Chapter Text
“We're cruising slowly but we're moving fast
We both decided to thank our pasts
We've got a hundred lists of things we wanna do
But I'm also cool just doing nothing with you.”
- “Pumpkin” by The Regrettes
The apartment on Branson Street had two moderately sized bedrooms, scuffed wood paneling in the living room, and the ugliest orange carpet Steve had ever seen. The building was once a two story family home that had been converted into three units. Theirs was on the top floor, which was a blessing, because Steve wasn’t sure he could handle people stomping around above him all the time. The other blessing was that it was his, and the only person he had to share it with was Robin.
Signing a lease with Robin hadn’t been the most popular choice, at least where Steve’s family were concerned. They were old school. They thought if he was living with a woman, he ought to at least have married her. It didn’t matter how many times he told his parents that he and Robin were just friends, they’d resolved themselves to believe he was lying. That was okay. They didn’t get a say in it anyway, Steve was paying for it out of pocket. His salary was meager, but combined with Robin’s they could at least afford the rent. No hand outs needed. His parents could keep their concerns to themselves.
“Should mugs go here?” Robin asked, opening one of the dull wooden cabinets beside the sink. “Or here?”
Steve put his hands on his hips, considering. Putting them near the sink made sense, because that would streamline the dish washing process. But at his old house, the cups had always been by the coffee machine, which was tucked into the far corner of the kitchen.
“What if we put them by the coffee maker?”
“Smart,” Robin praised. She slid the cardboard box along the counter and began unpacking all six of their mugs. They were mismatched, four of them were souvenirs from random family vacations, the other two looked like they’d been nicked from Dixie’s Diner.
“So, are you guys going to help me, or am I just your pack mule?” Eddie asked from the living room. He dropped a box unceremoniously onto the floor of the living room and Steve heard whatever was inside it clatter. Eddie straightened up, huffing.
“What’s left in the van?” Steve asked.
“Two boxes, your nightstand, and some records.” Eddie frowned. “But we still have to bring the couch up.”
“I’m not helping with that,” Robin added, unsolicited. She resumed placing mugs onto the shelf.
“Let’s just get the couch over with,” Steve sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this. The stairway was narrow, and the couch wasn’t exactly light. It had been a good find, though. Robin and Steve had spent all of last weekend scouting thrift stores to find last minute furniture items. The couch was full length, faux leather, and only had a few minor tears. They’d called Eddie from the payphone outside the store to request use of his van to pick it up. He hadn’t been pleased.
He still wasn’t pleased. He’d been shooting daggers at Steve during the entire moving process, as though Steve had twisted his arm and forced him into this. In reality, Eddie had offered, and Steve certainly wasn’t going to pass up the extra hands.
They embarked down the stairs together, and Eddie pointed out tight corners unhelpfully. “It isn’t going to fit through this bend,” Eddie said. “And if it doesn’t fit, I’m not helping you take it back to the store. We’re leaving it on the fucking lawn.”
“It’ll fit,” Steve reassured. He was fairly certain. He had decent spacial reasoning skills.
They each took an end of the couch and began lugging it up the stairs. Eddie had refused to put his hair up, claiming it changed his entire ‘look.’ So instead he continuously blew strands out of his eyes and whined to Steve that he couldn’t see. He took the lead, walking backwards up the stairs, leaving Steve to bear the weight of the couch from the bottom.
It was indeed a tight fit. Eddie ended up half pinned against the wall as they tried to round the corner, shouting at Steve that he was going to get squished. Steve just shouldered the weight and forced it through the awkward angle. They both froze when they heard a loud ripping noise.
“God dammit,” Steve sighed.
“We’ll deal with it later,” Eddie said. “Just walk.”
They got the couch through the front door and deposited it into the middle of the living room. Eddie wiped sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand, then plummeted face down on the cushions. Steve walked around the couch, examining it for damage. There was a tear in the left arm, about three inches long. The stuffing was poking through.
“Well, that’s great,” Steve huffed. Eddie raised his head and frowned at the tear.
“Not bad,” he assessed. “We can fix it.”
“How?”
“Duct tape?”
“No.”
Eddie shrugged and climbed off the couch. He brushed dust from his black jeans, then snapped his fingers.
“Alright, let’s go. Nightstand next. I want this over with.”
“ You want this over with?” Steve asked, following him out the door and back down the stairs. “Welcome to the club, buddy. If I don’t get this shit done by tonight I’m not going to have anywhere to sleep. I still have to put my bedframe back together, remember?”
“You have a couch,” Eddie said. He reached into his van and pulled a box to the edge of the bumper. “You can sleep on that.”
Steve snorted. He took the boxes Eddie handed him. They returned for the nightstand on the next round. By the time Eddie’s van was empty, Robin had unpacked most of the kitchen items. She gave Steve a rundown. Silverware in this drawer, plates on this shelf. In the living room, Eddie shoved the couch into position in front of the television. Then he bounced on the cushions, spreading his arms along the back rest. He leaned his head backward and sighed deeply.
After getting a tour of his own kitchen, Steve wandered through the house. That was the last of it. Everything was in now. They’d officially moved. He examined each room, surveying the wreckage. Boxes everywhere, some hastily opened to retrieve items they’d needed during the moving process. There were poster frames leaning against the walls, boxes of tapes stacked haphazardly around the tv.
Steve pinched his shirt, pulling it away from his chest and fanning himself with it. It was hot. June was not a good time to move.
“Okay, where is it, then?” Eddie asked. He twisted on the couch, looking over the back of it at Steve, who was examining a huge pile of boxes tucked into the back corner of the room.
“Where’s what?” Steve asked. He knelt and looked at one of the boxes. On the side it said ‘junk and stuff’ in Sharpie. It was Steve’s handwriting. He didn’t remember writing it and had no idea what it might contain. Very helpful.
“My reward, dude,” Eddie said. “I didn’t help you move for nothing.”
“Your reward is that you’re allowed entry onto the premises,” Steve said. He straightened up and went to the fridge. Truthfully, he’d gotten Eddie his prize much earlier in the day. It had been chilling in the fridge ever since. Steve pulled a beer from the plastic ring and returned to the couch, placing it straight in Eddie’s hand.
Eddie eyed it suspiciously. Then he shrugged and said, “Alright, this’ll do.”
Steve snorted and went back to examining his pile of boxes.
“This is going to be so rad,” Robin said, still shuffling boxes in the kitchen. “Think about it, guys. We can do anything we want here.”
“Can’t hold jam sessions,” Eddie said. “Can’t plant a garden.”
“Well, almost anything,” Robin amended. “We can have movie night! We can get the gang together for holidays!”
“I’m not sure everyone will fit in here,” Steve said. He had his fists planted against his hips, squinting around the room. “The kids would tear this place apart.”
“Let ‘em,” Eddie said. He’d yet to move from the couch.
“Yeah, you say that, but it isn’t your name on the lease, pal,” Steve chastised. He went to the fridge for his own beer, then kicked the side of the couch and made ‘come hither’ fingers at Eddie. “Alright, up, let’s put my bed together.”
“Why do I have to help with that?” Eddie whined. He stood anyway, taking his beer with him.
Eddie criticized Steve’s poor collection of tools (two screwdrivers and a hand-me-down hammer). Eddie complained about Steve’s inability to remember if the legs were supposed to go on first, or the headboard. Eddie high-fived Steve when they finished.
They slapped the mattress down on the frame, and Eddie said, “Dude, you live here now. Congrats.”
Steve smiled at that. He did live here now. No more empty mansion. No more parents to encroach on his space when it suited them. No more bad memories by the pool, or unnervingly loud empty spaces. Just a shitty apartment on Branson Street.
They cracked a second beer after the first. Robin ordered a pizza, and panicked when she nearly gave her mother’s address, covering the speaker of the phone and hissing, “What the hell is this street called again?” Eddie walked around the living room with Robin’s framed Lost Boys poster, holding it up against the wall, claiming it would look best front and center, the first thing anyone saw when the door was opened.
They finished the pizza and the beer. Eddie slept on the couch in his jeans, with nothing more than a dusty throw blanket which he bunched up as a pillow. Steve didn’t even put sheets on his mattress. Robin at least had the forethought to keep her pillow easy to unpack, and likely slept the best of all three of them. It didn’t matter. Steve would have been happy sleeping on the floor.
He had a home, now. Not just a house, not just a place to sleep, but somewhere he could really make his own.
Eddie considered the clearing of his name a blessing and a curse. In the eyes of the law, he was a free man. The ‘serial killer’ who had plagued their town has been caught and was now in the careful hands of the law. Yeah, right. It didn’t matter what the official story was, at least he wasn’t accused of murdering Chrissy anymore.
That did mean that he was now expected to be a productive member of society, however. And with that came a shitty job at the bowling alley. He had to wear a dumb striped polo, had to deal with smelly shoes all day, but at least the kids were jazzed about it. They’d come in every other day since he got the job.
Another perk was that the bowling alley was just down the street from Family Video. He’d made a habit of meeting up with Steve and Robin after his shift, if they were working that day. Sometimes they went for ice cream at Dixie’s Diner. Other times they just lingered in the video store and chatted over their separate horrors working with the public. Sometimes they ended up back at the apartment.
It had been a week since they’d moved in. Eddie would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous. A place all their own. It was the kind of thing all teenagers dream about.
Steve made him slightly less jealous though. He sat across from Eddie at Dixie’s Diner, twisting his straw around a milkshake glass, and said, “And also, we discovered that the the cupboard beneath the sink doesn’t shut all the way, the hinge is completely busted. I’ve hit my shin on it like sixteen times.”
“Bathtub,” Robin added through a mouthful of fries. She sat beside Steve, face buried in her food.
“Oh, yeah, and the bathtub doesn’t drain,” Steve said, snapping his fingers in recollection. “It just fills up the entire time you shower. And it takes like an hour to empty after that.”
“I took a shower after Steve last night, and I had to stand it his gross body fluids the entire time.”
Steve shot her a look. Eddie screwed up his face in disgust.
“It’s a fucking nightmare,” Steve said. “I’m going to ask my mom for our handyman’s phone number.”
“A handyman?” Eddie scoffed. “Can you even afford a handyman?”
“I don’t know.” Steve frowned. “How much do they cost?”
“Steve, buddy, you were complaining just a minute ago about how that milkshake was too expensive,” Eddie laughed. “Handymans cost way more than a milkshake.”
“He’s right,” Robin nodded, shoving more fries into her mouth.
“I know you were born with a silver spoon, but now you’re going to have to learn how we common folk deal with broken things.”
Eddie reached across the table and took one of Robin’s fries. Steve crossed his arms over his chest, glowering at Eddie.
“And how would that be?”
“Duct tape,” Eddie said. “Or learn to live with it.”
Steve scowled. Eddie laughed. Robin reached for Steve’s milkshake without asking permission.
Eddie followed Steve up the stairs on a Tuesday after work. He was listing types of screwdrivers.
“Flathead, Phillips, hex. Though, hex aren’t that common unless you’re dealing with metal fastening.”
Steve stuck his key in the deadbolt, ignoring Eddie.
Robin was working late tonight. She’d recently been promoted to shift manager. Steve had been a bit sulky about her getting a promotion instead of him, but he soon realized it meant that she had to stay late and close up shop on nights when Brant or Colton flaked while Steve got to go home. Little wins.
Eddie had loitered around Family Video until Steve clocked out. He was still wearing his stupid bowling alley polo. It had vertical stripes, colored lurid orange and green. It looked ridiculous beneath his denim jacket.
“Then you’re gonna want a few types of pliers. Needlenose, at minimum . Vice grip. Crescent wrench will work for basic shit, but to be honest, you’re going to want a full socket set.”
Steve rubbed his temples. Eddie shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the couch. He stretched, hands above his head, back arched. Then he cracked his knuckles and said, “Alright, you got a pen and paper? Let’s make a list.”
“What?” Steve said. He didn’t even know where his favorite pair of shoes was, let alone a pen and paper. Boxes were half unpacked, strewn about the room. Steve was starting to get low level anxiety from being in a place so disorganized.
“Actually,” Eddie said, reaching for his jacket on the couch. He began searching his own pockets, pulling out a lighter, a tube of Carmex, and a crumpled cigarette pack before he found what he was looking for: a Bic pen, cap missing. Eddie made an ‘ah-ha!’ noise, then went to the kitchen to rummage through the stack of junk mail that had piled up beside the sink.
“Okay, so, what’s the worst?” Eddie asked. He hunched over the countertop, scribbling on the corner of an envelope to see that his pen worked. “The bathtub drain? Or the drafty window?”
“Both,” Steve said with a sigh, sitting at the kitchen table. It was a wooden hand-me-down from his parents. He and Robin had bought four folding chairs at the resupply store to accompany it. “Both are equally bad.”
Eddie wrote something on the envelope.
“What else? Broken cupboard hinge? Faulty burners?”
Steve was a bit touched that Eddie had even remembered half the shit he’d complained about.
The house was a mess. During his first walk through with Robin, they’d mostly been focused on things like, ‘Are the bedrooms big enough to fit a Queen mattress?’ and, ‘Is there space for our VHS collection?’ He hadn’t thought to check the faucets, or the lightswitches, or the cupboard door hinges. Now, Steve was regretting not inspecting every inch of the place. It seemed like every day he discovered some new defective element of the house. Outlets that didn’t seem to work at all, doors that didn’t shut right, windows that didn’t do anything to stop the hot air from blowing in.
“Yeah, all those things,” Steve confirmed. “And the front door doesn’t latch, we have to use the deadbolt to keep it shut.”
Eddie scribbled on the envelope.
Steve continued his list of broken things. The fridge had a cracked shelf, and the crisper drawer didn’t open right. The oven filled the house with smoke everytime it was turned on. The shower curtain didn’t slide on the rod. His bedroom door creaked. The bathroom faucet sputtered.
Eddie wrote it all down dutifully. When Steve had exhausted the list of things he’d noticed (so far), Eddie began his inspection. He examined each of the items, testing if Steve was telling the truth about the deadbolt, kneeling in the fridge to view the broken drawer.
“Did you call your landlord about this shit?” Eddie asked, turning on the faucet in the bathroom.
“He said the lease included this shit.” Steve leaned against the bathroom doorway, arms crossed. “Said there was a clause in there stating any minor repairs were the duty of the tenant, or something.”
“Huh,” Eddie said, shutting off the tap. “Alright, well, we can fix it.”
“How?” As Eddie parted his lips to speak, Steve hurriedly added an addendum to his question. “And don’t say duct tape.”
Eddie snapped his mouth shut, then grinned.
“Do you actually think you know how to do this shit?” Steve asked. Eddie pressed his palms against the sink counter, leaning backwards against his hands. He shrugged.
“Some of it,” Eddie said. “The cupboard just needs new hinges, the tub just needs a dose of Drano. I’ve never fixed a fridge drawer before, but I could probably figure it out.”
Steve raised a brow skeptically. It wasn’t that he doubted Eddie’s talent, it was just that Eddie was a boastful person. He made a lot of claims that didn’t always turn out to be exactly true. It was fine when he was cracking jokes about how quickly he could shotgun a beer, or how many records he could carry in one hand. But this was Steve’s house. He had a deposit on the line, a lease he didn’t want to break. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Eddie using his property to ‘figure out’ how to fix a fridge.
“Man, I don’t know,” Steve said, scratching his nose. “I just-- If we break anything--”
“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Eddie sighed. He pushed off the counter, placed his hands on Steve’s shoulder and gave him a little shake. “Have some faith, won’t you?”
Steve grimaced. Eddie dropped his shoulders with a laugh. Then he squeezed past Steve in the doorway, brushing against him from shoulder to knee. He slapped the to-do list onto the table and began to rummage through the cupboards.
Steve looked over the list. Eddie had nice handwriting. That surprised him for some reason. He expected Eddie’s handwriting to be as chaotic as he was, but it wasn’t. He wrote in neat block letters, all caps. Steve ran his eyes down the list. It seemed so easy when Eddie listed it all out like this. Replace a hinge here, tighten a bolt there, and bam, he’d have a liveable house.
Eddie turned around, holding a can of Pringles. He stuck his hand into the can, reaching for the stale few at the bottom.
“Look, I’ve fixed a lot of shit, okay? Do you really think my uncle calls a handyman everytime a drain gets clogged or a lock gets sticky? Hell no, dude. We fix it ourselves. It might not always be pretty, but that shit works, man. And don’t knock the duct tape, okay?”
Steve looked at him, then back down at the list. He thought of what Eddie had said the other afternoon at the diner, about Steve being born with a silver spoon. About him being a rich kid who didn’t know how to fix broken things. He wondered if it was always as simple as making a list and getting a toolkit.
A thought crossed his mind, uninvited, intrusive: Steve himself was a broken thing. It was the kind of thought that found its way to the forefront of his mind often these days, ever since the world sort of fell apart beneath him, since he nearly watched his friends die in another world, and he suffered from unimaginable wounds he couldn’t even speak about.
He’d certainly be very glad to learn that broken things like him could be fixed with Drano and duct tape.
Steve sighed. He pushed Eddie’s list away from him.
“Sure, man. Yeah. Let’s fix it.”
Eddie lowered the Pringles can he’d tipped to his mouth. He smiled at Steve with salt covered lips.
They settled on fixing the cabinet door first. It was the simplest thing on the list. A trip to the hardware store, a couple of screws. They’d be done in an hour. Eddie came by the apartment after work, toolkit in the back of the van, and honked until Steve came down the steps. He already looked angry. This would be fun.
“Jesus Christ, dude,” Steve said as he climbed into the passenger seat. “I have neighbors.”
“And they’ve never heard a car horn before?” Eddie asked. He put the van in drive and peeled away from the curb. “Did you get the measurements I asked for?”
Steve rummaged in the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a crumpled sticky note with the size of the existing hinges. Eddie got them to the hardware store in a matter of minutes, and they walked shoulder to shoulder through the aisles filled with project dads and retired grandpas. They found the fastener section, and held up a variety of different similarly sized and shaped hinges, trying to identify the closest match on memory alone. Steve was in a foul mood. He argued with Eddie about whether the hinge had rounded corners or squared ones. He complained that there were too many types of screws to choose from. He whined that he hated hardware stores.
Eddie just whistled as they strolled through the aisles and wondered what it took to break Steve Harrington out of a bad mood. Evidently, his charm wasn’t enough. He wondered what had put him in the bad mood in the first place. It could be hard to tell with Steve. He was just moody sometimes.
Back at the apartment, Steve was pleased to find that the hinges Eddie had settled on were a near exact match. Eddie sat on the kitchen floor, legs crossed, and Steve hovered nearby holding the box of screws. He held the door steady when Eddie asked him to, and kept his eyes trained on Eddie’s hands as he worked. When Eddie finished, he stood and bowed Steve toward the open cupboard.
“Do the honors, my liege,” Eddie said, putting on a mythical accent.
Steve twitched a smile at that. He tapped the cupboard closed, and nodded appreciatively when it fell flush with the rest of the cupboard doors. No more nicking ankles on it when he walked through the kitchen.
“Well, damn. Nice.” He looked at Eddie with a pleased expression. “Thanks.”
“I hardly did anything, man. Just a couple screws.”
Eddie tossed his screwdriver back in his toolkit and snapped it shut. Then his slipped his hand through the handle and hefted it up.
“Oh,” Steve said. “Are you leaving?”
“Do you usually ask your handyman to stay?” Eddie teased. He hesitated. There was an offer here, a chance for him to make up some excuse to stay longer. They could watch a movie. They could have a beer. Eddie could come up with some reason to sleep on the sofa again. But he’d spent long enough loitering in Steve’s space this week, and he didn’t want Steve’s foul mood to return. He didn’t want to overstay his welcome. “I should probably get going. I’ve got some stuff of my own to work on.”
“Alright.” Steve wiped his palms on his jeans. “Well, uh, thanks again, man. That takes care of one item on the list.”
“We’ll get some Drano next,” Eddie assured. “And maybe a snake.”
“A what?”
“A snake? For unclogging the drain?” Eddie shook his head. “You know what, doesn’t matter. We’ll fix the tub next, okay?”
“Okay. Yeah, okay, sure. That’ll make Robin happy.”
Steve walked Eddie to the door and they said goodbye. Eddie tucked his toolkit back into his van and started the drive home. He was glad to do something good for Steve, even if it was as simple as fixing a hinge. Eddie was always happy to help people, especially when they’d helped him first.
Wayne was already in the kitchen when Eddie arrived. He kicked his shoes off at the door, and studiously avoided looking at that spot. He had gotten pretty good at it. It was an odd adjustment, learning how not to look at a particular spot in his living room just because something horrible had happened there. Eddie had to think it wasn’t the kind of experience most normal people had.
“Hey, kid,” Wayne greeted him. He was filling a glass with ice, pouring himself an after work glass of whiskey. “Have a good day?”
Eddie talked about his day at work. Talked about his trip to the hardware store and helping fix Steve’s cupboard door. Wayne snorted at the thought that any reasonable twenty-something wouldn’t know how to fix a hinge himself. Eddie tried to explain that Steve had grown up differently than he had, tried to make excuses for Steve, but ultimately he just laughed with Wayne about Steve’s charmed lifestyle.
They talked, but Eddie had a hard time talking to Wayne these days. Wayne had always tried hard to relate to Eddie, and Eddie had always done his best to be honest with his uncle. But these days it was largely impossible for either of them to communicate the way they used to. As far as Wayne knew, Eddie had witnessed something horrible, had spent a few days on the run, had a couple bad run ins with upjumped jocks with edged weapons. Then the real killer was caught and Eddie came home with a few more scars than he’d left with. Wayne didn’t know about the horrors he’d seen. Didn’t know about the way Eddie’s entire worldview had been flipped upside down. His life was different now.
It was a little like having the most extreme religion experience of his life, but not being able to tell anyone about it for fear of being locked in the asylum as a schizophrenic zealot.
Wayne tried to understand. He tried to relate to Eddie. He couldn’t. That was just how it was going to be for the rest of forever.
Just before they parted for the night, Wayne turned and said, “Oh yeah, thought I’d mentioned. Since you’re doing, uh, better now, I’m taking the late shift again. Pay’s better, y’know? You’re out with your friends most’a the time anyway.”
“Right,” Eddie said. He leaned against the counter casually, tried to pretend Wayne’s words didn’t make his heart jump in his throat. “So that’s, uh, eight to four, yeah?”
“Yep. Starting next week.”
“Cool,” Eddie said. “Hey, better for the both of us, right? This way you won’t hear any unwanted noises from my room.”
Eddie waggled his eyebrows. Wayne just rolled his eyes and retired to his bedroom. Alone in the kitchen, in the silence of the trailer, Eddie let out a deep sigh and slumped forward on his elbows, hanging his head over the countertop.
If Wayne was working the late shift and Eddie was working afternoons at the bowling alley, they’d essentially be on opposite schedules. They wouldn’t be home at the same time, except for in the early hours of dawn. More time alone. More time to putter around the empty trailer and rattle around with his memories.
Eddie lifted his eyes and they affixed themselves to that spot against his volition. The spot she’d died. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away.