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Somehow, Steve gets the house.
Which shouldn’t even be a big deal, not after facing down interdimensional monsters that just kept getting scarier and scarier as the years piled on — but it seems that the existence of flesh-eating monster or deranged, mind-controlling wizard are in the same bracket as inheriting his family’s house from the way Steve feels himself freeze up, his battered fight-or-flight instincts not knowing how to react to another irrefutable proof of just how little his parents care about him.
They didn’t even bother showing up in town after the alleged earthquake to check in on their only son — oh no, too busy for that — but they did have time to reach out to their lawyer amidst the chaos to try to sell the damn house. Steve wonders if he can blame the multiple concussions he’s gotten over the years for the way his vision swims or the itch behind his eyes that years ago would have meant tears if the emotion swirling in Steve’s chest didn’t feel so much like resignation.
As it is, he sits in the stuffy room of Bruce’s temporary office, squeezed into a tiny, uncomfortable chair that is so far removed from the lavish sofas that had lined his office on Main Street, Steve almost wants to crack a joke about it, something weird and itchy bubbling up his throat as Bruce speaks. Steve had only been in the old office once or twice when he was a kid still, but he remembers the faint scent of cedar and pine, the way the huge windows overlooked the little gazebo outside. There had been crayons and sheets of monogrammed, heavy-stock paper, and a nice secretary who had kept him busy during his father’s meeting with Bruce, and Steve remembers how she even snuck him a piece of candy when his stomach rumbled, cooing over how polite he was.
That was before, though.
Now there’s a jagged line that cuts through Hawkins, the scar left behind by the gaping maw that had swallowed up Bruce’s office and the movie theater and countless other little bits of their town. A piece of Steve might even be down there, too, left behind in the terrifying scramble that had been the final confrontation against Vecna and the Mindflayer.
He still can’t believe the suits managed to get away with calling it an earthquake. He’s heard the kids say that Hawkins isn’t even close to the edge of a tectonic plate — whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean — but it’s nothing short of impressive how quickly people will turn a blind eye to things if it means keeping their heads comfortably buried in the metaphorical sand.
It’s all bullshit.
But still. Steve gets the house.
“Property values are lower than Satan’s balls right now, kid,” Bruce tells him in that gruff voice of his, not beating around the bush. Steve remembers his booming laughter ringing through the walls of the house during one of his parents’ many dinner parties, Bruce’s son playing hide and seek with Steve as their parents talked business on a school night. He’s glad, in that distant sort of way, that David had gone to college and escaped this whole mess.
“I still don’t get it.”
“Your folks — you know how they are, always worried about the optics of things, god bless their hearts,” Bruce says with a sigh, shaking his head. “Richard told me to sell it and get you a small apartment since he and your mother don’t plan on coming back. Things are going well in Chicago, it seems.”
Oh. Steve had known that, in the same way one knows a storm is coming — it’s in the way the dark clouds gather, the electricity fizzles in the air — but hearing it out loud makes it more… final. His parents aren’t coming back.
The pain is a hollow ache now, dulled by the years he’s had to grow used to his parents’ lack of interest in him, but still there nonetheless. His parents aren’t coming back. He can’t even remember if he hugged them goodbye before they left for Chicago just after Christmas.
Huh.
“But I convinced him he wouldn’t get a fifth of that house’s worth, not with how things are right now,” Bruce continues, oblivious to Steve’s whatever. He blinks, tries to focus back on the conversation. “And, to be honest with you, I also didn’t want to see that house go to the likes of Starcourt. God knows they already have enough of this town.”
Steve is very aware of that, thank you very much.
“So you, what? Made it seem like a good investment to just — give the house to their washed-up son they can’t be bothered to give two shits about?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Bruce shifts in his chair, tilting forward when Steve doesn’t seem as ecstatic as Bruce had probably been hoping to see him. “C’mon, kid, don’t give me that look. I convinced them it wouldn’t look good to leave the hero of Hawkins high and dry,” he makes air quotes here, shaking his head in disbelief before he catches Steve’s eyes again. “I know it sounds bad, but what can you do, right? At least you’ve got a place of your own.”
Steve squirms in place, surprised at how much Bruce seems to care. To be honest, Steve had all but forgotten he existed in the whirlwind of the past few years, so he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that someone would go out of their way to just… do something nice for him.
It’s… weird.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” he starts, “but I don’t get it. What’s in it for you? Do you want, like, half the cut of the house or some shit?”
That startles a laugh out of Bruce, who shakes his head and points a finger at him like Steve is five again. “Listen to me, kid. This town is just — we’re all fucked, son, there’s no way around it, but you can’t blame a guy for trying to keep the good ones around. Nothin’ wrong with helping a good young man find his footing, especially after this goddamn shitshow.”
Huh. Steve feels himself flush under Bruce’s gaze, not used to getting any sort of praise from someone over the age of fourteen, but it’s there. As bizarre as it is, Bruce is looking at Steve with the sort of parental approval he’s seen in Ms. Henderson’s face that time the kids won first place at the science fair, that same elusive warmth Steve himself can count on one hand the amount of times he’s seen directed at himself. It makes something rattle inside his chest, a sudden lump stuck in his throat he can’t seem to swallow down.
He’s not… He hasn’t done much, really. It’s been two months since the earthquakes, and Steve has been driving the kids almost daily to visit Max at the hospital now that she’s finally awake and healing, and he just… he can’t sit still, really, so he helps around however he can. Carries boxes and talks to the nurses and drives to the shelter to pick up donations and bring whatever board games he can find back to the hospital’s rec room, sometimes even hanging out long enough to read the kids a story or two as he waits for visiting hours to be over.
It’s certainly not enough to have someone like Bruce — someone on the outside, someone who hasn’t seen him wield a bat full of nails or put himself between the kids and whatever monster is chasing after them this time, who definitely doesn’t know about his weekly patrols around Hawkins in the dead of night — to think Steve is worth any of this.
He doesn’t know what to do with… all of that. Thankfully, Bruce doesn’t seem like he’s waiting for an answer.
Steve signs all the papers Bruce slides in front of him, nodding along to his long-winded explanation about trust funds and property titles like he understands a single word coming out of the man’s mouth, but the gist of it is that he isn’t being cut off from his family’s money, nor is he homeless, which is a lot better than what he had braced himself for when he had stepped in. His trust fund is still in place to kick in when he turns twenty-one, and he has a whole damn house now. He doesn’t know what kind of magic Bruce worked on his dad, what kind of story he spun to have Richard forgive Steve’s lack of college acceptance letters, but he won’t question it.
He’s way too tired of fighting.
“Alright, son,” Bruce says with a relieved sigh, shuffling the papers back into a neat little pile after Steve has signed his name more times than he can count. “I’ll drop by the house once the registry is finalized, but that might take a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.”
Steve nods, stunned into silence. Bruce smiles at him, and when Steve gets up to leave, he’s pulled into a quick hug as the man ruffles his head the same way he did back when Steve was a kid.
For as much as it ruins his hair, it feels… nice.
The first thing to go is the wallpaper.
It’s not a conscious decision on his part. It’s been a week or so since he met up with Bruce, but it still feels like he’s walking on eggshells inside his own house, more than usual. He eats in the kitchen because it’s easier to clean up than the long dining table, years of looking after himself not letting him leave dishes overnight just in case his parents come home and — Steve still catches himself looking out of the windows, half expecting to see his father’s car pull up and hear his booming voice calling out for him to make himself useful and carry their bags, Steven—
The frozen eyes of his parents watch him move around the empty house like a ghost. The pictures hung up on the mantle and lining the hallways look back at him in judgment as he stumbles over his steps, stitches aching as his mind keeps circling back to the feeling of razor-sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, the phantom grip of a slimy tail cutting off his breathing until he’s gasping, fingers sticky with Eddie’s blood, so much of it holy shit —
He just can’t take it anymore.
The walls are the same as they were when Barbara got taken, that same white and blue checkered pattern he’s followed with his eyes for endless hours after every stint in the Upside Down, after Billy Hargrove and the pack of demodogs and the terrifying nightmare of the underground russian base, and Steve can’t stop himself from shivering in his sweat-soaked pyjamas, tossing the covers to the side as he rolls off the bed. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, and his vision is blurry around the edges, skin stretched tight over whatever the fuck is brewing inside his body.
His gaze snags on the edge of the wallpaper, the little corner that is folding up under the light switch, and Steve — he rips it off. Claws at it with the type of blind fury he’s grown intimate with.
This is what he’s good at.
When dawn breaks, he finds himself sitting on the floor with his knees tucked under his chin. He’s surrounded by ribbons of torn-up paper, ground zero of his meltdown.
It looks like the aftermath of something explosive, like the freakin’ night had detonated right in his room and he was caught in the epicenter — maybe even was the epicenter, from how everything had been building up ever since that first punch from Jonathan had put him on his ass. There’s way too much buried deep behind his ribs for all the pressure to ease out so easily, though, but Steve has grown to appreciate the small victories.
The carpet feels itchy against the soles of his bare feet when he rubs them against the floor, but the sensation barely registers. It's like what he imagines the silence after a bomb is like — not peace, just… absence.
And Steve — he knows absence. He’s an expert at it if he can say so himself.
He doesn’t cry. He’s past that, or maybe not there yet. For a long while, he just sits there, breathing in the stale air of what used to be carefully constructed control.
Eventually, with a sigh, he starts to clean up. Not out of hope, exactly, but something quieter — the instinct to survive the fallout, something borne out of that sturdy core that he had been surprised to find in himself, back at the Byers’ place, an entire lifetime ago. His hand feels empty without the solid handle of the bat between his palms, but he gets to work.
It’s slower than it should be, but eventually he feels like he can breathe again.
It’s mid-morning when Steve steps outside, hands full with trash bags and a splitting headache from another night of barely any sleep, and he’s so out of it he almost runs over Dustin when he steps out into the summer heat.
“Slow down, man!” Dustin screeches and flails his hands, almost smacking Steve in the arms as he does so. It’s way too early for this, Steve thinks forlornly to himself, heaving one of the bags on his shoulder and heading for the curb.
Dustin follows him. Of course he does. “Dude, what the fuck did you do? Is that wallpaper?”
“What? Can’t a guy redecorate?” Steve huffs and bends down, placing the two bags against his mailbox so the trash collectors will not have a chance to miss them, and solemnly ignoring Dustin’s mocking huff in response.
“A guy can, but you?” Dustin scoffs, shooting Steve a look over his shoulder as they head back towards the house. He doesn’t hesitate as he barrels inside, tripping over the steps that separate the foyer from the living room as he always does. “Motherfucker!”
“Language, Henderson.”
Steve can’t even pretend he hasn’t missed the little shit, even as he starts running his mouth without a single pause to catch his breath.
“You’re always saying we can’t mess anything up, or your parents will kill you. But suddenly it’s okay to just — claw the wallpaper down like a caveman? I’ve got half a mind to check with El if bodysnatchers can be a real thing.”
“I mean — it’s not a big deal,” Steve says, shrugging. He leaves Dustin where he’s flopped onto the couch, and goes to the kitchen, mouth parched after a long morning of cleaning up the mess he had made the night before. “It’s my house now, right? I’m allowed to change shit up.”
He’s distracted, picking up a Coke from the fridge, but Dustin’s gasp is loud enough to be heard even without being in the same room.
“What do you mean it’s your house now?”
Steve rolls his eyes even if Dustin can’t see him, walking back to the couch. Condensation drips against the floor on his way, and it’s more reflex than actual thought when Steve reaches for a coaster, gingerly placing both their drinks on top of the coffee table before taking a seat by Dustin’s side.
“My parents aren’t coming back, dude — like, ever. They left me the house. Bruce sweetened the deal with them, so I wouldn’t go to — ”
“Who is Bruce?”
“Our lawyer!” Steve laughs, thoroughly entertained by Dustin’s questions. It’s not always that he gets to surprise the little shit. It feels good to be the one with answers for a change. “Chill, man, why am I getting the third degree here?”
“So you have a house all for yourself? Like, for real? And you didn’t think this was relevant information to share with us? With me? I’m hurt, Steve! I thought we were brothers.”
“Shut up, don’t make that face at me, it doesn’t work.” It totally does and they both know it. God. It’s moments like these that a tiny little part of him misses the time when these kids would be intimidated by him. “I just… I don’t know. It’s been an adjustment, I guess, and the paperwork is still getting — processed, or whatever — so it doesn’t even feel real. It’s not like my parents were ever here, right?”
Dustin gives him a long look, and Steve, honest to god, fights down the urge to flinch. He is the adult here. He isn’t feeling guilty for not telling a fourteen-year-old that he has basically inherited a goddamn mansion after his parents finally decided to stop pretending they care for their only son’s well-being. He is allowed time to deal with his shitty emotions without anyone’s judgment, thank you very much.
Steve is abruptly brought out of his thoughts when Dustin claps, a grin spreading across his face. “Okay. Do you know what this means?”
“What?”
“Hellfire is back, baby!”
“Nope. No way. Nu-uh.”
“C’mon, Steve! I thought you and Eddie were, like, friends now. He’s been sooooo heartbroken about not being allowed to have the club anymore, it’s actually sad to watch, man.”
Steve’s stomach does a funny little lurch at the way Dustin says he and Eddie are friends, but he shoves that down. Instead, he says, “Bullshit. Munson is fine. He dropped by the hospital the other day to harass the fu-the frick outta me until I helped him with his van.”
“Irrelevant,” Dustin says with a shrug, barreling on. “And — Will is coming back! Don’t you want poor Will to have somewhere to play his favorite game that isn’t Mike’s stupid basement?”
“What’s wrong with the Wheelers’ place?”
“His mom is just obsessed with making sure we’re safe. She doesn’t fully buy into the Creel story and I think she’s still 30% convinced Eddie did actually kill all those people,” Dustin fires off, rolling his eyes like he thinks Karen Wheeler should know better than to doubt the flimsy cover-up the shady government agents came up with. “So, she, like — she’s sitting in on all our DnD meetings and you know how into it Eddie gets, he doesn’t care, but everyone else feels super self-conscious about it, and it’s messing up our game, man. Will would never be able to play with her just… right there, breathing down our necks.”
Steve hasn’t spent a lot of time with little Will Byers, but he knows enough about the shitty hand he has been dealt in life to immediately feel bad about potentially depriving a traumatized child — perhaps the most traumatized one in their odd little group, and that is saying something — of a moment of reprieve from everything else.
Fuck. Dustin sure knows how to play dirty.
They hold eye contact for one long moment, the stupid grin spreading across Dustin’s face as Steve feels his resolve melting away. Damn these kids.
“Fine, okay. Fine. Fine. You nerds can play here — but only this time. My house isn’t a goddamn daycare.”
“Excuse you, we aren’t babies, Steve. We have saved the world four times now. The least we deserve is a safe environment to play our beloved game that allows us to enjoy whatever shred of innocence we have left after such traumatizing — ”
“I know, dumbass, I was there,” he cuts through the spiel despite the fondness tugging at his heartstrings. That little speech is worn thin from use from how many times Dustin has monologued about their (admittedly traumatic) experiences to get Steve to fold to his whims, but it doesn’t negate the fact that it’s true. “Now shut up before I change my mind. Tell me about Suzie’s latest radio-thing-whatever you said you guys were trying to fix.”
Dustin grins, pulling Steve into a crushing hug, and it feels… good. Dustin is all elbows and bony knees and a mess of curls that tickle Steve’s nose, but they fit together, a sort of easy kinship Steve has lacked most of his life. He doesn’t remember ever asking his parents for a sibling, but Dustin has stepped into that role so seamlessly, sometimes Steve has a hard time remembering he wasn’t always there — tracking mud into the house and leaving paintbrushes drying on the marble countertops of the kitchen, his little nerd figurines lining up the windows of the sun room as they dry.
None of them acknowledges the fact that the hug lingers. For once, Dustin chooses to keep quiet, settling against Steve’s side as he starts telling Steve about his latest radio date. Not for the first time, Steve’s thoughts wander up into the guest room just across the hall from his bedroom, to the single bed and the space under the window that could fit a small desk. He thinks of the cans of forest-green paint left abandoned in the garage after his mother changed her mind about redecorating the living room, and wonders how hard it’d be to set up some shelves against the wall where the midday sun shines brightest, a spot where someone’s paintwork could be left to dry without the worry of messing up the curtains.
He thinks about all the other empty rooms in the house, the quietness that clings like a vine to its foundation, and presses closer to Dustin’s side, thinking that maybe having the kids and Eddie — and maybe even Nance, too, perhaps even Jonathan after they all settle in — over more wouldn’t be that bad, all things considered.
He has the space, after all.
The thing is… Steve doesn’t dislike Eddie. He would even go as far as to say they’ve become friends, just like Dustin had pointed out, but the thing is — the thing is that Eddie isn’t like anyone Steve has met before. Steve is used to the posturing and the dick-measuring and the bluntness of jocks, the kind of competition he knows — if not to win, at least survive.
But Eddie — Eddie is a different type of challenge altogether. There’s something about him, about the heavy gaze that trails after Steve and lingers, like he’s being studied, not just looked at. Even in the middle of all the crazy Vecna-induced-fuckery, when everyone else had their heads down and their nerves fried, Eddie’s eyes never seemed to miss him.
At school, Eddie had been background noise — loud, sure, obnoxious even, but distant. A voice Steve could tune out, someone he never had to take seriously. But now… now in the aftermath of the end of the world, it feels like he cannot stop noticing. Every laugh, every flick of his curly hair, every jab that somehow feels more affectionate than mean — it all sticks.
He has seen Eddie covered in blood and pale under the harsh lights of the hospital, hair wet against his face in the pale blue of the Upside Down. It’s impossible to ignore someone after all that.
And since his brain is so damn busy noticing, it makes it harder to keep up. Steve feels like he’s constantly playing catch-up in their conversations, like Eddie’s running laps around him with words while he’s still tying his sneakers. Eddie talks fast, thinks faster, and peppers everything with references Steve doesn’t get — inside jokes, band names, shit from their nerd game — stuff that might as well be one of those made-up languages he loves boasting about.
Feeling dumb isn’t new; hell, it’s been part of the package ever since Nancy. But with Eddie it’s… different. Because when Steve stumbles, when he’s left blinking and speechless at the end of some dramatic tirade, Eddie doesn’t roll his eyes. He smiles. Wide and bright and so damn unguarded, eyes sparkling like Steve just gave him the best reaction he could have hoped for. And that smile makes Steve feel… some type of way. Not stupid, exactly. Not weak. Just — exposed. Warm, almost. Like he’s part of the joke, even if he doesn’t get it.
And Steve doesn’t know if he likes that.
He doesn’t expect to run into Eddie at the damn Lowe’s, though. It’s late enough that the store is mostly empty, so he can’t even pretend to miss the way Eddie’s smile takes over his entire face when their eyes meet, long hair swishing behind him as he bounds up to Steve and bows down with a flourish — the grimace in his face when the movement pulls at his scars is impossible to miss, and Steve’s sides ache in solidarity, but Eddie is quick to recover, pulling himself back up to his full height and grinning at Steve.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t his Majesty, the King.”
“Will you ever drop that, Munson?” Steve rolls his eyes, hiding a yawn behind his fist. He hasn’t slept more than four hours last night, so his brain isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Usually, the King Steve shit would’ve had his hackles rising, but Eddie’s voice carries a warmth not found anywhere else, so he gives it a pass, as he always does. “You can just call me by my name, you know that, right?”
“Oh, but what’s the fun in that? No, no — us commoners mustn’t forget our place,” Eddie tuts with mock solemnity, then waggles his brows.
Steve huffs, turning back to the rolls of wallpaper he had been browsing, and feels Eddie sidle up against him to mimic his posture, basket clattering as he closes the distance. Their shoulders brush — leather against the soft wool of his sweater — and Steve feels his stomach lurch for some reason he’d rather not name.
Eddie is almost the same height as Steve — taller, not by much, but enough to throw him off every single time. He’d clocked it in the Upside Down, toe-to-toe and waiting for hell to eat them alive, and it’s still lodged in his brain. Perhaps because Steve has always been the tall one, the baseline everyone else is compared to. Not taking the kids into account, obviously, no matter how Mike had shot up in the last months or so, but Nancy, Robin, Jonathan — even goddamn Billy Hargrove — they’d all had to tilt their heads to look up at him. But Eddie? Eddie just looks right back, like it’s no big deal. And now with those stupid clunky boots he’s started wearing, he’s got a whole extra inch or two, and Steve’s left tipping his head back ever so slightly to catch his dark eyes.
“Behold!” Eddie crows suddenly, yanking a horrendous orange-red roll of wallpaper from the shelf and holding it aloft like Excalibur. He grins wide, dimples flashing as he bows again. “Fit for a castle.”
Steve bats it away with a groan, reaching instead for the catalog to flip through, pretending to be interested.
“I hear you’re a proper landlord now,” Eddie drawls, leaning in too close, his breath ghosting warm against Steve’s temple. He makes a face when he says landlord, like it’s the dirtiest word he knows.
Steve snorts. “Dustin really doesn’t waste time, does he?”
Eddie honest-to-god giggles, waving a hand, and Steve’s heart does a funny little skip at the sound. “It’s very yuppie of you, Harrington,” Eddie continues, crowding closer to peer at the pages. “And even redecorating? My, my, the ladies will not be able to keep it in their panties.”
“Shut up, Munson,” Steve laughs, face heating, though he tries to hide it by thumbing the corner of the catalog. He doesn’t mind — he really doesn’t — but Eddie has zero sense of personal space. Zero. “What are you even doing here?”
“Wayne wanted some stuff,” Eddie says, shaking the basket in his hand so the spray-paint cans clatter like loose change. “Because, you see, yet again, some townsfolk decided to bless us with a very special piece of avant-garde art upon our humble abode. Truly magnificent, Keith Haring would be jealous.”
Steve blinks. “…What?”
“It’s graffiti, Stevie. Big words, spray-painted across our brand-new, government-approved trailer. But hey, what’s art if not the eye of the beholder? One might say it clashes with the rest of our interior design aesthetic.” Eddie’s hand gestures wildly as he speaks, like he’s presenting to a boardroom, and Steve finds himself just… staring. It’s a lot of words at once. His brain catches maybe every third one.
He should ask Eddie to slow down, but Eddie looks so alive when he’s on a roll — a sight Steve had doubted he would ever see again during those terrible days in the after. Eddie’s hands move as fast as his mouth, clunky rings flashing under the fluorescent lights, and Steve can’t look away. He gets snagged on the curve of Eddie’s grin, on the way his hair bounces as he tips his head back, and suddenly the conversation’s ten steps ahead, and Steve’s still trying to figure out where it started.
“What does it say?” Steve blurts finally, latching onto the last thing he actually understood.
Eddie stills, just for a second, something flickering across his expression before he shrugs. “Do you really want to know?”
“Shit,” Steve says, stomach twisting. Having heard what the townspeople had said about him during the town hall Hopper had organized when he was reinstated as Sheriff, Steve can imagine it’s not flattering. “I’m sorry, Eddie. Fuck. Maybe we should — maybe Nancy could write something about it again? Or Hopper — he could do something, I dunno—”
“I’m not running to the pigs or your girlfriend for help, man.”
“She’s not — we’re not together.” The words tumble out fast, sharper than he means them to. “And Hopper isn’t so bad, he kinda saved your ass by clearing your name with the town.”
“Lies and slander,” Eddie cuts in, holding up a finger like he’s in court. “The police just did their fucking job. The evidence they had against me was circumstantial at best… And anyways —” he drags the word out, singsong, “— I gotta go soon or Wayne will think I got lost in the paint aisle.”
The idea of Eddie having to go back to his house, of having to deal with the shittiest side of their town again and again after everything he had done to save them, makes Steve bristle. It’s such bullshit.
“Hey, Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
Steve hesitates. He should drop it, keep things easy. The memory of his too-empty house comes to the forefront of his mind, unbidden — the pristine walls, the untouched grass, and the silence, so much space for just himself — and the weight of how unfair everything is loosens his tongue for the words to slip out, “You could — you and Wayne, I mean. Both of you. You’re more than welcome to stay with me, alright? If things ever get bad, or, I don’t know, if you just want to lie low for a bit. The doors are always open.”
The silence that follows feels heavier than it should. Eddie blinks at him, and for the first time in the whole conversation, that quicksilver energy falters. Steve can see the exact second he overplayed his hand — too much earnestness, he thinks, so much that it could be mistaken for pity.
Eddie tilts his head, smile curling back into place like armor. “Are you offering the keys of the castle to a lowly jester, your Majesty?”
Steve swallows. “Eddie, I’m serious.”
“Yeah, well.” Eddie’s voice is lighter again, but there’s something stiff in it, rehearsed. He shakes the basket in his hand, spray cans rattling against each other like a warning bell. “It’s fine, man. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’ve never been called worse before. Good luck redecorating.”
And then he’s turning, boots thudding against the polished tile, walking away before Steve can think of what else to say.
Steve stands there with the catalogue in his hands, staring at nothing, wallpaper patterns blurring in front of him. His chest feels restless, like he swallowed something sharp. He hadn’t meant to scare Eddie off — hadn’t meant to make it sound like pity or charity or whatever Eddie must have heard in it. He just… meant it. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He’s always too much when he tries to be real. Too eager. Too sincere. People don’t know what to do with it, so they leave.
It’s all bullshit.
He squeezes the catalog until the glossy paper creases under his fingers. He shouldn’t have said anything. Should’ve kept it casual, matched Eddie joke for joke, let him go without trying to be — whatever the hell that was.
When he finally looks up, Eddie’s already gone, swallowed up by the empty aisles. Steve exhales, long and low, his heart still knocking unevenly against his ribs.
Saturday arrives much too fast for his peace of mind.
Robin is busy visiting colleges with her parents, much to her annoyance and Steve’s not-so-secret despair. Graduation had been a somber affair, squeezed among the chaos of the last few months and the rebuilding the entire town has had to do, and Steve has been trying to ignore the fact that both Nancy and Robin will probably be leaving Hawkins when the summer ends. The idea of losing Robin makes his throat close up, but he’s firmly on her parents’ side on this: it makes no sense for her to take a gap year, no matter how painful it’ll be when she leaves Hawkins for good.
They’ve fought about this. Steve wishes his greedy heart didn’t squirm whenever she promised she would never leave him behind, no matter how pissed off she had looked during their argument.
He sighs. He doesn’t need to think about that right now, can’t think about that right now, so he spends the morning tidying up the house by himself, fully aware of how pointless it is when he’s expecting a horde of teenagers to descend on him in just a few hours. It’s a hard habit to break, though, and considering how he still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do about the situation in his wallpaper-less bedroom, he’s been spending a lot of time sleeping on the couch downstairs.
It feels less oppressive, even if the lumpy cushions are far from comfortable. It’s a respite from the nothingness of the peeled-off walls, even if the décor downstairs lacks the same whatever his own room is missing — all the rooms for that matter, but Steve has kept mostly to the kitchen and living room these days, and at least the kitchen appliances aren’t as offending as the utterly boring art pieces hung up in the walls upstairs.
When the clock strikes one in the afternoon, he grabs his keys and sets off on the familiar route of Synclair-Wheeler-Henderson, and soon enough, his car is full of noise and chatter. The kids are proper teenagers now, have already started bothering him about learning to drive, even if Lucas is the only one Steve might consider actually teaching, but the way they bicker amongst themselves makes Steve smile, way too fond of the little shitheads even as they turn their attention to his awful taste in music.
“C’mon, man — Wham? — Who even listens to that garbage?”
“Obviously, I do,” he tries to defend himself, shooting them a half-hearted glare through the rearview mirror.
“But it’s lame!”
“And really fucking bad — ”
“Language, Wheeler.” It gives Steve some sick sort of pleasure to see Mike roll his eyes and sulk back against his seat, grumbling as the other two parrot Steve’s admonishment with glee, “Yeah, language, Wheeler.”
When Steve pulls into the driveway, the kids don’t even wait for the engine to cut off before tumbling out of the Beemer. By the time he’s got the keys in his hand, they’re already halfway up the walk, chattering loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Something about druids and missed rolls, their voices bouncing against the quiet street.
Eddie’s van is parked at the curb, and sure enough, Eddie’s leaning by the entryway, arms crossed like he’s debating whether or not to go inside. He looks up when Steve slams the car door, and for a split second, his expression flickers like he’s debating fleeing.
Which, yeah, Steve gets it. He knows he said too much at Lowe’s. He can still see Eddie’s blink, that falter in his grin, the way he pivoted into a joke and left before Steve could patch it up. It’s been sitting heavy in his chest ever since.
So now, he tells himself, he’ll play it cool. No heavy-handed invitations. No earnest bullshit. Just… chill. Normal. King Steve normal.
“Come on, Munson,” Steve calls as he jogs up the steps, “unless you’re planning on camping out on my porch all day.”
Eddie’s grin sparks back to life. “Wouldn’t be the worst castle I’ve squatted in.”
Steve rolls his eyes, unlocking the door just as the kids barrel past, unceremoniously inviting themselves in like they own the place. “Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable. My throne room’s off-limits.”
“Oh, please, don’t threaten me with a good time,” Eddie says nonsensically, sidling in close enough that their shoulders brush as they step inside together. He’s not wearing his jacket today, Steve notices. Instead, he’s got a black Metallica shirt that looks worn-soft, chains dangling as he follows Steve inside the house, and his eyes smile in that way they do whenever Steve indulges him in his stupid King jokes.
Steve should really put a stop to them one of these days. It’s just… the way Eddie says them, the way his mouth curls in the corner like he knows he’s getting away with something, somehow softens the blow. Steve is a weak, weak man.
The kids are already tearing through the living room, settling into the long dining table without ever stopping their argument when Steve steps inside. Their voices ricochet off the walls as he heads for the kitchen, tossing over his shoulder, “Beer?”
“Ah,” Eddie drawls, following at his own pace. “The royal mead flows freely tonight. Careful, Harrington — you keep this up, I might start expecting the five-star treatment.”
Steve grabs two bottles from the fridge, pressing one into Eddie’s hand as he passes. Their fingers brush — barely anything, but enough to trip Steve’s brain. He masks it with a grin. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Eddie smirks around the bottle’s rim, but his eyes are sincere, and he takes a long swig. “Oh, trust me, darling, I keep a running list.”
Steve chuckles, leaning back against the counter, pretending to be more relaxed than he feels. The nickname isn’t something that should affect Steve this much — hell, he has heard Eddie call Robin that before — but it still manages to burrow under his skin and settle there, making him want to squirm and hide his warming cheeks. The kids are still arguing, their voices muffled, making him feel like he’s alone with Eddie and Steve can’t help but fidget with his hair, nerves bubbling to the surface the longer the silence stretches between them.
“Place looks good,” Eddie says finally, nodding toward the walls. He’s casual about it, but Steve hears the echo of Lowe’s anyway, hears it in the way Eddie doesn’t look directly at him.
“Thanks,” Steve says, a slow smile spreading over his face. “It’s not like I changed anything down here yet, but I’m sure my mom would appreciate the compliment.”
Eddie laughs, a soft pink spreading over his cheeks. “Well. Can’t blame a guy for not remembering — the few times I came to one of your parties, I mostly hung outside.”
Steve hums, trying to recall ever seeing Eddie around, but he draws a blank. There was always so much going on back then. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, leaning on the counter, smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t exactly fit the dress code, you know? Thought they might chuck me into the pool if I so much as looked at the keg.”
Steve chuckles, shaking his head. “What the fuck — who is they?”
“You know — the rest of the jock entourage or whatever, everyone keeping the princess safe.” Eddie shakes his head, barrelling through the fact Steve is pretty sure he has just been called a princess.
He is used to King Steve. Princess, though, is very much new. He doesn’t know if it’s worse or better. Definitely worse, right?
Steve bites at the inside of his cheek, clearing his throat and being very deliberate to ask, “What’s an entourage?”
Eddie leans in just a fraction, eyes glinting as he starts a long-winded explanation that Steve only pays half a mind to it. It’s nice, it’s easy banter again, how Eddie teases him but never really makes fun of him, and Steve feels like they’re steering back into familiar territory — which is surprising in itself, considering him and Eddie aren’t that close, not the way he and Robin are — and Steve forces himself to let it be light. He doesn’t push, doesn’t circle back to his offer, even though it itches at the back of his throat. He just stands there, sipping his beer, nodding at whatever story Eddie launches into about Dustin rolling three nat-ones in a row until the doorbell rings and the kids start yelling that Will is here! so their brief aside has come to an end.
Eddie bows as he leaves the kitchen, leaving the empty bottle behind. Steve takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he joins everyone, waving at Jonathan until he comes inside instead of hanging by the door like a weirdo. Steve hasn’t seen him all that much since they moved back, but Jonathan is as lanky and awkward as always, shuffling inside the living room with shoulders curled in and a soft smile on his lips.
“Hey man, welcome back,” he pulls Jonathan into a one-armed hug, the gesture so deeply ingrained to him it takes him a moment to remember that Jonathan was never one of his jock friends, awkwardly patting Steve’s back until he lets go with a chuckle. “Sorry. Are you staying?”
Much to Steve’s surprise, Jonathan nods. “Yeah. Nancy said she’s dropping by later to pick them up, but I thought I’d keep an eye on things,” he explains, gaze trailing after Will like a magnet. The kids are all crowding around him, talking over each other as they gesture towards Eddie, who perks up under the attention. “Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s Eddie. He’s the Dragon Master or whatever,” Steve says, purposefully butchering the name even though none of the nerd brigade is paying him any heed right now. “He’s cool.”
Jonathan doesn’t look convinced, but Eddie chooses that moment to enthusiastically welcome Will into the fold, bowing deeply with as much fanfare as he can muster. “Will, the Wise! What a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, kind sir; your companions have sung your praises.”
The kids erupt in chaotic talking again, but despite the noise and all the name-calling going on around him, Will smiles at Eddie, fiddling with his bag of dice before he takes a seat at the table. He flushes when Eddie makes a show of oh-ing and aw-ing at his character sheet, hands moving in the air in that way that tells Steve that Eddie is brimming with energy.
For as much as he doesn’t have a clue about how a game with so much math can be fun, Steve hopes they enjoy themselves. The kids sure deserve it, especially Will.
By his side, Jonathan’s shoulders have loosened a bit. He’s still watching over Will like a hawk, but Steve knows he won’t find any threats to his little brother here. He shifts in place, nudging Jonathan’s shoulder with his own to grab his attention back.
“C’mon. Do you want a beer?”
After almost four hours, the game is finally done. Steve had nodded off at some point, lulled by the constant stream of chatter from the kids, exhaustion catching up to him with the force of a fist to his skull, and he wakes up with a start, looking around wildly before his senses fully come back to him. He sits up and feels Jonathan’s gaze on him, but Steve can only shrug in a what-can-you-do way that hopefully tells Jonathan he both appreciates the concern but also doesn’t want to talk about it. They all have their own share of nightmares. He’s just glad he didn’t wake up screaming.
“I think they’re starting to wrap up,” Jonathan says in a quiet voice, gesturing at the table with his head.
Steve blinks a few times, dragging a hand down his face, trying to shake off the slimy feeling that clings to his limbs. He follows Jonathan’s line of sight to the kids, now quieter, more settled. He lets out a slow breath.
“Ugh, finally.”
They sit in silence for a moment, watching Will roll out a dice and everyone cheering right after, laughter still lingering in the air like smoke after a fire. There’s something comforting about it, like the world has taken a small breath in the right direction, and Steve lets himself bask in the noise, just a little bit.
“It’s a… nice thing, y’know? All this,” Jonathan briefly meets his gaze before letting his eyes drop down to his lap. “They needed it.”
The words pinch his insides, and Steve can only nod. It’s a good thing there’s a round of displeased noises and complaining from the table when Eddie presumably leaves them hanging over a cliffhanger. When Steve looks over, he sees the pleased way Eddie hides behind a lock of hair, their gazes meeting briefly before he turns back to playfully hit Dustin with a plastic sword Steve has no idea where it came from.
The kids filter out one by one, spilling into the night when Nancy honks, yelling something from the street, and Jonathan catches Steve’s gaze with an amused smile as Mike grumbles under his breath and stomps outside. Lucas offers a fist bump on the way out, and Dustin hugs Eddie so tight that Steve feels a pang in his chest, letting Dustin do the same to him before he follows Will outside.
And then it’s just the two of them, the door clicking shut on the chaos.
He turns back to find Eddie standing in the middle of the living room like he’s not sure whether to sit or bolt; the quiet in the house is never as evident as it is after Steve has managed to forget about it for a few hours, and he wonders if Eddie can also feel the shift. Wonders if it weighs over his shoulders as it does on Steve’s.
One heavy boot scuffs against the hardwood. Eddie blinks at him, like he wants to say something, and Steve holds himself back from blurting out another poorly-timed invitation. Time and place, his coach had once told him, shaking his head at Steve after he'd tried to ask a girl to junior prom — right after losing a playoff game by a resounding twenty points. The gym had still stunk of sweat and defeat, the bleachers half-empty, and she’d looked at him like he had two heads. Coach just clapped a firm hand on his shoulder and muttered it again, Time and place, Harrington.
It stuck. Embarrassment tends to do that.
“Did you figure out the wallpaper situation yet?” Eddie asks, much to Steve’s surprise, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Not really,” he says. “Everywhere I look, there’s shit I want to change, so I can’t make up my mind on anything.”
Eddie’s mouth curls up, and he cocks his head a bit to the side, shaggy fringe falling over his dark eyes. “Is that so? Never thought you’d be so picky about house décor, man. Remind me not to invite you over to our new place till we at least have the throw pillows all color-coordinated.”
“Fuck off.” Steve snorts, collapsing onto the couch, and Eddie takes the bait, flopping down beside him with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t want to be stuck with yet another plaid wallpaper, thank you very much. Some of us have to live with our choices, Munson.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you. Mister Former King of Hawkins High. Mister Hair So Perfect It Has Its Own Zip Code.”
Steve huffs out a laugh, dragging a hand over his face. He can’t keep up with Eddie’s words — never could — but he doesn’t really want to. Half the fun is just watching him light up, watching his hands carve shapes in the air, watching his whole face move when he talks.
It’s stupid, but Steve feels it again — that lurch in his stomach, that itch to say something real. He swallows it down, forces himself to keep it light.
“What are you even saying?” Steve chuckles to himself, shuffling in place to get comfortable against the stiff cushions of the couch. “You guys keep talking about my hair as if you don’t have, like, your own thing going on.”
Eddie visibly preens, flicking his curls away from his shoulders with an affected air that makes Steve’s chuckles turn into full-belly laughter, kinda like the time Robin had tried to explain what a Bauhaus was to them, and Eddie’s eyes soften a little, watching Steve with the type of naked fondness Steve doesn’t remember ever being on the receiving end when Tommy Hagan had been his best friend.
Despite all the horrors, he’s happy he landed here.
They fall into easier chatter after that — music, D&D, their plans to hit the city next weekend when Robin is available, Eddie’s foray into job hunting now that Hopper has left it pretty clear dealing won’t cut it anymore.
Steve laughs more than he means to. The hours slip by.
When the clock on the mantle tips past midnight and Eddie shifts in his seat, Steve’s chest dips, but he doesn’t say anything as Eddie slips back into his boots, stretching his arms up as he shakes himself awake. When Eddie gives him a little salute with two fingers and says “Later, your Majesty” before dipping out, Steve nods and waves, pretending he doesn’t feel the walls shifting around him, closing in with their awful blandness until he curls up tight around himself.
He stares at the spot where Eddie had been sprawled only minutes ago, heart squeezing. He tells himself he did better this time, that he kept it light, that he didn’t spook him. At least, he thinks, he won’t make Eddie run again.
In the aftermath, Doctor Owens had referred everyone to a specialized team of psychiatrists, therapists, and all sorts of people allegedly capable of helping them with their nightmares, but Steve would rather keep waking up in a cold sweat, the phantom grip of vines around his neck, than sit in one of those government-approved, squeaky-clean offices ever again.
It’s fine. Nightmares aren’t anything new — in fact, Steve is a veteran at this point, he just has to adjust to the new ones. He still has dreams about his pool, but after every round of the Upside Down bullshit, there’s some fresh new monstrosity added to the roster: an endless tunnel filled with demodogs that don’t swerve past him, that go to Dustin instead; words he can’t understand followed by red-hot pain exploding along his ribs, over and over until he pukes and they don’t stop; Billy Hargrove with a plate and Billy Hargrove with a car and Billy Hargrove being swallowed up into the formless mass of blood and bones; the bats and the lake; Eddie’s blood in his hands.
Point is: Steve is an old hat at this. He doesn’t need a goddamn shrink to tell him his dreams are fucked up.
The clock on the bedside table tells him it’s barely past five in the morning, but he drags himself out of bed anyway, knowing he won’t be able to fall asleep anytime soon. His body feels shivery all over, scars aching as he pads downstairs, quiet as not to wake Robin up.
He keeps his gaze down and takes measured breaths, in and out, until it doesn’t feel like his heart will beat out of his ribcage. He grabs the banister as he makes his way down the stairs, and has an insane urge to call Lucas of all people — just to make sure, to hear it in his voice that he’s alive and that Steve wasn’t too late to stop Billy from hurting him.
The helpless terror from the nightmare clings to his skin like saran wrap, but he pushes through it, as he always does. He goes through the motions of setting up the coffee machine and slicing bread, whisking eggs and adding a dash of cinnamon to the mix, the smell of it tickling his nose and uncoiling some of the tension gathered in his lower back.
Robin likes waffles, and he will make those for her later. For now, he makes French toast for himself and piles blueberries on top, bringing his plate to the couch as he settles in. His mother would absolutely hate the sight of it, but Steve eats and sips his coffee, warmth slowly seeping into his bones as sunlight fights to seep in through the curtains.
She always liked it better like this — dim, preserved, as if the house were some delicate specimen trapped under glass. Sunlight, she used to say, was destructive. It could bleach the hardwood floors, fade the precious artwork hung up on the walls, and crack the varnish on the old oak sideboard. Too much exposure would age the leather on the armchairs, dry out the spines of the first-edition books his father had collected over the years, never once cracked open but still displayed proudly in the shelves.
So the curtains stayed drawn, the rooms cool and quiet. Safe.
But the air never moved. The house never breathed — and neither did Steve, did he? It was like living in a museum exhibit, where everything was curated not for comfort, but for control. No touch nor change allowed.
Before he realizes it, he’s up on his feet and touching the thick cotton, pushing the curtains aside one by one until the living room is bathed in early summer glow. He stands in front of the large glass windows that overlook an entirely different part of the woods than the pool, letting himself take in the scenery that somehow feels brand new.
That’s how Robin finds him, on his feet looking out the windows, breakfast forgotten on the couch. She grumbles her way over, slipping her arms around his waist, tucking her pointy chin into the space between his shoulder blades, and they kinda just breathe together, enjoying the quiet, which isn’t that much of a novelty despite what the rest of their friends might think. When it’s just the two of them, there’s just… Steve doesn’t know what to name it, but there’s a sort of peace that only exists in these quiet mornings they share.
“Dingus,” Robin says after a yawn, her nails scratching his sleep shirt. “S’ very bright.”
Steve shrugs, dropping a hand to squeeze her fingers, tangling them together in a loose grip. His thoughts are a bit sluggish still, but the tendrils of panic are long gone.
“Nightmare?”
“I’m okay now.”
“Good.” She squeezes his waist before letting go, tugging on the hem of his shirt until he turns around and she gives him a long look, nodding at herself at whatever she finds in his face. “I think we should go for a ride today. There’s a flea market Vicky told me about, and I think we should go — make a day out of it, invite Nancy and Eddie if they’re free.”
The idea sends a little thrill down his spine. He hasn’t seen Eddie in three days, but it feels much longer. He has an inkling of what that could mean, but he pushes the thought away, choosing instead to busy himself with Robin’s waffles. He’s happy they’ve all become friends, that’s all. It feels nice to know Eddie is being included in things.
The flutter in his chest when he hears Robin talk to him on the phone is a bit harder to ignore, but Steve is nothing but a stubborn son of a bitch.
Nancy has plans for lunch, so she doesn’t join them, but to everyone’s surprise, Jonathan is more than happy to tag along, camera slung over his shoulder as he slides into Steve’s backseat. He’s awkward as ever, but he smiles when Steve puts a tape Will left in his car, bobbing his head along to The Smiths as they drive up to Forest Hills to pick Eddie up. It’s still a bit odd to have him here, feels like Steve is trying to mash together the pieces of his old life and this new one he’s been building for himself but they don’t quite fit yet — for as much as Jonathan had been an integral part of kickstarting his transformation into someone who wasn’t an asshole, he hadn’t really stuck around to see the full aftermath of it.
Steve hopes Jonathan can, though, and hopes that everyone else does too.
Eddie’s new trailer is bigger than the older one, with two bedrooms and a fresh mint green exterior. As much as he squints, Steve can’t see any of the words that Eddie had talked about, but he still feels his stomach tie into knots either way, tapping his finger against the wheel until Eddie finally stumbles out of the door, clad in ripped shorts and his usual band shirt, hair a wild mess barely held back by a bandana.
“Well, well, well,” he greets once he’s inside the beemer, giving Jonathan a nod and Robin a little wave. “Quite the entourage today, Harrington.”
Despite himself, Steve grins, turning sideways in his seat to reverse out of the way and catching Eddie’s eyes.
"You should’ve seen the waiting list," Steve jokes and Eddie lifts an eyebrow, spreading his arms out with his usual flair for the dramatics.
“My, my, and little old me made the cut? I’m flattered, your Majesty.”
Robin snorts from the passenger side, muffling her laugh into her sleeve. Behind them, Jonathan blinks at Eddie, a furrow between his brows, but he manages to nod back in greeting and Steve counts that as a win.
“Don’t let it get to your head, though,” Steve says, guiding the car back into the main road. “Could still change my mind and leave you on the side of the road.”
“You’d never!” Eddie gasps, clutching dramatically at his chest like he’d just been shot through the heart. His eyes — wide, ridiculous, shining with mock betrayal — meet Steve’s again in the mirror. “That is so not the Harrington Experience I was promised, man.”
Robin perks up immediately. “The Harrington Experience?”
“Sounds like a rollercoaster or some shit,” Jonathan murmurs, his tone dry but amused, eyes flicking toward Steve.
“Exactly!” Eddie grins, shifting in his seat like he is getting comfortable. “One of those wild ones where the ride looks deceptively smooth but secretly throws you into three upside-down loops and — bam! — steals your wallet.”
“I’m not stealing anyone’s wallet.” Steve rolls his eyes but kinda basks in the sound of Eddie’s and Robin’s loud laughter, even if it’s at his expense.
“I would not be going on that, no, sir,” Robin giggles, but Eddie tuts, waggling his finger in her direction. “No Harrington Experience for me.”
“That’s where you and I disagree, Buckley,” he says, shooting Steve a wink that makes him squirm in his seat, focusing back on the road. “I am fully laminating my lifetime pass and framing it, hanging it up on the wall of the trailer, even.”
“You’d be a menace in the gift shop! They’d ban you,” Robin says and Eddie’s grin only grows bigger, dimples pinching his cheeks.
“Obviously,” he replies without missing a beat. “But Steve wouldn’t let them — right, big boy?”
Flushing, Steve glances at him again — just a flick of his eyes in the mirror — but Eddie is already looking, like he’d been waiting for it. Their eyes catch, hold.
Then Robin scoffs and cranks the volume on the tape deck. The Smiths kick back in, loud and melancholy, and Steve blinks like he is waking up.
The moment passes. The road stretches out in front of them, July sun casting everything in gold, and the conversation shifts into something else.
Steve drives.
Despite the growing heat of the day, the market is full. It’s bigger than Steve expected — a patchwork sprawl of vintage clothes, handmade jewelry, dusty books, and forgotten vinyls, and Jonathan is the first to detach himself from the group, shooing them off with a dismissive little wave as he riffles through a basket overflowing with cassette tapes.
Robin flits around him and Eddie, going back and forth between the stands as she searches for a new blazer, a new bracelet, fanning herself with a leaflet for some concert someone had shoved into their hands as soon as they had arrived. The bridge of her nose is already pink from the sun and Steve makes a mental note to try and find her a hat before her face turns into a tomato.
Eddie sticks close to Steve. Their shoulders brush more often than not, and every time Steve points something out — a stack of sunglasses, a box of weird action figures, a dog passing by — Eddie leans in like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, dark eyes zeroed in on him. There’s something quietly deliberate in the way he stays just a half step behind Steve, always within reach, and Steve’s heart squeezes every time he turns around and finds Eddie just… there.
Eventually, Robin also leaves them behind and Steve finds himself alone with Eddie, who buys two lemonades from a stand and wordlessly hands one to him, fingers brushing when Steve grabs his cup. He also buys them funnel cake from a little cart, and Steve has a weird itch to reach out and clear the crumbs left in the corner of Eddie’s mouth.
They walk aimlessly for a while until Eddie stops by a stall filled with mini figurines: tiny dragons poised to strike and even tinier little dudes, soldiers holding up swords and bows. Steve watches Eddie strike up an easy conversation with the woman behind the booth, and his attention flickers to the large bucket of colorful dice a few rows below the figurines.
Steve picks one up, black with purple swirls, numbers painted gold, and hums to himself, browsing through the bin until he has one of each size. By now, the woman and Eddie have stopped talking: Eddie busy leafing through a book and the woman watching Steve with a small smile.
“How much for the set?” Steve asks her.
“Two bucks. Three if you want the purse, too.” She gestures towards a row of leather pouches, and Steve chooses the one that has a snake embroidered into it, putting the dice inside and waiting until Eddie is done with his own purchase to resume their walk.
“Here,” he says, pressing the pouch to Eddie’s hand.
He doesn’t have a reason why he bought them — other than wanting to, something about them reminding him of Eddie — so he’s grateful Eddie doesn’t ask. He just takes the pouch with a small, almost shy smile, eyes soft in the afternoon light.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, fingertips brushing over the dice as he spills them into his palm. The bigger die rolls between his fingers, glinting like a tiny jewel when the sunlight hits it. His rings catch the light too — silver and sharp against his skin — and Steve thinks it’s a miracle the whole market doesn’t stop to stare.
“Y’know…” Eddie says after a beat, tilting his head with that crooked little grin. “This is pretty different from what I pictured King Steve doing on his day off.”
Steve raises an eyebrow, smirking. “Thinking about me that much, Munson?”
Eddie doesn’t miss a beat. “Always.” The word lands light, teasing, but something about the way he says it makes Steve’s stomach do a weird little flip.
Eddie turns the dice over in his hand again, softer now. “This is nice, though,” he adds. “I’d almost forgotten what it was like to walk around without getting side-eyed by the PTA.”
Steve doesn’t know what to say to that but Eddie doesn’t look like he’s expecting anything. He keeps playing with the dice for a couple more moments before slipping them back into the pouch, and soon enough Robin rejoins them, hands full of bags she has no qualms about pushing into Steve’s hold.
“I got you some new shirts, by the way,” she tells him, linking her arm with Steve’s. “Found the blazer, thank fuck — and got a cool new jacket for Lucas’ birthday!”
Steve hums in acknowledgment, adjusting the growing pile of bags in his arms. After Jonathan finishes combing through the million tapes in the music stall, the four of them make their way towards the far end of the flea market. Tucked behind a stall selling cracked teacups and hand-painted postcards, they stumble on a vendor selling rugs, not the tasteful, high-end kind that would fit parents' catalog-worthy living room, but loud, unapologetically ugly ones.
One in particular stops them dead in their tracks. It's enormous, fuzzy-looking, and an assault of colors — avocado green and some shade of purple that should honestly be illegal. There's a vaguely floral pattern woven into it, with occasional splashes of burnt orange that date it clearly at least a decade old, making it look like a firework had a psychedelic breakdown.
Steve makes a face. “That’s… actually disgusting.”
Robin lights up immediately. “You should get it.”
Steve turns slowly to look at her, eyebrows up. “Why the hell would I buy that monstrosity?”
“Because,” she says, spreading her hands like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “it’s terrible. And your parents would hate it, which is exactly why you should put it right in the middle of the living room. Like — front and center. Boom. This is Steve’s house now.”
Eddie snorts. “She’s got a point, man.” His eyes are drawn to the rug with the kind of fascinated horror usually reserved for when the kids manage to roll a one on their little die.
Steve hesitates. He looks at the rug again — this chaotic, ugly, kind of amazing rug — and then down at his shoes. It’s a small thing, but the thought settles somewhere deep in his chest.
Despite the wallpaper he tore down and the artwork he stored in the garage, the house still feels like a museum, like his parents are going to walk in at any moment and scold him for putting his feet on the coffee table. He’s never really bought anything for it, has he? Never really made it his.
“I mean,” Eddie adds, nudging him with his elbow, “you don’t have to, but just imagine the rug, a lava lamp, maybe a lava lamp on the rug — ”
“Oh my God,” Steve groans, but he’s already reaching for his wallet. “Fine. Jesus — okay.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re walking back to the car with the world's ugliest rug rolled under Steve’s arm, and Eddie won’t stop calling it a bold artistic statement.
Steve just smiles to himself. It’s ridiculous. It’s garish as fuck. But it’s his.
The rug clashes with everything else in the living room. Steve kind of loves it.
It jumpstarts a whole process, too. Now that he has the stupid thing in place, he can’t ignore everything else around it — and Robin’s voice keeps echoing in his ears, how this is his house now, his home — and his well of excuses starts to dry up little by little.
He gets new curtains almost by accident.
It's a surprise when he runs into Ms. Henderson at the store; he'd been mindlessly idling around the shelves after finishing his tasks at the relief center earlier than expected, and when he blurts out his half-baked plans before she even properly says hello. In return, she only smiles at him, perking up at the chance to help him with anything, and together they pick a softer type of fabric, translucent and white, its texture like water between Steve’s fingers. It makes the living room feel bigger but also cozier, somehow, more welcoming, the light filtering in the mornings without having to fight for every inch.
Soon after, Joyce gifts him forest-green covers for the throw pillows along with a colorful quilt for the couch, and Steve can’t hide the way he flushes when Will passes him the bundle of fabric and Steve realizes it’s handmade. He clutches it to his chest and has to swallow around a lump in his throat, blinking fast until his vision stops swimming.
The other kids barely notice it, but Eddie’s gaze is a familiar weight over Steve’s shoulder, his dark eyes curving like half moons as he shoots Steve a smile from the dinner table, and Steve looks forward to when they wrap up their session so he can hang out with Eddie alone. There’s no doubt in his mind Eddie will get why it means so much.
Which is… also new. The rug and the quilt and pillows, yes, but especially — Eddie.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
That first night, Eddie had stayed almost without meaning to. The second time, he lingered a little more purposefully, accepting a sandwich and a beer. Steve managed to keep him talking — about older campaigns, about music, about the stupid dent in his car door — and by the time Eddie stood to leave, the clock had somehow jumped an hour forward. It felt like progress, though Steve didn’t dare name it as such.
The next few times blurred together, small shifts stacking up quietly: Eddie showing up half an hour earlier without calling ahead, tossing his keys onto the counter, helping Steve set up snacks; even tagging along to the Arcade when Steve drives the kids there. He usually avoids the hospital (understandably so), but he’s warming up to the relief center, and has helped Steve haul boxes of donations once or twice now — and even if people still give him the side eye sometimes, Steve also catches the way some of the regulars reach out to him.
It’s just… It’s slow going, everything is slow going, the rebuilding and the changing, and Steve hadn’t even realized they were building something until Eddie heads for the couch before the kids even fully clear out, boots kicked off at the door like it’s a habit. Dustin is the only one that seems to have noticed the shift, cocking his head to the side as he considers Eddie’s relaxed posture, but he doesn’t comment on it. He does smile at Steve on his way out, though, all cocky like this — whatever this was — had been his plan all along.
When the front door slams shut, Steve makes his way back to the living room, finding Eddie rummaging through the stacks of vinyl Steve had relocated down from his room.
“No Sabbath? Not even Zeppelin? Harrington, you wound me.”
Steve laughs it off, sitting down on the floor with his back to the couch. The rug beneath him might be ugly as sin, but at least it’s comfortable. It isn’t long before Eddie also joins him on the floor, socked feet tapping against the carpet.
“Looks nice, y’know? Better than before.”
“My mother would disagree.”
“Well, Ms. Harrington will have to forgive me.” Eddie grins, already fishing around in the pocket of his jeans. “You mind if we celebrate your newfound domestic streak?”
Steve eyes the movement, suspicious. “Celebrate how?” Eddie pulls out a slim joint and wiggles it between two fingers. Steve snorts, but there’s no real protest. “You always come prepared, huh?”
“You know me, boy scout at heart.” Eddie’s already flicking his lighter, cupping the flame against the joint. He offers it out, smoke curling like a question between them. He takes a drag, exhales slowly, lets the smoke curl upward before offering it out. “C’mon. You’ve earned it.”
Steve hesitates only a beat before taking it, the faint brush of their fingers a quiet spark. He inhales — too hard, too fast — and coughs, which makes Eddie snort and take it back, lips wrapping around the same spot his mouth had been. “Lightweight,” he teases.
Steve grins, still shaky but undeniably fond. The tension in his shoulders drops a notch, even if he can’t quite stop himself from staring at the way Eddie’s lips curl around the joint. “Yeah, well. Been a while.”
“Any other big plans?” Eddie asks after a moment, leaning his elbows on his knees.
“I don’t know.” Steve watches the thin line of smoke twist in the air, waiting until Eddie passes the joint back to him. “Maybe.”
“The suspense is killing me, man.”
He shrugs. His limbs start to feel pleasantly heavy, like he’s sinking into the couch on his back. “I want to paint the guest room upstairs. Something for Dustin.”
“Is that so?”
“I mean…” Steve smiles faintly. “Robin already claimed one for herself for when she moves out of her parents’ house. I can’t be playing favorites, can I?”
“Fair point.” Eddie huffs a soft laugh, taking another pull and exhaling through his nose. “What about your room, though?” he asks next, passing the joint back with a lazy flick of his fingers. “I’ve been informed by a reliable source — ”
“Dustin?”
“Shut it — my reliable source told me that’s where you started this whole saga. Is the King’s chambers not fit to your taste?”
Steve laughs, but the sound comes out weak, catching on the exhale. He’s starting to feel a bit woozy, thoughts scattering like leaves in the wind.
They pass it back and forth a few times, the silence between them thick but not uncomfortable. Steve can’t help but think about their mouths curling around the butt of the joint, lips touching the same spot over and over again. The air hums with the smell of weed and Bruce Springsteen croons in the background about being nothing but tired.
He takes a drag. Exhales. Feels Eddie’s eyes track the movement of his chest rising and falling.
Finally, Steve says, “I hate it up there, actually. My room. It’s just… too much.”
Eddie blinks, gently plucking the blunt from Steve’s fingers. “Yeah?”
“Do you know — have the kids filled you in? About the first time shit happened?”
He watches Eddie shrug, a piece of his hair falling over his shoulder. Steve’s fingers itch to reach out and tuck it behind his ear, let his fingers trace down the curve of his jaw, and he’s so distracted by it he only half hears Eddie’s response when he says, “I know about Will, and, like — the whole demogorgon thing? And a baseball bat? I didn’t really believe Dustin, but Jonathan confirmed you were kind of a badass.”
Steve huffs, eyes glassy. Eddie’s words lodge themselves warmly somewhere between his ribs, but he hadn’t been fishing for compliments. There was a point he had been trying to make. The smoke makes him soft around the edges, tongue looser, honesty leaking through the cracks. “Did you know I ran at first? Like — I saw the lights and the stupid — the fucking demogorgon — and Nancy had a gun. I just booked it.”
It feels important to tell Eddie that. Steve ran, too. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Eddie tilts his head, the joint hovering near his mouth. He shoots Steve a look, dark eyes almost liquid. “But you came back.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t leave them there.” Steve rubs at the back of his neck, and shifts a little, knee bumping against Eddie’s thigh as he stretches his legs. “Shit, this isn’t — that wasn’t what I wanted to say.”
Eddie leans forward, elbow on his bent knee, the joint glowing faintly between his fingers. “Your room,” he prompts, voice quiet. He doesn’t pull away, the warmth of the little spot where their bodies touch spreading over the whole of Steve in waves.
“Right.” Steve’s eyes flick up toward the ceiling, like he could see it from down here. “Tommy and Carol were here, Nancy too — she brought Barb. Barbara Holland.” He swallows. “She got taken right there. From my pool. And I was just… I had no idea. I didn’t even notice, none of us did.”
Eddie’s jaw flexes. His fingers twitch and the next thing Steve knows, there's a whisper of pressure against his clenched fist. His hand opens like a flower — like those sick petals, filled with teeth and blood — and Eddie gives it a squeeze before pulling away again. “Jesus Christ. Fuck.”
“She died down there,” Steve says, heart stumbling over his chest. The joint is forgotten in Eddie’s other hand, and Steve plucks it to himself, toying with it. He’s already toeing the line of too much, but it feels wrong to continue this conversation without the weed to prop him up.
“Probably in the, like, Upside Down version of my pool. I’ve accepted it, or whatever — I can let the kids go in the water now, I don’t freak out anymore — but my room faces the pool, and at night…” He trails off, inhaling slowly, then lets the smoke drift out through his nose. “It’s just creepy. The lights in the water, knowing that I could’ve just — looked down and maybe saved her. That her body is probably still right there. I hate it.”
Steve’s hand shakes, flicking ash all over the stupid rug, and he flinches when Eddie reaches out to take the blunt away, gently pressing against the ashtray until it goes out. The distance between them shrinks almost by accident: Eddie spreads his arms over the couch cushions, dropping his head back against the upholstery with a quiet curse, and Steve curls into himself, shoulder brushing against Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s hand finds the collar of his shirt, fingers toying almost absentmindedly with the tag on the back.
They stay like that for a while, close enough that Steve can feel the warmth of Eddie’s skin. Steve exhales, and then laughs — a small, pained thing. “God, I sound like a headcase. Sorry.”
“Nah,” Eddie says easily. His face lolls to the side, and he takes in Steve’s profile with heavy-lidded eyes. “You sound like a dude who’s been through a whole lot of bullshit and still showed up to, like, help fix it. Pretty solid deal, if you ask me.”
Steve glances over at him, a soft smile curling at the edge of his mouth. “You always talk like that? Like, motivational-poster levels of profound?”
Eddie snorts. “Only when I’m stoned enough to mean it.”
That makes Steve laugh again, real this time. Eddie grins, and his hand travels up to scratch at his nape, blunt nails making him shiver. God. He hopes Eddie doesn’t notice how flushed he is right now.
This doesn’t feel real.
He leans back against the touch, though, head tipping forward ever so slightly. Floats in the feeling, every single touch somehow heightened yet dulled by the weed. “Been thinkin’ maybe I should just move into my parents’ room instead,” he mumbles, words tumbling out of him. “No, wait — that’s Robin’s idea. She’s been on my case for days now.”
Eddie hums, and when his fingers press against the base of his skulI, Steve practically melts against the back of the couch.
Fuck, it feels good.
“Their room is — it’s on the other side of the house. Faces the woods instead of the pool, t’s why Robin thinks it’s a good idea.”
Eddie whistles low. “Big upgrade, huh? King of Hawkins takes the master suite. We should inform the press.”
“Yeah, well, not like they’re coming back, right?” Steve says it lightly, but it lands somewhere deeper. He blinks his eyes open, not realizing he had closed them, and shoots Eddie a sideways glance, tucking his knees closer to his chest. He’s tired of so many ghosts haunting his dreams. “I don’t know. It’s stupid, right?”
Eddie studies him for a second, then nods. “It’d be stupid to keep sleeping in all that when you have the option not to. You should make your own space, Stevie.”
Stevie. Steve smiles at him, blinking slowly at the shape of Eddie’s dimpled smile before he hums. “Would you help me move some stuff, then? Since it’s such a great idea.”
With a huff, Eddie rolls his eyes dramatically and tilts forward, but ends up overshooting it, hair brushing Steve’s shoulder from how close he is. Steve could drown in his eyes, holy shit. “For you, Harrington? I’ll even bring my own toolbox.”
Steve laughs, flustered, and shoves him off. They stay close, though, orbiting each other.
Later, after Eddie has managed to gather himself and head out, when the house is quiet once again, Steve notices Eddie left one of his tapes behind on the coffee table. The cover’s wild, a snarling monster on it, and Steve doesn’t know if it’s an accident or not. Either way, he pops it into the radio the next morning, and dials Eddie’s number with just a stutter in his word, already missing his laughter in the quiet morning.
On Saturday, Eddie does show up with a damn toolbox. And shorts.
Fuck. Steve knows he’s staring but he can’t bring himself to look away.
“What are you wearing?” He blurts out by accident, watching Eddie prance his way over in the shortest pair of shorts he has ever seen him wear.
“Summer-appropriate clothing!” Eddie chirps, even going as far as doing a little spin, hair flowing around his head like a halo. Steve can see his collarbones, too. And a lot of his sides through the holes cut into his shirt. “Right, Wayne?”
Steve turns his head so fast he almost snaps it right off his neck, blindsided by Wayne’s presence. He had been completely caught by the fact he could see so much leg, he hadn’t even processed the fact that Eddie wasn’t alone. Nope. Steve is ogling Eddie as his uncle walks up with a case of beers and a small smile, nodding at Steve in greeting.
“Thank you, Mr. Munson,” he manages to get out, gesturing for them both to get inside. “You didn’t have to come — or bring anything.”
“Unlike some people, I have manners,” Wayne grumbles, shooting Eddie a look and earning himself a shit-eating grin. “Besides — I told ya to call me Wayne, boy. No need for all that.”
“You’re his favorite,” Eddie stage whispers, cackling like a loon as he dances out of Wayne’s way, bumping Steve’s shoulder on his way in.
“Eddie said you’re movin’ things ‘round here,” Wayne continues, ignoring Eddie’s customary dramatics over Steve’s selection of discs. “Hope you don’t mind me taggin’ along. God knows that boy can’t be trusted with a hammer.”
“I appreciate it. Between Eddie and Robin, I was getting worried we wouldn’t last 10 minutes without a trip to the hospital.
They both smile at Eddie’s affronted squawk. How Eddie still manages to look hot while looking like an angry kitten is beyond Steve.
“Excuse me,” Eddie protests, clutching his chest. He’s lacking his rings today, Steve notices. “I’ll have you know I’ve improved dramatically since the Great Shelf Collapse of ‘83.”
Wayne snorts. “That’s ‘cause you ain’t picked up a hammer since, kid.”
“That’s called learning from experience, old man!”
Steve, honest to god, giggles. He’s so thankful Robin isn’t here yet; she would mock him mercilessly. “Remind me to keep you away from power tools then, Munson.”
“Rude,” Eddie says, already half-grinning again. “What if I told you I’m great at drilling?”
It’s clear he’s trying to make it into a dirty joke, and Wayne raises a brow, completely unimpressed. “I’d tell you to prove it somewhere that ain’t Steve’s very nice walls.”
Eddie throws his hands up and flashes a sliver of pale stomach when his shirt rides up. “No faith. None at all. You see what I deal with, Stevie? My own flesh and blood.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, laughing softly, dazed. “You’ve got it real rough, Munson.”
Wayne chuckles, the sound warm and low. “He talks big, but he means well. Just don’t let him talk you into anything stupid.”
Their bickering keeps going and the steadiness of Wayne’s presence helps Steve find his ground. He can’t let himself get so — distracted by Eddie’s choice of outfit, no matter how much he wants to just pull him upstairs and trace the expanse of his legs with his damn tongue.
He figures that being into guys would have been more of a dramatic revelation if the world hadn’t ended at least three times in the last five years. The fact that the guy is Eddie does make him nervous, but only because he’s come to realize he’s managed to secure himself as Steve’s best friend, just as important to him as Robin or any of the other kids. He’s thankful he had his fuck-am-I-attracted-to-guys-too-is-that-even-allowed freak out before spring break happened; he’d even taken the opportunity to go to Indy a couple times, and know for sure he likes the feeling of stubble on his neck just as much as he likes the soft press of boobs against his chest.
But — it isn’t because Steve isn’t freaking out that he isn’t freaking out.
Robin shows up half an hour later with Nancy and Jonathan in tow, and somehow Steve finds himself with a house full of people in overalls and arms laden with boxes. Robin is tasked with packing the closet and the dresser, and Eddie tags along for the sole purpose of making fun of Steve’s parents’ taste in clothing. Jonathan and Nancy cover the floor of what will be Dustin’s room in newspapers, cans of forest green paint retrieved from the garage, and Steve trusts they’ll do a good job just from how Nancy is measuring the walls with her gaze, lips pursed in concentration in a familiar way.
Which leaves Steve and Wayne to tackle Steve’s room.
He heaves out a big sigh when they make their way past the doorway. The air feels different in here and Steve shivers despite the warm morning, drumming his fingers against the wall as Wayne surveys everything with a practiced, thoughtful eye.
“What’s the plan here, son?” Wayne asks finally, tone gentle in a way that makes Steve think he already knows there’s something unsaid beneath it.
“Guest room, I guess,” Steve replies after a moment. He’s considered boarding the room up, too, but he isn’t sure that would be better. “For the kids, if they want to stay over. I was thinking of leaving it more neutral so anyone could crash in. Donate that desk over there to free up some space, maybe find a bunk bed at some point.”
Wayne nods, slow and approving. “Sounds good. Fresh start for the space, huh?”
Steve’s mouth twists a little. “Yeah. Something like that.” He runs his hand over the edge of the dresser and catches a bit of dust on his fingertips. “I don’t want it to feel like this anymore. Just — lighter, I guess.”
“Good,” Wayne says. “Best you can do is fill it with somethin’ better. Paint will help.”
That earns a soft laugh from Steve, and the tension in his shoulders eases a little. Wayne’s lips twitch. “Picked the wallpaper yet? Or d’ya want to paint it?”
“Paint, I think,” Steve says, stepping closer to the wall and testing the surface with his palm. “I’ll need to sand it first, right?”
“Check the plaster, too, maybe prime it.” Wayne walks around the room. “Me n’ Eddie will help,” he adds.
Steve gives him a crooked smile. “Yeah, that I’ll believe when I see it. You sure you trust Eddie with a sander?”
Wayne huffs, shaking his head in amusement. “Not even a little. But I figure we’ll keep him busy with somethin’ else. He’s good at the talkin’ part.”
“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, half-smiling. “He’s really good at that.”
Wayne eyes him sidelong, something knowing in the glance. “And you don’t seem to mind listenin’.”
Steve coughs, cheeks coloring. Wayne is just being nice. He can’t know anything. “He’s hard to tune out, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” Wayne just pats his shoulder, letting the comment settle between them without pressing. “Tomorrow I’ll run by the store for supplies.”
“You don’t have to — ”
“I know,” Wayne interrupts lightly. “But I want to. Gives me somethin’ to do, and it’ll make that boy happy seein’ me pitch in. Besides,” he adds, lowering his voice a little, “you’re doin’ a good thing here, son. Be proud of that.”
Steve blinks, the words landing heavier than he expected. Wayne knows — more than Bruce, more than his parents ever had — and the fact that he gets it, gets why Steve wants to make a place for all of them, makes his chest warm. He opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, they hear Eddie from down the hall, hollering something about finding a “vintage monstrosity” in his parents’ room.
Wayne shakes his head, smiling. “Better go make sure he ain’t rippin’ up the carpet for treasure.”
Steve laughs — easier this time — and follows him out, the room already feeling a little less like a weight and more like a project.
Eddie perks up when they pop into the bedroom, hair pulled up into a precarious knot at the nape of his neck. He’s surrounded by open drawers and a half-collapsed pile of hangers, looking far too pleased with himself for someone clearly up to no good.
“Is that my mother’s blouse?” Steve asks, halfway between disbelief and dread.
Eddie beams, unrepentant, and spreads his arms like he’s taking a bow. The silk shirt billows slightly when he moves, pale lavender flowers against a darker background, with delicate pearlescent buttons and slightly catching across the span of Eddie’s shoulder. “Sick, right? I feel like I could pull it off.”
He twirls once, the hem flaring out, showing off the way it hangs loose over his hips — the soft fabric clashing spectacularly with the ripped shorts, the tattoos, the cut-off band tee underneath. Steve’s throat feels suddenly dry. The contrast shouldn’t work, but on Eddie it somehow does, like he was born to make chaos look good.
“You cannot. Sadly,” Steve manages, voice thinner than he means it to be.
Eddie grins wider. “Can too. Look at this movement, Stevie. This is metal.” He strikes a dramatic pose, like he’s playing an invisible guitar.
Robin emerges from the closet just in time to catch the performance, balancing two boxes filled with clothes. “Oh my God,” she deadpans. “You look like a divorced aunt who sells crystals out of her van.”
Eddie gasps in mock offense. “I’ll have you know, I’d thrive as a divorced aunt, Buckley.”
“You’re already halfway there,” she says. “And it would smell like weed and regret.”
“With good music,” Eddie shoots back, finger raised. “And I’d give great advice.”
Steve’s trying not to smile, trying even harder not to stare, but it’s a losing battle. He shakes his head, stepping forward to take one of the boxes from Robin’s arms. “Are there more of these?”
“Are there more, he asks,” she mocks, huffing a strand of hair out of her face. “Your parents were hoarders, that’s where you get it from.”
Steve rolls his eyes, shifting the weight of the box. “Don’t be dramatic,” he says, half to her and half to Eddie when he snickers. “Bruce is waiting to hear back from my parents about the clothes and all the fancy shit they left behind, so I’ll keep these in the garage for now.”
Robin nods, peeking into one of the boxes. She’s been the loudest voice in this whole thing, more invested in getting Steve settled into the new room than getting her own stuff moved into her new bedroom, but he won’t complain. If left to his own devices, Steve would have been happy with sleeping downstairs for the foreseeable future.
“Wow,” she says, “Mrs. Harrington really believed in sequins, huh?”
Eddie plucks a glittering scarf from the pile and tosses it around his neck. “Guess good taste runs in the family,” he says with a wink aimed squarely at Steve.
Steve tries, fails, to suppress a laugh. He knows he’s blushing. He knows Robin is giving him a look right now. “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t stretch it out, Munson.”
Eddie only smirks, tugging playfully at the cuff. “No promises, sweetheart.”
Word apparently gets out, and Joyce drops by in the afternoon with new sheets and matching cases for Steve’s new bed, deep navy trimmed in soft baby blue. Dustin’s room smells like fresh paint, not a single drop against the floorboards, thanks to Nancy’s careful precision, and Wayne nods along to Steve’s words when he talks about the shelves he wants to put in the corner.
When everything is packed away in the garage, Robin and Eddie rope everyone else into almost an assembly line, passing clothes back and forth until his old wardrobe is fully empty. His polos are hung up, heavy jackets and winter clothing folded and stored away in large containers that fill most of the shelves. His shoes are organized, pants and shorts as well, but he draws a line at everyone handling his underwear, ears hot as he dumps them into the top drawer and ushers everyone to go do anything else that isn’t looking at his briefs.
After, when Steve has placed their order at the pizza place and everyone else is downstairs setting up the table, he lingers at the door of his new room. His parents’ old bed is bigger than the one he’s used to, with a large wooden frame with delicate flowers engraved on the headboard, but without the usual throw pillows piled on top of the mattress, and the blue sheets that are a stark contrast against the naked walls, the room sort of looks like something that could be Steve’s. If he really wants to.
There’s no teal blue reflecting from the pool anywhere. Instead, the windows face the opposite side, the golden light of the setting sun spilling through the open blinds.
Earlier, as they were packing his parents’ things, there was a glaring absence of personal items — no photo frames, no bottles of perfume or jewelry boxes — that now make Steve wonder when exactly his parents started to… phase their way out of the house. He isn’t blind to the way he grew up, but he never quite realized just how little of them was left behind during his father’s increasing work trips. Should it have been this quick to pack their entire lives away?
He sits down on the mattress in a bit of a daze, dropping his keys and wallet onto one of the bedside tables. Eddie made a show of putting Steve’s trophies on top of the dresser, getting a kick out of narrating each one like a sports announcer, his usual penchant for dramatics amped up to an eleven.
“And here we have the legendary King Steve, reclaiming his throne after a long and arduous battle with the forces of polyester and bad wallpaper!” he’d declared, holding up the baseball trophy like it was Excalibur before setting it down with exaggerated care, loose curls framing his grinning face.
Now, the room is quiet. Just Steve and the sound of the floorboards creaking under Eddie’s boots as he appears in the doorway, hands tucked in his back pockets. He’s still wearing the damn shirt, but at least the scarf has been put away somewhere.
“You okay, man?” he asks, softer this time. The dramatics have faded a bit, now that his audience is reduced to Steve, but the warmth stays.
Steve runs a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on the sheets. “It’s just weird, isn’t it? It’s all… empty.”
Eddie steps inside, leans against the bedpost, and tilts his head like he’s considering it. “Nah. I’d say it’s… full of potential. Which, coincidentally, is what I say about any abandoned garage, haunted house, or suspiciously empty dungeon.”
Steve huffs a small laugh, but it doesn’t quite stick. Eddie notices — the way his shoulders stay tense, the way his fingers pick at a thread on his jeans, and he eases himself down beside him on the bed.
“Hey,” Eddie says. His hand finds Steve’s, like that's a thing they do now, squeezing softly and not pulling away. “You don’t have to like it yet. It’s new. It’s… yours now, yeah, of course, but it’s okay if it still doesn’t feel like it.”
Steve’s throat tightens a little at that. He squeezes Eddie’s hand back, grateful that he’s putting into words the weird feeling inside his chest. “Yeah.”
Eddie bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, gently pulling his hand away. He toys with the cuff of his borrowed shirt, black painted nails against the flowery fabric. “Besides,” he adds with a grin, “give me one week and this place will be full of, like, posters and cassettes and — I don’t know, sports stuff, if that’s what you’re into. I’m a pro at redecorating. Got my new room set up even better than the old one. Time to use that sweet, sweet hush money from our beloved government.”
Steve lets out a breath that sounds halfway between a sigh and a laugh. He looks around again, at the pale walls and the polished dresser, at the sheets Joyce insisted on washing twice before bringing over. It all feels too clean, too open. He’s not even sure he deserves everyone’s help like this.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he admits finally, voice low. “I wasn’t ever really allowed to… pick. Not when I was a kid. My mom hired someone to decorate my room when we moved here — said I’d just mess it up if she let me choose. Everything after that just sort of… stayed the same.”
Eddie’s grin fades into something softer. He watches Steve for a second, then leans forward, always so uncaring of Steve’s personal space that Steve himself can’t even pretend to mind, not when Eddie’s breath tickles his face, his big doe eyes all soft even as he teases him. “You’re telling me the King of Hawkins didn’t even get to pick his own goddamn curtains?”
Steve gives him a flat look, but his mouth twitches. “Nope. Did you seriously think I’d pick checkered everything?”
Eddie gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “The horror. How did you survive?”
“Barely,” Steve says, smiling now, small but real. Then quieter, “I guess it’s just weird. Standing here and realizing there’s no one else to tell me what to do. What it’s supposed to look like.”
As soon as the words are out, he realizes how true they are. Fighting monsters and saving the world shouldn’t come with this level of self-awareness, but now that he’s put it out there, it does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it? It’s easy to forget how he’s barely a functioning adult himself when there are always so many kids he has to take care of.
Eddie hums, nodding like he gets it — because maybe he does. “Yeah. Feels kinda big, huh? Like too much space for one person.”
Steve looks down at his hands. “Yeah.”
Eddie gives it a beat, then nudges him with his knee. “Okay, first step, we fix the vibe. These walls are giving corporate vacation rental. We need something that says Steve Harrington lives here and occasionally has deep thoughts while holding a mug.”
Steve snorts. “That’s oddly specific.”
“Please, it’s a gift.” Eddie gestures grandly toward the walls. “Do you like plants? Or flowers? There’s a perfectly good spot there.”
Steve shrugs, never having paid any mind to the empty vase left on top of the dresser. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten flowers for myself.”
Eddie nods, cocking his head to the side. “We could do posters, then, maybe a second record player if you’re feeling fancy. You could hang up some of those Polaroids Robin keeps hoarding, or — oh, oh! — I could paint you something. A real Eddie Munson original. It’ll double in value when I die tragically young.”
“Jesus Christ. Don’t even joke about that, man.”
Eddie shrugs, but seems to deflate a bit. He bites his lower lip, looking away for a moment. “Okay, yeah, that was… sorry. But I was serious about the painting part. The dying young thing... Maybe we can table that.”
Steve shakes his head. With a stuttering heart, he finds Eddie’s hand again, placing his palm over the back of his hand. Wordlessly, Eddie twists it up, and their fingers slot together. A small thrill goes down Steve’s spine, and he glances around to keep himself from looking at Eddie’s face.
This wasn’t in the plans for today, but it also feels a bit inevitable, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s always been leading here, the slow pull of it disguised as friendship and banter and late nights listening to music in a house that was too quiet otherwise. And the truth is, Steve doesn’t think he’d know how to do this any other way — how to reach for Eddie without it feeling both terrifying and necessary, like standing at the edge of a pool, knowing the water will shock him cold before it ever starts to feel right. Like pressing on a bruise and relishing the sharp sting of pain, proof that he’s alive.
“I don’t know,” Steve says softly. “I think… I want to figure it out.”
Eddie makes a little noise, and Steve swallows around a lump in his throat, pulse picking up. “Figure out what I actually like, y’know? Who I am when I’m not — when there’s no high school bullshit or the Upside Down or even my parents.”
From the corner of his eye, Steve sees how Eddie’s smile softens, the edges curling down into something gentler, less about bravado and more about listening. He doesn’t move his hand away this time; if anything, he tightens his grip, grounding them both.
“Yeah,” he says, voice quiet now. “You’ve never really had the chance to just… stop and ask yourself that, huh?”
Steve shakes his head. His mouth feels so oddly dry. “Not really. Everything was always kind of — decided. School, sports, friends… How I should act and behave.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “All bullshit.”
Eddie’s thumb traces slow circles against his skin, thoughtful. “I get that,” he murmurs. “Stevie, I — I get it.”
Steve finally looks at him, eyes flicking over Eddie’s face, the streak of paint still faintly smudged near his temple from earlier when Robin dared him to go bother Nancy and Jonathan, the small line between his brows when he’s thinking too hard. Eddie’s face has grown familiar in these weeks of their budding friendship, but it’s Eddie’s mouth that keeps pulling at Steve’s gaze like a beacon. His heart aches for it.
Eddie meets his gaze, Adam’s apple bobbing down as he swallows. “Took me a long time to figure out what I liked, too,” he says, voice dropping lower as he continues, “There’s no rush.”
It does, though. Steve feels like he’s always miles behind everyone else, especially Eddie, especially in this particular topic they’re skirting around.
For a while, they don’t say anything. The sounds from downstairs — laughter, music, the clatter of dishes — feel distant, wrapped in cotton. Steve’s thumb brushes against Eddie’s hand, and Eddie lets him, eyes on the blank wall across from them.
“Whatever you end up putting in here,” Eddie says finally, voice soft again, “it’s gonna be okay. Doesn’t have to be anything else. Just you.”
Steve nods slowly, the words sinking deeper than maybe Eddie even means them to. He hopes Eddie means it like Steve hopes to. “Yeah. I think… that’s what I want.”
Eddie hums, satisfied. “Good. We’ll figure it out. The room, the rest — whatever. One thing at a time.”
Steve exhales a deep breath, squeezing their fingers again. This time, neither of them looks away.
He hasn’t allowed himself to freak out over it. He’s still feeling raw from his talk with Eddie the day before, but there’s an undeniable flutter in his chest when Steve sees Wayne’s truck pull up on the driveway, and he has to make a conscious effort to keep himself from running to the door.
There had been rumors about Eddie back in school, but Steve doesn’t trust them — he’d rather trust Eddie’s words and see the way he acts around Will and Robin and the other kids, the things he says sometimes during his campaigns and out of them, how his eyes linger on Steve’s arms or chest whenever they go to the lake with everyone else — but Eddie’s absence when Wayne turns up on the next morning makes his heart squeeze.
It’s fine. Wayne doesn’t act any different as he claps Steve on the shoulder and makes his way inside, hands full with the stuff they’ll need. Steve’s mind is running circles around itself in the quiet companionship of Wayne’s presence, but they get some decent work done in the next hour, sanding off the walls and applying a coat of something Wayne says will help the paint stick better.
Steve takes his word for it. There’s not a lot of space in his brain as he tries not to freak out over what Eddie’s absence could mean.
He’s so lost to it that he only realizes they aren’t alone anymore when he hears steps coming up the stairs, the clatter of chains and heavy boots coming to a stop at the doorway.
Eddie stands there, hair in complete disarray, cheeks flushed and chest heaving. “Hey — hi, sorry I’m late,” he says between quick breaths, looking equal parts apologetic and coy, gaze meeting Steve’s for a moment before flittering away.
“’Bout time, Ed,” Wayne grumbles good-naturedly, putting down the brush to give his nephew a long look. “Was startin’ to think you got lost on your way here.”
Eddie snorts, shifting from one foot to the other, legs on display under the stupid shorts again. Despite the heat, he’s wearing a damn jacket over his customary band shirt, making Steve frown. Was he going somewhere else?
“I’ve lived here my entire life, old man. Hawkins isn’t that big.”
“Then you ain’t got much of an excuse, do ya?” Wayne teases, giving Steve a conspiratorial look as he wipes his hands on a rag. “Don’t let him talk you into takin’ all the credit when this place starts lookin’ decent. He’s good at showin’ up late and takin’ bows.”
“Hey!” Eddie protests, mock-offended, though there’s laughter behind it. “I’ll have you know I bring the artistic vision.”
Wayne just shakes his head, patting Steve on the shoulder as he heads for the stairs. “I’ll leave you boys to it. Try not to get more paint on yourselves than the walls.”
As soon as his footsteps fade, Eddie’s bravado softens. He shifts, rubbing the back of his neck, meeting Steve’s gaze with a nervous look of his own. The silence between them stretches into something Steve recognizes — or maybe it’s just wishful thinking on his part, wanting to shape it into something familiar.
It’s that particular kind of quiet that settles in right before someone jumps off a ledge they’ve been circling for a while. Steve’s felt it before: the way time slows, the air thick with possibility, that split-second where everything could go either way. He remembers it from the first time he asked Nancy out, the shaky pulse of it in his throat; from the night he blurted out the truth about himself to Robin, terrified and raw but needing to say it anyway.
That same charge hums now in the narrow space between him and Eddie — or at least Steve wants to believe it’s the same. The look in Eddie’s eyes — wide, restless, almost defiant — hits Steve like déjà vu, and he realizes he’s watching someone else stand on the edge of something big. Whatever it is, Eddie’s right there on the brink of it, teetering between staying safe and taking the kind of risk that changes everything.
Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t dare to. He just waits, breath caught somewhere in his chest, as Eddie finally exhales and reaches into his jacket pocket.
“Before we start,” Eddie says as he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a slightly crumpled bouquet of wildflowers, tied together with what looks suspiciously like a guitar string.
“They’re from out back,” he says quickly, like he needs to explain. “Nothin’ fancy, just thought — y’know. For your room. I, huh, I tried to find something pretty.”
Steve blinks, then laughs, caught off guard by how unexpectedly sweet it is. Heat prickles his cheeks. “You brought me flowers?”
Eddie bites his lip, looking away. His feet are bouncing against the floor, nerves coming off him like waves. “Don’t make it weird, Stevie. They’re for the house.”
“Right,” Steve says, taking them carefully anyway. “For the house.”
There’s a moment of silence, the kind that feels like a held breath. The air between them seems to hum faintly, alive with things neither of them have the right words for. Steve looks down at the wildflowers — half-crushed and uneven, stems tangled with guitar string — and feels something tug in his chest.
Don’t make it weird, Stevie.
Time and place, Harrington.
He glances up and finds Eddie watching him, eyes dark and uncertain, like he’s waiting to see if Steve will laugh or run away, like Eddie is debating if he should flee.
But Steve doesn’t. He can’t. The realization hits him quietly, like the slow spread of sunlight through a window — this thing that’s been sneaking up on him for weeks, maybe longer, has finally found its way into the open.
Eddie swallows hard. “No, wait. Fuck — okay.” He gestures weakly toward the flowers, then drops his hand like he’s afraid of what it might do next. There’s so much energy buzzing under his skin that it starts pouring out in the way he bounces on his boots, spins the big skull ring on his index finger. “They’re not — they can be for the house, but I didn’t get here late for a housewarming gift.”
“No?”
Eddie shakes his head, curls falling into his face. “They’re for you.” His voice catches, quiet, whisper-soft. “If you want them.”
Steve’s breath hitches. For a second, neither of them moves. The house creaks faintly around them, dust floating in the streaks of afternoon light, and all Steve can think is that this is one of those moments — the kind that rearranges everything, but gently, so much you almost don’t notice until it’s done.
He takes a half-step closer, the scent of fresh paint and sun-warmed air between them. “I want them,” he says. His voice is barely above a whisper.
Eddie’s laugh is shaky, more exhale than sound. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And then it happens, unhurried, like they’re both afraid to startle it away. Steve’s hand finds Eddie’s sleeve, the smooth leather grounding him, and Eddie leans in just enough for their foreheads to touch before their mouths do. The kiss is tentative, more question than answer, but Steve isn’t in a hurry, neither of them seems to be.
It’s not fireworks or movie-perfect timing. It’s quieter than that. The kind of kiss that, when it breaks, is followed by another, just as soft. Steve loses count when two becomes three and then becomes more, loses himself in the moment, hands finding Eddie’s face and holding it, sighing into the kisses they trade back and forth like secrets in this sun-warmed room.
When they part, Eddie’s eyes are wide, lips parted in surprise. Steve can’t help but smile, small and lopsided, kissing Eddie’s dimple like he had been dreaming of.
“So,” Eddie says, voice low, a little hoarse. “You really liked the flowers, huh?”
Steve laughs, ducking forward to steal another kiss.
Needless to say, they take a long while before they’re done painting the room.
Steve had tried to play it cool — focus on the task at hand and not Eddie’s eyes and mouth and secret little smile every time he caught Steve staring — but his usual M.O. crumbled in the face of Eddie’s blatant giddiness. He is impossible to ignore. He keeps darting into Steve’s space to steal quick pecks, pushing Steve’s fringe away from his eyes, tugging on the laces of his basketball shorts just to watch him flush. “You’re terrible at concentrating, Stevie,” he teases, grinning like the devil himself.
“Hard to concentrate when someone keeps distracting me,” Steve shoots back, aiming a flick of paint at his arm.
Eddie gasps, batting his lashes. “Steve! That’s foul play.”
“Yeah?” Steve grins, tugs him into his space by the belt loops. “What are you going to do about it?”
And that’s how Steve ends up with a streak of pale blue across his cheek and Eddie’s shirt dotted with paint. The laughter comes easy, spilling out of them in between brushes of shoulders and stolen touches, until they both give up pretending they are getting anything done. Steve feels like he’s swallowed a star, whole body bright and tingly even when they part and keep a very respectful distance between themselves once Wayne comes back up.
By the time they finally call it, the sun’s dipping low in the sky, and the room looks — well, not perfect, but good. Lived-in. The kind of good that makes Steve’s chest ache in a way he doesn’t want to name just yet.
Wayne says he needs to run some errands before calling it a night and Eddie shoots Steve a look — a wordless question that Steve answers with a hopeful look of his own. He doesn’t want today to end. The room around them hums with the residue of everything they’ve said and everything they haven’t yet, and he’s grown so used to Eddie’s presence til the late hours of the night that he hadn’t even considered that might be a thing that would change.
He wants Eddie here. Close enough to kiss and to feel the tickle of his laughter against his cheek.
Once they’re alone, the silence feels awkward. Steve doesn’t know what to do here — not because Eddie is a guy, but because Eddie is a friend. Steve can’t remember ever doing it like this; the order usually goes from flirting to sex and then a relationship, maybe, if he’s lucky, being able to become friends in the aftermath — like with Nancy — and isn’t that just fucking terrible, that his only point of reference is Nancy goddamn Wheeler —
He’s terrified of losing Eddie. Not because it would be awkward, not because of what their friends might say — even if he hopes the kids are chill about this, fuck, he hadn’t even stopped to consider they might not be —, but because Eddie’s the kind of friend who showed up and stayed. Who never really asked about it, but made sure Steve wasn’t alone and the only one who made laughter sound like something that belonged to him again. He’s never had something like this — someone like this — and it hits him all at once that if he screws this up, if he crosses a line he can’t uncross, he might lose not just the chance at something more but Eddie himself. And that thought makes his throat go tight, makes his palms sweat.
He had refused to lose Eddie in the Upside Down, all those months ago, pounding on his chest and making sure he had a pulse until they reached the hospital. He had almost lost him there and the pain had been sharp enough to bleed his heart dry. He can’t imagine losing Eddie now that he really knows him.
“Hey,” Eddie says softly, stepping into Steve’s personal space like it’s nothing. Like nothing’s changed. “Are you okay, Stevie? I can go, if you — did you change your mind?”
And oh, boy. Steve’s heart squeezes in his chest because now that he’s looking he can see the fear in Eddie’s eyes. They’ve never really talked about it, but Steve can imagine the things Eddie’s been through — Robin has never been shy about her own fears, and Steve aches for the ways people might have made Eddie feel small, unsafe, unworthy.
Eddie’s still standing here, though, still offering himself up to be rejected, and it hits Steve that this is Eddie being brave. Not the loud kind of brave, not the showy, using-himself-for-bat-bait-in-a-hell-dimension type of brave, but the kind that stays put. The kind that stays even when it would be easier to run.
Eddie is so brave.
“No, I’m — fuck, I’m freaking out a little bit, but it’s not — I didn’t change my mind.” The words tumble out of Steve’s mouth, “I just… I don’t want to lose you. If I — when I fuck up.”
Eddie tilts his head, something soft flickering in his eyes. “Why would you be the one fucking it up?”
“It’s what I do.” Steve huffs out a humorless laugh. “I always need a second chance at stuff before I get it right.”
Eddie studies him for a long moment, then sighs — gentle, steady. “Okay,” he says simply. “Then I’ll just keep giving you chances.”
“What?”
Eddie’s smile dimples his cheek, his fingers finding Steve’s belt loops and tugging him that extra bit close. He takes a deep breath, eyelashes fluttering close and then opening again, steadying himself. “Okay, yeah, I’m calling it. As the DM, I hereby declare you’re always rolling with advantage from now on.”
At Steve’s confused stare, Eddie playfully rolls his eyes, his free hand coming up to gesture in the air. “House rule, Stevie, c’mon. Every time you think you’re about to mess something up, you get to reroll. Bam. No harm, no foul.”
Steve blinks, mouth twitching up despite himself. “That’s not how real life works, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude, dude.”
“My point still stands, this isn’t — ”
“Don’t care!” Eddie leans in, full of glee, close enough that Steve can feel his breath ghost across his lips. “This is me and you, sweetheart. We make the rules, okay? So if I want to let you roll with advantage and give you a point of inspiration for every kiss you give me, no one will stop me. You get all the chances your little heart desires.”
Steve doesn’t understand fully what Eddie is saying, but he also understands it enough that he swallows hard, pulse fluttering. “Oh, so I get special treatment, is that it?”
“Obviously.” Eddie’s grin turns lopsided, teasing. “Just don’t tell the children. Mike will murder you with his mind.”
“Business as usual then.”
They both laugh together, the sound bouncing off the walls, filling all the little nooks between Steve’s ribs. He doesn’t know who moves first, but they’re kissing again, the laughter still tangled between them, soft and clumsy and a little breathless.
Eddie’s hand finds the side of Steve’s neck, thumb brushing over the hinge of his jaw like he’s memorizing the shape of him. Steve leans in without thinking, without hesitation, every thought narrowing down to the warmth of Eddie’s mouth and the way it fits against his. It’s not polished or practiced — Eddie tastes like mint and paint and something unsteady — but it feels real, feels like something they both built from the ground up.
When they go to bed, Steve lets Eddie borrow whatever he wants, laughing when Eddie returns clad in sweatpants and an old shirt from his swimming days, worn soft and faded, loose around his shoulders, and Harrington emblazoned across the back.
The sight of it twists something deep in Steve’s stomach — familiar and strange all at once. Eddie grins like he knows exactly what he’s doing, launching himself onto the mattress with an exaggerated “cannonball!” that makes them both bounce and laugh until the headboard knocks lightly against the wall. Steve is certain this room hasn’t seen this much laughter ever, and in that moment, he vows — not for the first time, and definitely not for the last — that he’ll be different. Different from his parents. Different from the man everyone once thought he was supposed to be.
He wants this. He wants a room that overlooks the forest and a guy that makes his heart lighter, whose joy can fill the silences Steve doesn’t yet know how to navigate on his own. Wants someone who looks at him like they’re sharing a joke, or a secret, or something else just as big that belongs only to the two of them.
Here, lying side by side on Steve’s brand new bed, facing each other, Steve feels himself start to drift off. The sheets rustle when Eddie shifts, one arm under his head while the other rests in the space between their bodies, hair fanning out against the pillow. The house is quiet in a way it’s never been before — not empty, but still. Peaceful. The kind of silence that wraps around Steve instead of suffocating him.
Steve watches the rise and fall of Eddie’s chest, the soft curve of his mouth even in sleep. It hits him then — maybe this is what it’s supposed to feel like. Maybe this is his second chance, already, happening right here in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, in the smell of soap and paint and Eddie’s shampoo lingering in the air.
He doesn’t need to start over. He just needs to… not let go. Rebuilding. One piece on top of the other.
So he closes his eyes, heart steadying against the quiet. For once, he doesn’t feel like he’s about to screw it all up. For once, he’s hopeful he will get to keep this.