will forget.

The moon will not forget, but she too has a beginning and so an end. The stars are already gone, they are ghosts, phantoms of the sky that cannot relinquish the stories inside them, but even they will fade, for everything is but light and light … inevitably dims, one day.

And he is so happy to drift here, to watch as all that he loves in this world says yes.

As he bears witness to the sharing of shiny metals, anew.

And Steve will wear both.

For he loves them both.

All.

Every part; skin and bones and blood, laughter and love, flaring tempers and bad memories. Silliness and seriousness, Steve Harrington is the totality of everything.

And if he misses father while he drifts, he need not worry, because he has Steve and he is Eddie Munson, sometimes Hetfield, sometimes Little Bit. Daddy.

Humans like to give many names, but not to take power.

To give it.

To crown the ones they love and cherish them in memory, in small moments …  and even in the metal, left behind.

Steve Harrington was the first good thing that he ever knew and he might not be the last. There is something very hopeful in that.

A bright seed of daylight, at the core of a dark space.

And when the sun bows out, and there has not been any light for a very long time, he will recall the names he was given.

He will find the cells that kiss, for they are always kissing.

Colliding, the way wild things are wont to do.

He will remember this moment.

Under the moon, the stars, the beauty of a temporary world and a love that lives in skin and bones, shaped by experiences, by kindness, the way glass is shaped by water.

The way they kiss, the way they love.

And he will make something new with that light.

With the memory of this exact moment.

Because the end is just a chance for a new story.

And Little Bit thinks that, above all else, was worth waiting for.

The End