Chapter Text
Hawkins, November 1986
Eddie finds Steve lying on his back on the porch, arms stretched out over his head. Upside-down, he looks like he got electrocuted, hair standing up in every which way, mouth open in a funny ‘O when Eddie hovers over him.
The girls' shrieks are loud enough that they’re heard over the music. Steve grins up at Eddie when Robin shouts something indistinguishable at Vickie, who in turn dissolves into another giggle fit. Thanks to the new government housing, an old, crumbling house at the edge of the woods, at least Eddie doesn’t have neighbors who could complain about the noise. It’s both a blessing and a curse. The distance from town folks that’s still sceptical about his dropped murder charges, the blessing, the nightmares he gets from his bedroom facing the dark forest, the curse.
“We’re sooo drunk,” Steve laughs. “Holy Shit, Eds, everything is spinning. Last time that happened, I was on much harder Russian shit than a few vodka shots.”
Eddie, who’s barely even tipsy on account of still being on pain medication (legal and mostly harmless, but he knows better than to get wasted on them), walks around Steve to squad down next to him, resting his chin in his palm. It’s a strain on his weakened stomach muscles, but still a comfort position for him, so he ignores the tightness of his skin where his scars are itching. Steve’s sneakers slip down from the edge of the first step and land with a heavy thud on wood, and Steve chuckles again.
Not for the first time tonight, it occurs to Eddie that Steve Harrington is unfairly adorable. Not in an infantilizing way, of course, just in a holy shit, my crush is such a freaking sweetheart even when wasted. He’s seen enough jocks push out their chests and start fights at parties to know that turning into an even nicer person when drunk is a rare occurrence. Something to be cherished. The list of things why Steve is an absolutely lovely person all around is already way too long for comfort; Eddie really doesn’t need to add more to it.
“Eddieee,” Steve singsongs, “Ed, come here.” He pats the spot next to him.
Eddie shakes his head and hides a grin in his open palm, knowing that his eyes are giving him away regardless. When Steve pouts, Eddie moves his hand away and says, “Let’s get you back inside, Harrington. It’s freezing out here, and you’re very indecently clad.”
Eddie can see the goosebumps on Steve’s naked arms, tries not to linger on the shape of his biceps where the sleeve of his soft purple t-shirt cuts off. He rests his gaze on Steve’s face instead.
Steve licks his lips, then shakes his head. “Too stuffy inside. I like it here.”
Eddie wants to argue, but Steve leans up just enough to grab Eddie’s arm and pull him down. Wobbling, he has no choice but to give in, seating himself next to Steve with his feet down on the porch steps below.
“Here,” Steve says, patting the space next to him. “Come down here. I have to tell you something.” The way he whispers the last words conspiratorially into the night air has Eddie’s heart gallop in his chest. He’s no stranger to Steve talking to him like this, and it still gets to him every time. After spending a few weeks sharing a room in a secret government facility, being probed and treated for their bat bites and whatever interdimensional diseases they could have carried, there was no other choice but to bond or die of boredom.
And after Robin left for Ulndy, having turned down several offers from other schools to stay close enough to Steve to be still able to visit a weekend a month, Eddie and Steve have started to spend almost every night together, unless they’re busy with something else. If Eddie is nothing more than Robin’s replacement, that’s okay with him. If it means that Steve will come over to watch horror movies to forget about the real horrors out there before falling asleep on his couch, Eddie will take being the poor man's version of Robin with no complaints.
“I need a smoke,” Eddie retorts as an excuse for why he won’t lie down next to Steve, fishing out his crumbled Marlboros and zippo from his jeans pocket.
“That will kill you,” Steve says, channelling his best Robin. She’d been on them about their smoking habits all night. Eddie rolls his eyes while lighting his cigarette.
“I’m serious here,” he continues, sounding everything but serious, leaning up to pluck the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers and push it between his lips before collapsing back onto the porch. “You barely survived mutant bats and the Upside-Down; you need to value the gift that is your life.”
“And you?” Eddie asks, gesturing at Steve’s torso, where he’s sporting similar, if slightly less severe scar tissue.
“It’s different. I can chain smoke as much as I want.” Steve waves the cigarette in the air as if batting away a fly. “I never came as close to—” His face twists into something unhappy, brows drawing together and mouth pitching into another pout.
Eddie decides it’s time to change the topic before they drown in the memories of smearing blood all over each other while Steve carried him out of literal hell.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to chain smoke in your Winnebago with your six little nuggets and Nancy Wheeler inside. That’s very irresponsible, Steven.”
“Ugh, no.” Steve looks genuinely disgruntled by Eddie’s suggestion. “After the last shitshow, I never wanna see the inside of an RV again.”
“What about the inside of Nancy?”
It’s a stupid thing to say. A jealous thing. Something with teeth and claws. Luckily, Steve doesn’t take it seriously.
“Eddie!” Steve coughs out on a choked laugh. “Ew, why would you phrase it like that? That’s just, no. What the hell?!”
“Just saying,” Eddie replies with a shrug, before tugging the cigarette from his fingers. The filter is slightly wet with Steve’s saliva when he sets it to his mouth, a thought that makes his insides go all tight and tingly. They haven’t talked about the awkward conversation Eddie had overheard between him and Nancy back then, so he isn’t sure why tonight, of all nights, he feels the need to bring it up. Perhaps it’s because he’s seen Wheeler at the post office earlier today, returning from school for Thanksgiving just like Robin and Vickie had. “It’s only logical that your nugget dream would include being inside somebody quite often.”
“Not Nancy, though.” Steve blows out a breath as if the idea is entirely fantastical. “Not busy bee, Nancy. She’s got much bigger aspirations.”
“Busy bee?”
“Yeah,” Steve says seriously. “Don’t you see her buzzing all over the place? Changing the world, becoming somebody important?” He waves his index finger in the air, as if mimicking the path of an insect in the air. “She’s all: bzz, bzz, bzz at Emerson. And I’m all,” Steve drops his hand to his chest, presses down on his sternum. “Stuck, like a– like a, uh, what are the dumbest, slowest animals you can imagine? A sloth? Yeah, a sloth, that’s what I am—stuck in Hawkins, at Family Video. Stuck on my tree. Forever.”
Eddie’s chest aches. He covers it up with a fake laugh.
“A sloth is probably the last animal on earth I would associate with you. Can you imagine a sloth fighting interdimensional beings, carting a group of little hellions all around town? Former basketball team captain and swim team co-captain, lifeguard, best friend of Robin fucking Buckley? What kind of sloth would find the time and energy for that? Nah, man, you’re something else entirely.”
Steve is quiet long enough that Eddie hands the cigarette back without looking at him.
“What am I then?” Steve eventually asks softly.
“That’s a tough question, Steve. You’re complex.”
“Nah, I’m not.”
“Yeah,” Eddie insists, finally turning to look at him. “You are.”
And Eddie knows this to be true. He’s seen the layers and is still uncovering more of them. The only person who thinks that Steve is a simple person is Steve himself, and those who don’t know him. Which tragically includes his own fucking parents.
Eddie turns a little, his knee knocking into Steve’s thigh. “What about me then? What kind of animal am I?”
“Oh,” Steve replies, eyebrows shooting up in intrigue. “You’re something quick and squirrely for sure.”
“So a squirrel?” Eddie answers, feeling his cheeks ache where they are spread into a wide grin. He doesn’t know why he likes the idea, but he thinks it must be more flattering than the possible alternatives. Raccoons or skunks or whatever shit people would likely call him if asked.
“No, not a squirrel,” Steve bemoans, as if that is somehow offensive. “They lose their nuts all over the place.”
Eddie has no idea what that means, so he takes another drag from the offered cigarette instead.
“No, you’re something even cuter. Oh, I know!” Steve snaps his fingers. “A chipmunk.” Eddie raises his brows, pulse quickening. If he’d known that Steve would call him shit like cute, he would’ve never pulled the vodka bottle out of the cupboard earlier today and suggested drinking games. He just found it too pitiful that Steve hadn’t allowed himself to get wasted after Starcourt, since his eternal worry that monsters could return caused him to believe that he should be sober at all times.
But they’re safe now. As secure as a group of severely traumatised young adults can be.
“Yes, you’re totally a chipmunk!” Steve laughs, delighted with his realisation.
Eddie blows his cheeks up, which has Steve in stitches.
“Come here,” he laughs, and the way his face is all lit up with the simple pleasure of being silly makes Eddie dizzy. “I want to tell you something.”
“So you said,” Eddie returns and grinds the cigarette butt beneath the sole of his Reeboks before dropping down next to Steve. There’s a horde of moths fluttering around the porch light above them even though it should already be too cold for them. Eddie focuses on them, waits for Steve to speak first. When nothing comes, he finally turns his head, finds Steve staring with a focus intense enough that blood rushes into his cheeks.
“Whaddya wanna tell me, Steve?” Eddie asks with a grin, hoping that it hides that he can feel the fucking flutters in the tips of his fingers.
“It’s a secret,” Steve replies, all mock-seriousness. “Promise, you’ll take it to the grave?”
“Too soon, dude.”
Steve smiles for a second, but then it dims again. “Right, no more jokes about death until the 90s. At least.”
Eddie nods, and Steve must take that as acceptance because he licks his lips again and whispers, “It’s more of a, uh, question. Something I can’t ask anybody else.”
“Color me intrigued.”
Steve’s face does something interesting then. His nose crinkles, and his mouth curls to the side. He turns to face Eddie, close enough that Eddie can taste the vodka and nicotine on his breath.
“Have you ever thought that—” Steve avoids Eddie's eyes and stares at something above Eddie’s head, a sign that he’s thinking about how to phrase his following words. Eddie has noticed him doing that around him a lot recently, even though he usually always runs straight into all the verbal traps that Henderson and Robin lay out for him. But Eddie knows when to shut up and wait until Steve finds the right words. Knows that Steve taking the time to think about what he wants to say is something that affords trust. Something that, if Eddie thinks about too much, will turn his insides all gooey like a marshmallow over fire.
“About sex,” Steve breathes, and looks at Eddie all expectantly.
Eddie feels like he just missed a step, like his body is falling even though there’s solid wood beneath him (though the solid is debatable according to Wayne).
“Thought about sex? Sure, I do.” Eddie says, hoping it sounds nonchalant, even though his body suddenly feels like it was boiled.
Steve shakes his head, furrows his brows. “No, I mean, like—” He blows out a heavy breath. “Have you ever thought that sex doesn’t feel, like, I don’t know, real?”
Now, it’s Eddie’s turn to frown. “I’m not sure—”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s like this: Sometimes when I’m with somebody— No, actually every time I’m with somebody there’s this feeling like, uh, like I’m following a script, you know? It’s… it feels a bit like I’m an actor, doing my job, and I’m good at my job, don’t get me wrong, but it’s like I’m not really there… not experiencing the moment as me, as Steve.”
“Like filming porn?”
“No,” Steve huffs. “Not like porn. Like– like I’m kind of hovering above it instead of being, you know, in it.” Eddie can’t help but snicker at that, and Steve groans, then slaps his own forehead with his fingers. “Oh god, that’s such a stupid— never mind forget it.”
There’s no way Eddie can forget a confession like that. No way in hell, he can pretend Steve didn’t just reveal a secret about himself that shakes the very understanding Eddie has of him. Especially, after all those dates Steve has gone on over the summer. Eddie knows that some of these must’ve led to more, even if Steve never mentioned anything, and Eddie pushed his feelings about them to the deep recesses of his mind.
“You and your fucking layers, Harrington,” Eddie sighs, more to himself than to Steve. It makes Steve curl his fingers against his forehead and knock his knuckles against it.
“Every time?” Eddie catches Steve’s wrist and pulls his hand away from his head. “It’s not stupid, Steve. It’s just— Every single time, really?”
“Well, I suppose with Nancy it was a bit different.”
“Oh.” Eddie's stomach turns sour.
“Just more intense because I was in love with her and shit? But I think, I don’t know, I could always feel her hold something back.”
“So you need to have feelings for the other person to enjoy sex fully,” Eddie concludes, which makes Steve shut his mouth hard enough his teeth clack together. “That’s not uncommon, I don’t think.”
“It isn’t?”
Eddie shakes his head. “No, pretty standard.”
“Huh,” Steve breathes, relief softening his mouth. Eddie can pretty much imagine what locker room talk for King Steve must’ve been like; how he got convinced that casual hookups were not just the norm but something to strive for. It makes Eddie feel a bit gleeful and a little proud that he could persuade Steve so easily that there was nothing wrong with wanting more. Though he has no idea what he would do with himself if Steve fell for somebody as seriously as he’d done with Nancy, and if that person liked him back with the same passion.
Before he can sink into that mental pit of depression, he gets distracted by the fact that Steve’s face is suddenly very close and—
Oh.
Oh.
He’s being kissed. Steve is kissing him. Steve Harrington is kissing Eddie Munson under the moth-infested porch light they’ve been sitting under for months now, to the soundtrack of Walk Like an Egyptian and Robin Buckley’s manic cackle. The latter of which reminds Eddie that Steve is drunk and likely out of his mind. It pulls him right out of the moment and away from the touch of Steve’s surprisingly soft lips.
“What.”
“That felt real,” Steve sighs, and it sounds like relief, then leans in to kiss him again, but better. Suddenly, there’s a hand on Eddie’s cheek, fingertips on the shell of his ear, a wet press of open lips to Eddie’s lower lip. Eddie is on fire and doused by a thousand buckets of ice water. He feels his scalp prickle in shock, and his hands shake, one gripping Steve’s shirt at his stomach without his conscious approval of the move.
He’s only got his freeze reaction to blame for not ending the kiss before Steve pushes himself up on an elbow and tilts his head just so, angles Eddie’s with a tight grip in his hair until a moan slips out of Eddie, the sound replaced by the brush of Steve’s tongue.
Oh, fuck.
Eddie pushes his palm against Steve’s shoulder, their lips disconnecting with a soft click that is too loud in the night air. Steve’s pupils are all blown up, his gaze still lowered to Eddie’s pulsing lips.
“Wait, Steve,” Eddie croaks when Steve moves to lean in again. “You’re drunk.”
Steve shakes his head as if to negate Eddie’s statement, but then he circles it into a yes movement instead.
Eddie smiles at him, deciding that humor is the only thing that can salvage the situation before Steve freaks out about what he’s just done. “As flattered as I am by this, Stevie, but I’m not that kind of gal.”
“No,” Steve agrees, fingers still twisted in Eddie’s hair. “You’re really not.”
“Alright, let’s get you up, then. Get some water and leftover pizza in you, so you’ll come back to the real reality.”
Steve shakes his head, fingers tightening in the strands of Eddie’s hair. “I don’t know. This feels very fucking real, Eds.”
The confession nearly chokes all air out of Eddie’s chest, his fingers curling into the muscles of Steve’s shoulder.
“That’s just the vodka speaking. We talked about something intense and…” The next words are practically gravel in his throat. “And about your past lover. I can see how you might confuse me with Wheeler, what with those beautiful locks of mine, and the big soulful eyes, but that doesn’t mean we should—”
“Shh.” There are fingers against Eddie’s mouth, shushing him. “You’re not Nancy, idiot.”
Eddie tries to answer, but his words get stifled by the firm press of Steve’s hand. “Fuck, if it was just those eyes or your hair, dude—”
There’s so much to unpack in those words, so much wrong with being called dude after having been kissed like he is wanted, but Eddie can’t do anything but stare up at Steve with his damn soulful eyes.
“What about those hands?” Steve asks drowsily, dragging one of Eddie’s palms up into the air with little to no coordination with his free hand, fiddling with the rings on his fingers. “They are not Nance’s. Too large, too talented, too– fuck those rings, honestly, Eddie, you have no idea. Fuck them for real.”
Steve shakes his head and grins a little wistfully, and Eddie makes a noise against the palm still pressed against his mouth that is very close to a startled moan. “And your voice, that’s not Nancy’s either, is it? And it still crawls under my skin like, like, I don’t know, like lightning or something, man. Or maybe more like thunder? It rumbles, is what I’m trying to say. God, I’m bad at metaphors, or analogies? Similes? Whatever. I just mean, your voice is fucking hot, Eddie.”
Eddie feels his eyebrows shoot up as high as they can go. His heart is beating a rabbit rhythm against his chest. The floor below him crumbling into an abyss. He’s in free fall here, utterly helpless to the onslaught that is Steve’s confession.
Drunk confession.
The reminder does nothing to soften the blow when he feels calloused fingertips on the corner of his eye. “And your laugh lines, I don’t know anybody who has them. Not as deep as yours.” Steve’s fingers drag lower, to his cheeks, and brush against the scars on his jaw. “Has anybody ever told you that you laugh with your entire face?”
Eddie shakes his head, dragging in desperate breaths through his nose. That’s it. Fuck. He’s going to die after all, isn’t he? Killed by Steve Harrington’s charm and asphyxiation.
Steve must read something from his face because he’s grinning while his fingers travel lower, over his throat and collarbone, before tapping against Eddie’s left pec where he’s got his new design inked into his skin. “Your tattoos as well. I know you’ve got more since we left the hospital. I’ve been thinking about asking you to show them to me every day since you’ve told me.”
Steve’s voice is quiet, but too slurred to be thoughtful. It should frighten Eddie that all of this is spoken in the haze of too much cheap vodka. Instead, the words circle through him like he’s going through a brutal wash cycle.
And if Eddie’s eyes roll back into his head when Steve digs his fingers into his pec, his body pressing upwards into the touch, that’s between him and those damned moths. He will never admit to it in the sober light of day. Not when it could make the difference between Steve being his friend or not.
Steve seems to take a moment to think about what to comment on next, so when his fingers slide even lower to Eddie’s scars and his quivering stomach muscles, it’s too much all at once. Eddie pulls Steve's hand from his mouth with a sharp tug, puts his smile in place as if it’s armor.
“You only want me for my body, Harrington?” he mocks, hears the words as they replay and settle between them. Steve seems to be momentarily confused by them, blinking down at Eddie. His drunken charm gets replaced with something softer, something that Eddie can’t help but think looks a lot like vulnerability.
“I want you for your wholeass person, Munson,” Steve says, sounding angry. Eddie stops breathing again, dizzy and confused. Barely able to believe his ears. “For all your theatrics and nerdy jokes. Because you’re the only one who can make Dustin laugh until Coke comes out of his nose. Because you let me stay every night when I can’t stand being home alone with parents who have no fucking clue why I’ve been locked up in a government facility for weeks just to return with even more battle scars. And because I never feel as safe—”
“Guys, how many cigarettes are you having out there?” Robin yells through the closed door. “You’re gonna stink to high heaven.”
Steve rolls off Eddie so quickly, it gives him whiplash. He sits up, buries his hands in his hair, and sways from side to side for a moment. A moment later, he throws a sheepish glance over his shoulder at Eddie, who’s too boneless to move or do anything but gape at the man who has just tilted his whole fucking understanding of the world on its head. Again. Fucking again.
Steve stands abruptly, staggers enough to hold onto the railing of the veranda, then walks past Eddie towards the door. Eddie sits up hesitantly, trying to find his voice. He wants to come up with something witty to dissolve the tension between them.
But before he can, Steve mutters: "Hands, voice, laugh, tattoos, and the very fucking core of your being. Capeesh? That’s what I want you for.”
By the time Eddie has moved upright, the door is thrown open, and Steve joins Robin and Vickie in their drunk rendition of Madonna’s La Isla Bonita with frighteningly uncoordinated dance moves. When Steve whirls Vickie below his arm, they both crash into the coffee table. Robin grabs for Steve’s waist to keep the two of them upright as they wobble precariously in the air, and Eddie can do nothing but watch in horror as the three of them tumble to the floor in slow motion under breathless laughter while his heart tries to beat its way out of his fragile chest.