Chapter Text
Interlude 1: Summer, 1984
“There is no better taste than this: someone else’s laughter in your mouth.”
- Maggie Stiefvater
[one]
Steve was made for summer.
He is the definition of sunkissed: freckles blooming across his face and shoulders, and blonde highlights coming through the chestnut of his hair. He’s perpetually dressed in shorts of varying lengths, shirts he’s cropped or torn the sleeves off of, and socks that are stained reddish brown with mud and dust.
When Eddie looks at him, he gets the sense that no one ever had to threaten Steve to get him outside. Probably he was the type that needed to be corralled when the street lights went on, dragged kicking and screaming back into the house each night to be washed and put to bed, only to wake up and do it all again the next day.
Each time Eddie sees him, he smells of chlorine from the pool he’s working at all summer, which shouldn’t be hot but somehow is. There is a bounce in his step, a childlike glee that Eddie thinks might be sunstroke. He’d like to complain about it, and thinks he probably should, but he cannot bring himself to do it.
The days stretch on, golden and hot as May burns away into June and Steve, for whatever reason, is still hanging around Eddie.
And that’s all it is, really: hanging around. Eddie will go over to Steve’s empty cavern of a home or they’ll drive around in the dusk and then park up somewhere; more often than not they talk about everything and nothing, just silly conversation until Steve finally looks over at Eddie and there’s enough of a lull in the conversation where he can lean forward and close any distance they’ve created.
Steve is, as the stories say, an excellent kisser.
Eddie’s been kissed before: rough, momentary things given almost like an afterthought, his hand sticky with jizz, or stolen in the back alley of a club in Indy. Queer boys in Hawkins are a rare breed and the few he’s met haven’t been interested in more than just screwing around, which was fine by Eddie. It’s not like they could be boyfriends, out and proud in the rural midwest.
He thinks Steve is probably on the same page as him, if their nightly meetups are anything to go by. Eddie’s never invited to the pickup basketball games or the matinees he attends with Byers and Nancy Wheeler, and Eddie doesn’t even think about inviting him along with the Hellfire guys.
So the first time they kiss, Eddie doesn’t think much of it. Sure it’s a little tender, but it’s Steve trying to get a point across. It probably won’t happen again, and if it does it’ll be because Steve is too dumb after cumming to know better.
Except that it does keep happening. It’s all that’s happening. Eddie’s dick sits hard and untouched in his jeans and he comes back each night looking like he’s been mauled at the mouth.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” Wayne comments as they’re arriving home at the same time one morning. Eddie fell asleep on Steve’s plush couch and woke up in a panic, sped the whole way here and drifted into his usual spot, only to find Wayne off his shift early, smoking a cigarette on the porch. “Tell whoever’s doin’ that to go easy on ya. We got a bag of peas in the icebox if you want the swelling to go down.”
“Mind your own business,” Eddie says, shrill and mortified, covering his mouth with his hand. It didn’t look that bad when he checked himself in the Harrington’s hallway mirror, but Steve did bite his bottom lip a lot last night. It’s definitely a little swollen. “You nosy old bastard.”
It only gets worse from there.
Steve kisses his mouth, his face, his throat and collarbones. He spends time laving his tongue over Eddie’s nipples, biting and sucking them into his mouth. There are paths carved down his ribs, purple bruises on the soft skin of his stomach.
They make out in the car. They make out on Steve’s couch. They make out on his bed; they make out in his parents bed, weirdly enough. Once, they sneak into Hawkins Public Pool with Steve’s key and makeout in the shallows, Eddie pinned against the wall and grinding on the thigh Steve tucks between his.
It’s lovely, and strange, and kind of killing him. Eddie is not inexperienced but he feels like a slut everytime he leaves Steve and has to jerk off in the bathroom.
Eddie is debating cumming in his pants as he and Steve grind slowly against each other in the back of his van when Steve pulls back, nuzzling along Eddie’s jaw. His hips are rolling up, his hands pressing Eddie’s hips down; Eddie doesn’t actually think Steve knows how fucking maddening he is.
He’s overheating, melting possibly. Steve insisted on keeping the doors at the back of the van shut, but allowed Eddie to roll down the windows at the front for a hint of a breeze, even though it’s nowhere to be found. He licks a line up the side of Steve’s face, collecting sweat on his tongue, and figures there are some benefits.
Steve turns, catching his lips again. There’s a recklessness in it, something a little fiercer than before that matches the way his hips have lost their rhythm. Eddie adjusts his position over Steve, sliding a thigh between his legs, making the grind a little easier. It’s been a long time since he came in his pants, but fuck if Steve doesn’t look incredible beneath him, all flushed and panting, eyes wet and heavy lidded. They’re not even really kissing anymore, just breathing against each other’s mouths.
For being the most vanilla shit he’s done, it’s also kind of the hottest.
Eddie allows himself a brief moment of retrospection. That’s Steve Harrington beneath him, arching up against his leg in obscene little shorts he wore running today. That’s King Steve slipping his hands down the back of Eddie’s own shorts, curling his fingers into the meat of Eddie’s ass to pull him impossibly closer. If Eddie of yesteryear could see himself now, he’d probably have an aneurysm.
They both groan, hips twitching as they cum. Eddie can feel the wet of it on his thigh as it seeps out of Steve’s briefs, and he has the brief, dizzying thought to reach down and swipe his fingers through it, bring it up to his mouth and to taste. He doesn’t, because he’s trying to ease Steve into this gay thing, but oh fuck if it doesn’t get him going again, just a little.
With very little care, Eddie flops to the side, face down in the ratty blankets he has piled back here. “Holy fuck,” Eddie breathes, which actually means I can’t believe we came in our pants.
“Holy fuck,” Steve echoes, which sounds like this is great. They aren’t on the same wavelength, but Eddie’ll get him there one day. “Do you have tissues?”
Muffled in the blankets, Eddie asks, “What do you think?”
There is a pause, and then a quiet, “Yeah, fair enough.” He feels Steve shift beside him, legs stretching out and bumping into Eddie’s, bare toes brushing along the knob of his ankle, and then they both grow still, content, breathing in the humid air of the van as they catch their breath and allow their heart rates to slow.
Eventually, Eddie has to pull his face away from the blankets to breathe a little easier, turning on his side to face Steve, who is watching him.
“Hi,” Steve murmurs.
Eddie murmurs back, “Hey.”
They kiss, briefly. A short press of dry lips, rasping against each other. When Steve pulls back, he looks like a Looney Tunes character, all heart eyes and dopey smile, like he could float around all day, buoyed by the kisses he gives Eddie. “I love kissing,” he sighs. “I mean, don’t judge me or anything, but I sometimes think I like kissing more than anything else, actually.”
Eddie blinks. “What? More than getting your dick sucked?”
Steve shrugs, stretching his arms above his head. Eddie’s never wanted to sniff someone’s pits so badly in his life. “I guess it depends. Some people are bad at it, but most people can be taught how to kiss pretty quickly.”
Eddie sits up on an elbow, squinting at him. “Am I bad?”
“You’re a quick study,” Steve says, smiling big. “It’s the tongue, really. People don’t know what to do with the tongue.”
More than anything, Eddie would like to show Steve exactly what he can do with his tongue. He’s never had any complaints before, and he’s sure that whatever girls Steve had sucking him off were prissy things that didn’t like to get messy.
He’s seconds away from saying this, from offering to clean the spunk from Steve’s shorts with his mouth, but the moment passes when Steve sits up, stretching his lower back. “I gotta piss.”
“Charming,” Eddie sighs, sitting up as well. He adjusts his messy shorts, grimacing. “Go outside.”
The smile on Steve’s face falters, and he glances out the windshield; it’s dark enough up here that the trees are only vaguely outlined, deep blue shadows that stretch on into nothing. Creepy, for sure, but not deserving of the terror that stutters across Steve’s face before he smooths it out into a smile.
“Nah, I—I can wait ‘till I get home.” Steve shrugs, crawling forward to slide into the passenger seat. His red shorts are stained darker at the crotch, clear evidence of what they’ve done in here.
“What, are you afraid?” Eddie jokes, raising an eyebrow at him. His fumble into the front seat is a lot less graceful, and he kicks Steve in the shoulder. When he straightens, Steve is looking away, jaw tense. “Scared something’s gonna getcha?”
He knows for a fact that Steve has been out in the woods alone before, that the quarry is probably as familiar to him as his own house. How many parties have happened here that he hosted or attended? How many late nights trawling through the woods with his friends has he had, smoking weed they bought off Eddie while they tried to creep each other out? Eddie shouldn’t feel guilty for making fun of him, but there’s something in the way Steve’s jaw tightens, how he looks away from Eddie in clear embarrassment that has him hesitating with his hand on the ignition.
“Steve—”
“It’s fine, man. Just go.” He slumps back in the seat, propping his elbow on the door so he can stare out the window.
Eddie squeezes the wheel, staring at Steve’s profile like it might reveal something. If this were a normal hookup, Eddie would take them and their cummy shorts back into Hawkins proper and drop Steve off at his house, spend the rest of the night writing or listening to music or watching one of the movies he and Wayne rented from Family Video. He wouldn’t think about Steve, wouldn’t be overthinking what he’s said or trying to figure out how he messed up.
It’s not a normal hookup, though.
With a sigh, he shoves open his door, ignoring Steve’s question as he rounds the front of the van. By the time he reaches Steve’s door, the guy’s face is flaming red and he looks irritated. “What are you doing?” He asks as Eddie pulls it open, hand on the handle like he might tug it shut. “I said it was fine.”
“I have to piss too,” Eddie snaps, flustered and unsure of himself. “So come with me.”
“You want me to hold it?” Steve sneers, but he’s sliding out of the van all the same, wincing as he adjusts himself in his shorts. Carefully, they pick their way across the gravel towards the treeline, the only sound is the crunch of their shoes against stone and the ambient noise of the forest at night. Small movements in the underbrush, the shiver of branches as the wind takes it. Eddie’s always loved summer nights, enjoyed laying out in the grass with his blankets when the night sky was clearest, staring up and making stories about the stars.
He wonders if Steve did those sorts of things.
They come to a stop at the same time, reaching into their shorts. Eddie groans at the mess, muttering, “What the fuck were we thinking?” under his breath as he frees his dick and starts to pee. Steve does the same, their elbows jostling a little, and he feels his shoulders sink, knows everything is fine.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Steve murmurs, doing a little hop next to Eddie as he tucks himself away. He smears a hand against the tree in front of him, then shakes it out. “I...the woods freak me out, after all that stuff with Will Byers. The dark too, I guess. It’s creepy out here.”
Eddie feels like a fucking idiot. Of course he’d be freaked out by the woods; Eddie knows that Steve and Jonathan Byers weren’t friends originally, but something about the whole situation brought them together and he probably knows more details than anyone else got.
“Sorry,” Eddie mutters, tucking himself away. He copies Steve, scraping his hand against the rough bark of the tree they just pissed on, though it doesn’t do much to clean his hand. He resigns himself to a shower when he gets home, and a quick load of laundry after that. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like shit.”
Steve shrugs, staring back towards the van. “You’re fine, Eddie. You didn’t know.”
Doesn’t make it alright, Eddie wants to tell him, but he can see the way Steve’s trying to change the subject. Instead, he offers a half-smile, jerking his chin at the van. “Get in, would ya? I wanna get outta these shorts. I can feel my pubes drying into knots.”
Watching him a beat longer, Steve smiles slightly, then follows.