Work Text:
1.
Steve, embarrassingly, passes out in the waiting room of Hawkins Memorial before he can even get Eddie on a gurney.
He wakes up in a hospital bed several days later feeling like he’s been hit by a truck. The room is clean and sterile and so white it hurts his eyes, and he doesn’t even get upright before someone comes and puts something in his IV to send him back under.
The second time, he’s a little more… well, awake. Enough to focus on the bed across from his, where a familiar figure is grinning at him, jabbing at a jello cup with one bandaged hand.
“Hail and well met, fellow soldier,” Eddie Munson says, “You look like shit, by the way.”
Steve cringes, one hand instinctively flying up to his hair. It only gets halfway before pain burns through his shoulder and back, and he very suddenly remembers being dragged across a lake bed by the throat.
“Ow,” he croaks, then grimaces when talking hurts just as bad.
“Jesus, Ed,” a voice he doesn’t recognise says, low and gravelly and faintly amused, “Cut the kid some slack, wouldya?”
A man looms into his view – much older than Eddie, grizzled and exhausted-looking, wearing a worn flannel rolled up to his forearms. He’s holding one of those little plastic cups of water in one hand, which he offers out. Steve takes it, because he’s polite, but he doesn’t drink it. Most of the government cronies he’s met have been wearing suits but maybe this guy got called in on his day off.
“Wayne,” Eddie says, managing to get some of the jello onto his plastic spoon, “Look at him and tell him he doesn’t look rough.”
“Boy, I don’t think you got the right to comment on anyone’s appearance right now,” the man says. Then, to Steve, “He’s on some real strong stuff. Just ignore him.”
Eddie, looking the most relaxed Steve’s ever seen him, is trying to get the wobbly spoon of jello to his mouth. It clicks, then – Wayne, as in Uncle, as in Eddie’s Uncle Wayne – and Steve finds himself flooded with relief. He makes the split-second decision that the water probably isn’t poisoned and chugs the entire thing.
Hydration wakes him up enough to take in details of the room around him. There’s a chair next to his bed, with a familiar grey hooded sweatshirt that he recognizes as one Robin stole from him tossed over the arm, and he feels a sudden pang of loneliness. If she were here she’d be holding his hand, and for a moment he wants nothing more than to feel some sort of kind touch.
But before he can ask where she is there’s a sudden flood of doctors and nurses, the blue curtains around each of their beds swishing closed abruptly. Steve has to swallow against the lump in his throat as they ask him questions and poke and prod, eyes closed and teeth gritted through the pain until they deem him adequate and leave him in peace.
The curtain around Eddie’s bed is still drawn, and Steve can hear almost every word with how close together they are. One person is saying something about a graft, and then about stitches, and then Wayne’s voice rises over them to ask a question about healing time, and then -
“When’re you gonna cut the other one off?” Eddie asks loudly.
That makes Steve sit up. Or – it makes him try, but engaging his core hurts really fucking bad, so he kind of does a half-crunch and then grunts in pain and flops back onto the thin pillow. His heartbeat has accelerated at the mention of cutting anything off. He’s certain Eddie had both hands while he was eating the jello cup, but he hadn’t focused too much on legs. And he couldn’t see Eddie’s fingers all that clearly – that would be a big deal, to lose a finger as a guitar player, shit -
The doctors are talking over each other trying to reply, but Eddie interrupts again. “‘Cause it’s kinda – I mean, I’m lopsided, and honestly I feel like you could have cut the other one off while you were already there –”
“Boy,” Wayne says, sounding weary, “You were bleedin’ out.”
“I’m just sayin’ –”
“Please ignore my nephew,” Wayne is saying, and then the curtain is drawing back and the blankets are pushed to the side of Eddie’s bed and he definitely has both legs, and both feet, and probably all of his toes.
That’s a relief, obviously, but it leaves Steve thinking – the other what?
But, again, he doesn’t get a chance to ask, because about thirty seconds later Robin bursts into the room and all Steve can think about is how he has to not fucking cry.
He succeeds, but barely. Robin cries enough for the both of them, gets snot and tears all over his gown as she alternates between berating him for ignoring the obvious infection developing in his bat bites and congratulating him for not succumbing to it. Eddie heckles them from the other side of the room, and Robin chews him out for ‘“That dumbass hero play, Munson, you already know how I feel about it, don’t make me remind you –”
It’s so fucking good to see her that Steve can’t stop smiling. She holds his hand the entire time, talking and talking until her voice goes hoarse. It takes almost all of Steve’s energy just to stay focused on her, so he misses much of what goes on over on Eddie’s side of the room. There’s another visit from a nurse to hang an IV for both of them, and while Robin is busy glugging down a little plastic cup of water he catches her saying something to someone as she leaves, “Mr. Harrington and Mis –” but the door slams shut before he catches the end of it.
Eddie had fallen asleep somewhere around Robin’s creative retelling of everyone’s reaction to Steve going down like a ton of bricks. Steve watches him as he listens, as Wayne tucks the blanket back over him, brushing his hair back from his face. He looks better than he had when Steve had last seen him. He’d been so pale, unmoving and blue at the lips and cold, and now he just looks young and tired and kind of small in the hospital bed. He moves in his sleep, his face twitching, bandaged hands making little movements atop the covers. Steve hopes he’ll heal okay - apart from whatever they’ve had to cut off, and suddenly all that worry has flooded back in and his fingers go tight around Robin’s.
She stops mid-sentence and looks at him, her brows drawing together. “Steve? You okay?”
He gestures for her to come closer, not wanting to speak too loudly. They’re alone in the room – Wayne having just stepped out, offering to bring Robin back a coffee – but he lowers his voice to a whisper before asking, “D’you know what they cut off?”
She gives him a look. “From you? They didn’t cut anything off. Well, I mean – I haven’t checked, y’know, there, but –”
“Not my dick,” Steve says, nodding his head in Eddie’s direction exaggeratedly. He’s one-hundred-percent certain his dick is still attached, but now she’s raised the possibility he’s developed another concern.
An odd expression flits across her face, and then she says “They didn’t cut Eddie’s dick off.”
She says it way louder than he wanted her to, and Steve tries to hush her, but then Eddie’s jerking awake with a snort. “Wha’ ‘bout my dick?”
“Nothing!” Robin says, “Nothing, Eddie, nothing –”
Steve opens his mouth and Robin covers it with her sweaty palm. “Shut up,” she hisses. Steve licks her palm in defiance, and - as he predicted - she snatches it away and gags exaggeratedly, wiping her hand on the blanket covering his legs. Steve takes the opportunity to voice his concerns.
“Dude,” he says, “What’d they cut off? Your fingers?”
Robin makes a noise kind of like she’s been karate chopped in the throat. Steve ignores it, because Eddie starts laughing like Steve’s made the funniest joke he’s ever heard – laughter that swiftly turns to pained groans, bandaged hands pressing against his abdomen. “My fingers,” he wheezes, and then – “My dick?”
“Don’t make him laugh!” Robin hisses, swatting Steve on the shoulder, “Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?”
“What was it?” Steve asks, desperate – and Eddie lets out another howl of pained laughter, tears welling in his eyes. He pounds one fist weakly against the shitty hospital mattress, giggling like a Halloween decoration.
“My dick,” he says, pointing a shaky hand at Steve, “Harrington, you are – the funniest fucking jock I’ve ever met –”
Steve’s lost. He casts a hopeful look at Robin, who has her head in her hands. He opens his mouth to voice his confusion, but Eddie beats him to it.
“Dude,” he says, voice all squeaky from the laughter, “They’d have to give me a dick first.”
“What?” says Steve.
“What?” says Eddie.
“Oh my god,” says Robin. “Oh my god. Okay. When is Wayne coming back?”
“Wait.” Steve blinks several times. “Wait. I don’t – I’m confused.”
This makes Eddie start laughing again, and Robin hisses “We’ll talk about it later.” The bug-eyed look on her face tells Steve that she’s being really serious, so he obligingly shuts his mouth and listens to Eddie’s giggles slowly transform into snores.
Steve gets his explanation a full fourteen hours later.
That’s how long it takes for him and Robin to get a second alone. He’s been given the OK to get out of bed, and Robin gets approval from his doctor to wheel up to visit Max on the children’s floor, so long as she promises to have him back before his next bandage change.
He’s been all caught up on the aftermath of the battle – El and Mike and Jonathan and some guy called Argyle have apparently arrived from California, along with Joyce and Hopper, who is not dead and was in Russia, a fact proven to Steve by a late-night visit that kind of felt like that Christmas ghost story about the guy who hoards money. Lucas and Erica had both been by to visit, each sporting their own injuries – Lucas with a broken nose and two blackened eyes, Erica with a fractured shoulder, which Steve is still stewing in his guilt about. There’s been so much back and forth via short visits and relayed phone calls and construction paper get-well-soon cards that Steve’s brain feels like soup, but he’s managed to hold on to one single thing.
“What the hell does –” he starts as soon as they leave the room, but Robin flicks him on the ear and starts down the hall towards the elevators.
“After we see Max,” she says firmly, and Steve knows better than to argue with her when she gets deadly serious like this.
So they visit Max, and it’s – fuck. Steve doesn’t cry when he sees her, but it’s a damn close thing. She’s awake, which is amazing, but she’s got four thick clunky casts and a layer of gauze over her eyes, protecting them as they heal. The doctors say she’ll never regain her previous level of sight, and they’re not making any promises about walking again. Steve apologizes in a thick, unsteady voice, and she slaps his arm (with terrifying accuracy) and tells him that she’s glad he wasn’t there, because she doesn’t want whatever gross Upside Down infection he was incubating.
By the time the nurses kick them out he’s feeling like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders. Everyone’s okay. Nobody’s dead. He can actually focus on healing for once. Healing and –
“So,” he tries, “About –”
“Wait,” Robin hisses, and Steve twists painfully in the wheelchair to glare at her.
“You said –”
“I will change your bandages myself,” she threatens, and Steve shuts his mouth. It takes him a second to realize they’re not heading directly to the elevators, and then Robin pulls open a door and rolls him inside.
“Uh,” Steve says, “Why are we in a janitor’s cupboard?”
“This is where Nancy and I go to debrief,” Robin tells him, and then: “You have to promise not to tell.”
“That you and Nancy debrief here?” Steve asks, brows furrowing. “Wait. About Eddie?”
She nods, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Steve huffs. “How am I supposed to tell when I don’t know?”
“Okay,” she says, “The only reason I’m telling you this is because Eddie thinks he’s already explained it and he hasn’t. You seriously cannot tell anyone else. Nobody.”
“Right,” Steve says. He waits impatiently for a moment, and then when Robin just continues to stare at him he says, “So?”
“Eddie doesn’t have a dick because he wasn’t born a guy,” says Robin. “The other thing is his other boob.”
“Okay,” Steve says, and then, “Wait, what?”
2.
So.
Steve learns a lot of new words very quickly. He forgets a lot of them, because he is pretty tired and his painkillers are starting to wear off, but Robin makes sure one thing sticks in his head.
“This is, like, a big fucking thing, Steve,” she’d said, hands braced on the armrests of his wheelchair. “If this gets out it could be bad. Really bad. Eddie could get murdered.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Steve had said, because he wouldn’t. He’s kept Robin’s secret, what makes her think he can’t keep Eddie’s? But she’d made him promise another three times before letting him out of the cupboard, and then they’d been late for his bandage change.
But he keeps the secret. He doesn’t bring it up to Eddie, who gets weaned off the strong painkillers and suddenly becomes a lot less talkative, but he does start noticing some stuff. Things like how a lot of the nurses refer to him as Munson but they always call Steve Mr. Harrington or Steve. Like how both Wayne and Eddie keep asking about this next surgery, and how one side of Eddie’s chest is flatter than the other.
Steve has a lot of questions. Some of them were probably answered by Robin in the janitor’s closet, but his memory is bad even at the best of times, so he’s kind of accepted that she’ll poke fun at him when he asks her again. Easier to just muddle along and hope that things just… get clearer.
He and Eddie are discharged on the same day. They’re both wheeled out to the entrance, blinking in the bright sun, clutching matching paper bags of pills and instructions.
Wayne’s already there, having gone to pull his truck around, so Steve isn’t surprised to see him. He is startled by the sight of Nancy leaning up against her car, a smile spreading across her face as she waves.
“Nance,” Steve says, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m your ride home,” Nancy says, like it’s obvious. Maybe it should have been. Steve’s technically cleared to drive, but he also keeps falling asleep in the middle of conversations, so. Makes sense Robin would organise a ride for him.
Getting into the car is a fucking debacle. Steve is so distracted by the fact that his guts are definitely trying to burst through his stitches that he doesn’t even notice the Munsons have left until Nancy’s getting into the driver’s seat beside him.
Something like disappointment squirms in his stomach. He doesn’t know why. It just would have been nice to say goodbye, he thinks. They’ve spent a lot of time together recently. He might even call them friends.
Recovery is incredibly fucking boring.
Steve is sleeping in his dad’s recliner, which is weird, but means he doesn’t need anyone’s help to get up in the morning. He’s watching a lot of TV. He sees the kids when they’re not in school. Robin is over pretty constantly, obviously, because Family Video currently has no water or power, and it’s not high on the city’s list of things to repair. He’s been badgering her to get her license so she can drive him to the hospital to see Max.
“Jesus Christ,” she says after he brings it up for the fourth time that day, “You’re worse than Eddie.”
Steve’s head snaps around so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t hurt his neck.
Eddie is really the only member of the group that he hasn’t seen since leaving the hospital. It’s to be expected, really: neither of them can drive, and the Munsons are holed up at a motel a town away until the government can source them somewhere permanent. Steve just – hadn’t been aware that anyone else was seeing him regularly.
“Since when are you hanging out with Eddie?” he says, indignant.
Robin gives him a delighted look. “Are you jealous?”
Steve is not jealous. He just feels a tiny, tiny bit threatened. He turns his head back towards the TV, trying not to betray anything.
Robin is his best friend, obviously. But he’s aware that there’s things she likes to talk about that go… over his head. And there are parts of her that, as much as he loves her, he can’t relate in a way he thinks she wishes he could.
Things that Eddie probably can relate to. Because Eddie’s cool, and Steve’s just –
Steve. Corn-fed, all-American, straight guy Steve. There’s nothing he can do to change that.
It must show on his face, because Robin’s expression changes from gleeful to faintly sympathetic. “Hey. Nancy and I go out every couple days to drop off schoolwork for him, and we usually stick around for a while and talk.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, “Of course. That’s – yeah. How’s he doing?”
“Okay,” Robin says, “Bored. Healing. Itchy, I hear about that a lot.”
“Oh, man, tell me about it,” Steve mutters. He’s taken to doubling up on bandages just so he can scratch over the top of them to alleviate the constant itching.
“You must be having separation anxiety after so long in the same room together,” Robin muses, and then she gasps and sits up. “Holy shit, I’m an idiot!”
“What?” Steve says, but she’s already scrambling to her feet, heading into the kitchen. “Robin? Robin! What the fuck are you –”
Robin organises a fucking sleepover.
Like they’re twelve.
And Steve’s kind of mad about it, because she organised it to happen in his house without even asking, but he’s also kind of jazzed. He likes hanging out with Robin and Nancy, and he likes hanging out with Robin and Eddie, so he figures the chances of enjoying hanging out with all three of them together are probably pretty high. They’ll eat pizza and watch a movie and talk about all the fucked up shit that’s happened to them. It’ll be fun.
The first hour goes much as Steve was expecting. Nancy and Eddie arrive bearing snacks, and with Robin already there they all settle in the den. They bicker over pizza orders and which movie they’re going to watch. Eddie’s in fine form, has graduated to walking short distances with the assistance of a stick, and they commiserate over the trials of healing interdimensional bat bites. Steve admits he’s been sleeping in the recliner that Eddie’s currently sat in, and Eddie puts a hand to his chest and says, “You mean I’ve finally found my way into Steve Harrington’s bed? Robin, you know this makes you the odd one out, right?”
Steve’s stomach does a weird jolting-flipping thing. Nancy lets out a bark of laughter. Robin, indignant, says, “I sleep in Steve’s bed all the time!”
“Not like Wheeler and I do,” Eddie says, lofty, and Steve’s face goes hot even as he snorts.
They eat too much pizza and watch a whodunnit that Robin had liberated from the Family Video archives before the doors got locked. Eddie does impressions of all the characters that makes them all laugh so hard Steve has to flee to the bathroom to check none of his wounds reopened.
When he returns, the TV has switched over to reruns of Remington Steele. Nancy and Robin are bickering over a handful of face masks laid out on the couch. One of them has raided the twelve-pack he’d stuck in the fridge, so Eddie is nursing a beer and listening with an amused look on his face. He cuts a glance sideways at Steve, jabs a thumb in the direction of the couch and mouths get a load of this.
Steve snorts, bypassing his side of the L-shaped couch to fetch his own beer from the kitchen. When he returns, Robin and Nancy are smearing this slimy-looking goop on their faces, and Robin gives him a hopeful look as he heads back to his seat.
“Nope,” he says, “No way. Absolutely not.”
“You are no fun,” she grouches, then turns a hopeful and slightly unsettling smile on Eddie.
“Nuh-uh,” Eddie says, one hand deep in a bag of chips, “Last time I was picking green stuff out of my hair for days.”
“Exactly,” Steve says, and then, “Wait – what? Last time? You mean you let her do this once?”
“She took advantage of me when I was bedridden,” Eddie says with a sigh, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead like a character from one of Mrs. Henderson’s romance novels. “She said it would help with the weird rash the antibiotics gave me.”
“It did!”
“Yeah, because all the skin on my face peeled off!”
“Oh, ew,” Steve grimaces, and gets a relieved exactly! from Eddie.
“Some people say chemical peels are actually great for your skin,” Nancy says loftily, “My mom was saying my aunt in Maine goes to get one every week, and her skin is great.”
“Your aunt also told you wearing pants would make all the nice boys think you’re a bra-burner,” Steve points out, and Robin lets out a bark of laughter that makes her sound like a seal.
Nancy takes the opportunity to tell them that after Vecna her aunt had also express-shipped five signed bibles to them – signed by who, Eddie howls, Jesus? – and implored them to study the good book to ‘prevent them from any further misfortune.’
Steve had met this aunt exactly once, and she had thought he was one of Nancy’s girlfriends because he was wearing a dark purple sweater and had hair that touched his collar. She had been genuinely horrified to find out he was her boyfriend. He and Nancy had laughed about it later, but it had stuck in his mind like a burr for weeks afterwards. He’d kept looking in the mirror, wondering what about him looked girly.
He thinks about bringing it up now, as another funny story about Crazy Aunt Wheeler, but then Robin and Nancy get up to wash their face masks off, and the moment is gone.
Steve drains his beer, and excuses himself to fetch another. When he returns, Nancy has emptied a bag of makeup out onto his coffee table and is giving Robin what looks like a very impassioned lecture. As he walks into the room they both turn, eyes fixing on him like a pair of wolves spotting a lone deer.
“No,” Steve says immediately, “Absolutely not. Don’t even ask.”
This time they don’t argue – their heads just swivel, perfectly in sync, to face Eddie. Eddie, who is watching this happen with a mildly interested expression on his face.
“Okay,” Robin says, gesturing to Eddie, “C’mere, Munson. Your turn.”
Steve snorts, shaking his head as he lowers himself back onto the couch. Robin’s tried persuading him to be her guinea pig before too, and he turns to exchange a knowing look with Eddie, like, can you believe she’s still trying this?
Except Eddie’s not looking in his direction. He’s not even in the recliner anymore. Instead he’s shuffling himself to the edge of the seat, grimacing as he hauls himself upright.
“Uh –” Steve hears the words squeak out of his throat before he can stop them, “Eddie? Dude?”
“One sec,” Eddie tells him, focused on getting himself over to the couch without the aid of his stick. Nancy extends a hand out to him, taking some of his weight until he flops down onto the cushions with a heavy sigh. “Shoot, Harrington.”
Steve’s brain is moving so fast that he can’t quite keep up with it. His eyes bounce from the makeup scattered across the coffee table to the mascara in Nancy’s hands to the quizzical expression on Eddie’s face as he swings his legs up over Robin’s and lays himself down with his head in Nancy’s lap.
Steve wants to say hey, you don’t have to. He wants to say doesn’t it make you uncomfortable? You can say no. Nobody will be mad. Robin just says shit sometimes. It’s okay. She’s just trying to make you feel included.
“You – you’re gonna?” is all he manages to say.
“Hell yeah, I am,” Eddie says. He’s letting Nancy pin his bangs off his forehead with little hair clips. “You’re telling me you don’t like the sensation of all those little brushy things on your face?”
Steve doesn’t have anything to say to that. He hasn’t had a makeup brush on his face since he was five and got into his mom’s vanity. He still vividly remembers the way she’d yelled at him when she found him, lipstick in one hand and a pretty fan-shaped brush in the other.
He remembers washing it off in the bathroom with shameful tears rolling down his face. He remembers her wiping them away afterwards, trying to soothe him as he sobbed and sobbed. He remembers how she had tidied up his mess before his father got home.
Boys do not wear makeup. That was what he learned.
Except he’s sitting here, watching Eddie accept eyeshadow being brushed onto his skin without even the slightest complaint. Eddie, who is a boy. Eddie, who chose to be a boy, which Steve figures is harder than just being born one.
Surely, he thinks, surely this must be horrible for him. Surely it must feel wrong, like wearing clothes that don’t fit. It can’t be nice. He can’t like this.
But Eddie lies there, a serene little smile on his face as Nancy tells him to hold still and dabs at his eyes like they’re a painting she’s trying to perfect. His shirt lies unevenly across the lumps and bumps of bandaging over his torso. Steve sits with his beer cradled protectively against his chest and watches as Robin leans over Nancy’s shoulder and offers suggestions, grinning as Eddie reaches up and blindly wags a finger in her face, telling her to listen to the expert.
And when Eddie sits up –
Steve was expecting him to look like a girl. He doesn’t. Nancy’s made him look like a rockstar, all smoky and dark around the eyes, but he still – he still looks like a guy, with stubble shadowing his upper lip and the sharp angle of his jaw. Grinning wide, tilting his head back and forth as he looks at himself in Robin’s little clamshell mirror. Then his glance slides sideways, over to Steve.
He winks.
Steve snaps his gaze away, his face heating up. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he takes a stabilizing sip of beer. It doesn’t help, the bitter taste making his throat close up.
He grabs the remote and turns Remington Steele up. Just to have something else to look at.
Eddie wears the makeup all night.
They watch Airplane! and laugh so hard they cry. When Steve glances over at Eddie as the credits roll, there are dark lines on his face where the eyeliner has run. He does a bad job of wiping it away, leaves it all smeared on his cheeks like face paint.
Steve’s not unfamiliar with the sight, but only on girls and usually when they were mad at him. He likes when girls wear makeup, sure, but he never liked it when they cried and everything got smudged and ruined. He never thought it looked good.
Eddie’s not a girl, and he’s not mad at Steve, and he makes it look good.
It makes Steve’s head hurt. He tries not to think about it for the rest of the evening, as Nancy and Robin help him gather enough blankets and pillows for the four of them. The decision was made early that they’d all sleep in the living room, so Eddie stays on the recliner and Steve on the couch, while the girls share an air mattress excavated from the Wheelers’ basement on the floor. There is a silent consensus between them that a lamp in the corner stays on as the tv is switched off and the conversation starts to dwindle.
Robin, Nancy and Eddie chat back and forth for a little while, before Eddie’s replies trail off and Steve hears him start to snore. Nancy is next, and Robin mumbles to herself for a few minutes before she goes quiet, too.
Steve lies there, listening to his friends sleep. He’s close to drifting off, too, though it always takes him a while to get comfortable when he can’t sprawl out on his front, so he ends up kind of folded into the corner of the couch, squashed between the cushions enough to make sure he’ll stay upright during the night.
His eyes track lazily across the room as he slips deeper into sleep. Robin is laid out on her back, one arm thrown up over her head. Nancy is curled up with her back pressed against Robin’s side, precariously close to the edge of the air mattress. Eddie’s got a blanket pulled up to his chin, his head rolled to the side, facing Steve.
He sleeps with his mouth open, lips parted slightly. The lamp throws light across the planes of his face, his eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks, the remains of the makeup he’d done his best to wash off in Steve’s kitchen sink making his eyes seem deeper and darker than they had before. It highlights the scar on his jaw, the one that pulls at the skin of his cheek and gives him a permanent almost-smirk when he’s awake. In sleep, the curves of his mouth smooth out completely. He looks softer. Younger, somehow.
Steve wonders what Eddie might have looked like when he was a little boy, if he ever got into his mom’s vanity. If, maybe, that was how he discovered the way the soft brushes danced gently over his skin, just like Steve had.
The difference between them, he thinks, is that Eddie had been brave after that. Brave enough to seek the feeling again. Brave enough to take a leap into becoming himself.
Steve would think about what that bravery might look like for him, but by the time it tiptoes around the edge of his mind, he’s already asleep.
3.
Eddie and Wayne move from a government-funded motel room into a run-down three-bed farmhouse three weeks later.
Steve’s recovered enough to drive by then, which means he’s seeing Eddie a lot more. Like, a lot. Like, with Family Video still closed, basically every day.
Something had changed in their relationship after the sleepover, Steve thinks. Something about waking up in a room that wasn’t in a hospital together, and finally learning how Eddie took his coffee, and seeing him at the breakfast bar with Robin and Nancy, making fun of the way Steve scrambles eggs. All of a sudden the four of them clicked together, and Steve and Eddie clicked separately, too.
It’s nice. They hang out at the motel pretty often, because Wayne’s back at the plant and the rest of their friends are still in high school, and they both get lonely during the day. They watch a lot of daytime TV and a lot of game shows. Eddie’s kind of a whiz at The Price is Right and Jeopardy!, but Steve beats him out at Family Feud and Win, Lose or Draw almost every time. He makes popcorn on the hotplate that Mrs. Henderson loaned them and they throw it at the shitty little TV when someone gets an easy question wrong.
In between all that, they talk. Eddie’s funny, Steve already knew that, but he’s also really smart. He talks about the crazy books he reads, and about the D&D campaigns he wants to write, and the weird horror movies he has on his to-watch list once the Family Video gets power back.
The one thing they don’t really talk about is anything to do with Eddie not always being a guy.
Steve doesn’t ask about it, because he doesn’t know how to form the questions without accidentally saying something wrong. Eddie doesn’t bring it up, except from cryptic little mentions of an upcoming surgery, and every time he does it’s with a little look out of the corner of his eye, like he’s convinced that this is the time Steve’s gonna be weird about it.
Steve isn’t. Honestly, even if he were freaked out by the whole changing gender thing – which he fucking isn’t – he’s just happy to have a friend to hang out with every day. It’s a dark day when he’s actually missing the musty smell of Family Video.
So when the Munsons are told they’re getting their own place, Steve’s a little nervous that maybe Eddie won’t want to hang out anymore. That maybe the appeal will fade when he has something more than four dingy walls and a shitty TV to entertain him.
Turns out, he had no reason to worry at all. The Munsons have been moved in for barely a day before Eddie’s ringing Steve up, asking if he wants to come over. So he does, and it’s like nothing changed at all.
The farmhouse is nice. A little dated when it comes to the decor, but the government were kind enough to outfit it with all the amenities. Steve and Eddie watch game shows on a 25-inch TV, in a living room lined with burnt-orange shag carpeting, and eat sandwiches in a pastel-pink kitchen with a brand new refrigerator humming in the background. It’s surreal, but it’s fun. Steve kind of feels like he’s playing house, in a surreal way.
On that day, Steve lets himself in through the front door, just like Eddie always says he should. He kicks his shoes off by the door and rakes his fingers through his hair, wishing the Munsons had a mirror in their hallway instead of a Ghostbusters poster. “Eddie? You here, man?”
“In here!” Eddie’s voice drifts through faintly, and Steve makes a beeline for it, following the faint sound of conversation until he reaches the kitchen.
“Hey, pal.” Eddie says, lifting his hand in a wave. He’s perched on a stool in the middle of the pink kitchen, with damp hair and a towel draped around his shoulders, wearing a tank top and a big smile. Standing behind him is Wayne, holding a pair of scissors in one hand and a beer in one hand.
“Oh,” Steve says, somewhat awkwardly, “Hey, Wayne. Hi, Eddie.”
Wayne gives him a nod, which Steve has learned is the equivalent to a friendly greeting for the elder Munson. “Steve. Y’here for the shearin’?”
“Huh?” Steve says.
“It’s haircut time,” Eddie clarifies, still grinning. “I’m starting to look like Farrah Fawcett. Gotta get the bangs back.”
“Oh,” Steve says, shifting back and forth on his socked feet. “Should I – come back later?”
Both Munsons fix him with a look, and Steve goes and sits down at the kitchen table before Eddie starts yelling at him.
Wayne offers him a beer, which he takes, and then Eddie catches him up on the current drama at the plant – apparently a manager’s wife just left him for one of the guys who works on the line, carving a chasm between the departments, and Wayne’s maintenance buddies are debating which side they should come down on. Steve listens and watches, nursing the beer as condensation pools on the formica table.
Wayne cuts Eddie’s hair in practiced, relaxed movements, barely chopping off an inch. Eddie’s hair stays long enough to pass his shoulders, long enough to frame his face.
“Don’t take too much off, old man,” Eddie says, like he’s reading Steve’s mind, and gets a swat on the shoulder with the back of Wayne’s hand. “Ow! Steve, did you see that?”
“Nope,” Steve says, because he does think it’s kinda funny to gang up on Eddie with Wayne. “Didn’t see anything.”
Eddie wails like Steve’s dealt him a death blow, swaying back and forth on the stool until Wayne puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. “Quit it, boy, or I’m gonna end up takin’ a whole hunk off.”
“I’m being persecuted,” Eddie says mournfully, “Oppressed. In my own home.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wayne says, but there’s a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth as he runs the comb through Eddie’s hair and chops off another inch. “Suck it up.”
Steve combs his fingers through his own hair, feeling it tickle at the back of his neck. He likes having longer hair, likes how it makes him look, but he could probably do with a haircut. His parents don’t like when it gets long enough to curl over his collar. Robin says he worries too much about what they think, but he’s not really sure how he’s supposed to not do that. They’re his parents.
The argument they’d had when he decided he wanted to grow his hair out of the crew cut his mom had been ordering the barber to give him since he was five was one of the first big shouting matches of Steve’s teens. He can’t imagine the kind of words his father would have thrown at him if Steve had kept growing his hair, down to his shoulders or further. The only reason he manages to get away with his current haircut is that he can pick up a photo of Keith Richards and say look, Dad, it’s fashionable right now.
Wayne circles around to Eddie’s front and starts in on his bangs. Eddie shuts his eyes and wrinkles his nose as little bits of cut hair fall over his face, huffing out little breaths to blow the worst of it away. It’s – sweet. Cute, but not in a weird way. Cute like the way Robin wrinkles her nose when Steve does something to gross her out. Friendly-cute, Steve tells himself.
“Alright,” Wayne says, “Think you’re about done, kid. Go look in the mirror, tell me if you want more off ‘fore I gotta get movin’.”
Steve perks up at that, always looking for an opportunity to make polite conversation with the elder Munson. Wayne’s always been cordial to him, even kind on occasion, but he can’t help but feel like he’ll be playing catch-up for his last name for the rest of his life.
“Plans today, Mr. Munson?” he asks as Eddie limps out of the kitchen and Wayne grabs the broom. “Anything fun?”
Wayne snorts and glances at Steve out of the corner of his eye. It’s a knowing look. Steve’s gotten used to being on the wrong end of it from Wayne, but it never gets any less unsettling.
“All good, old man!” Eddie yells from the hallway, and then Steve hears the old stairs start to creak. He clears his throat, keeps his smile on his face and withstands the urge to flee towards Eddie, towards familiarity.
“Fishing trip,” Wayne says after a moment, starting to sweep. “Bluegill season. Prob’ly bring some home and bread it up for dinner.”
“I’ve never had bluegill,” Steve says, then winces. “Is, uh, is it good?”
Wayne shrugs. “Ain’t bad eatin’. You like fish?”
“Sure,” Steve says, even though he doesn’t think he does. Sometimes his mom cooks salmon and he really has to choke it down.
“Hm,” Wayne says, like he can tell Steve’s lying. “We’ll see.”
Then he busies himself sweeping the cut hair into the dustpan, and Steve takes that for the dismissal it is and goes to find Eddie.
He finds him by the sound of the shower running. Steve’s not going to let himself into the bathroom with Eddie, that would be fucking weird, so instead he lets himself into Eddie’s room. It’s tidier and cleaner than the one in the trailer, but that’s purely by virtue of what the feds had deemed salvageable. Eddie had spent a good ten minutes ranting about the posters they’d left on his walls before towing the trailer off for disposal.
Steve sits at the desk, content to wait for Eddie to come find him. It doesn’t take long before he hears the squeal of the water turning off, followed by the creak of the bathroom door opening and the muffled sound of feet on carpet. Eddie walks into his room humming, shirtless, and then sees Steve and screams.
“Fuck! Jesus – Christ, Harrington, are you a goddamn cat?”
Steve, who had immediately put his hands over his eyes when he realised Eddie had shed his tank top, spins to face the desk. “Sorry! Sorry, sorry, I’ll – I can go –”
“No, no, you just scared the shit outta me, Jesus.” Eddie’s laugh is genuine, not forced, not panicked. “I’m putting a bell on you, though. And stop covering your face, we’re both guys. It’s fine.”
There’s something tight in his voice when he says we’re both guys. Steve’s not stupid, he recognizes it for what it is: a test. So he pulls his hand away from his face and turns around.
Eddie’s standing there, hands on his hips, hair frizzy from being scrubbed dry with the towel now draped around his neck. Instinctively, Steve’s eyes fly to the scars wrapping around his torso. They look much like Steve’s, shiny and pink and raised away from the surrounding skin.
“Do they still hurt?” he asks, and Eddie makes a strangled noise.
“Fuck,” Steve drops his face back into his hands, “Sorry, that was – that was so rude. I’m sorry.”
“No, dude, you’re good.” There’s clear amusement in Eddie’s voice. “Just, uh. Not what I was expecting you to comment on.”
“Oh.” Steve pauses, lifting his head. “Uh. You mean. Your –”
“Chest? Yeah, Steve.” Eddie rolls his eyes, crossing the room to his wardrobe. He has his back turned as he pulls the towel from his shoulders and scrubs it over his hair again. “Might as well address the elephant in the room, right?”
“The elephant?” Steve repeats. “What elephant?”
“C’mon, man –”
“No, seriously, what elephant?” Steve sits up straight in the chair, a cold sweat creeping up on him. “Did you – what, did you think I wouldn’t be cool with it? Did I do something to make you think –?”
“No, dude, it’s just –”
“ – because I swear, I swear, it’s totally fine with me, and I’m sorry if I…”
Eddie turns around in the middle of shrugging into a cut-off band shirt, and Steve’s eyes catch on the trail of hair leading down his stomach, into the low-riding waistband of his sweats. His mouth goes dry.
“You’re fine,” Eddie’s saying, when Steve manages to pull himself back to the present. “It was just, like. I figured seeing me would, y’know, kinda drive it home. Figured I should check, in case you weren’t totally cool with it.”
“Well, I am,” Steve says firmly, “So there.”
“Alright, dude,” Eddie grins, raising his hands in surrender, “Message received, loud and clear. Number one supporter of the queers: Steve Harrington.”
“Sure,” Steve says, and ignores how Eddie’s words make him feel a little small and cold inside.
They head back downstairs just in time to see Wayne off, a tackle box in one hand and a rod in the other. Then Eddie checks his watch and tells Steve they’re just in time to catch an episode of The Price Is Right.
They don’t talk about anything but the price of that episode’s prizes for a while. Steve beats Eddie for one of them, recognising the Jeep Wrangler on screen and the number he’d read in Car and Driver, and gets a pillow to the side of the head for his trouble.
“If you concuss me, Robin’s gonna kill you,” he warns, “She’s convinced one more head injury and I’ll drop dead of an aneurysm or something.”
“Robin’s a worrywart,” Eddie says, eyes already drifting back towards the screen, “‘Sides, you have all your hair to protect that pretty little head.”
Steve makes his mind jump straight past Eddie calling him pretty, so much so that he doesn’t stop and think about what he says next.
“How’d you decide you wanted your hair so long?”
Eddie blinks at him. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” Steve reaches over to grab a handful of pretzels from the bag on the milk crate that’s serving as a coffee table. “Like, what made you want to try it out?”
“You’ve seen Ozzy Osbourne, right?” Eddie asks dryly, “David Lee Roth? It’s kind of the metalhead thing, man.”
“I guess,” Steve says, thinking. “That’s it? That’s the only reason?”
Eddie’s giving him a weird look. “What other reason would I have?”
“I dunno.” Steve breaks a pretzel in half and puts it in his mouth. “I thought, maybe… when I was a kid, I hated how I looked with short hair. I still do.”
“How come?” Eddie’s turned his body towards Steve, now ignoring the TV show. “I bet you looked like a real all-American boy. All corn-fed and everything.”
“Yeah.” Steve hates the way those words make his stomach squirm. “I just. I always thought I looked stupid. I would look in the mirror and just think I looked – wrong. Weird. Like it didn’t fit me.”
Eddie’s still looking at him, but his eyes have gone soft and gentle in a way that Steve hasn’t seen on him before. He hurries on, words tripping over each other. “I thought maybe – I dunno. Maybe it was similar for you.”
He puts a few more pretzels in his mouth and clears his throat. Gestures lamely at the screen and says, “Two hundred dollars.”
Eddie’s head snaps around. “For a – for a fucking bookshelf? Are you crazy?”
The moment passes, and Steve can breathe again.
They pass the day watching TV and trying to get pretzels in each other's mouths from opposite ends of the couch. Wayne returns around four, sunburned and carrying a cooler with three big fish in it. He insists on Steve staying for dinner, tells him I went to all the trouble of catchin’ a fish for ya, don’t waste it. They eat breaded bluegill on mismatched chairs around the wobbly kitchen table. Steve eats all of his, and is pleasantly surprised at how much he enjoys it. It’s not dry like his mom’s overcooked salmon fillets, and whatever Wayne coated it in is crispy and savory enough to have his mouth watering after just one bite.
He thanks Wayne profusely on his way out, and gets an over-the-shoulder wave and a see ya next time, kid. He’s still smiling as he and Eddie step out onto the porch, swinging his keys around his finger.
“Hey,” Eddie says, “Wayne’s taking a trip outta town next weekend. Wanna come over? We could invite Robin and Nance, have another sleepover.”
Steve’s mouth goes dry again. He thinks about Eddie in eyeliner, thinks about the pout of his mouth as he’d slept. His stomach flips.
“Yeah,” he hears himself say, “That sounds cool. I’ll ask Robin?”
“I’ll take Wheeler.” Eddie grins. Then he’s reaching up and patting Steve on the cheek, his hand wide and warm against Steve’s skin. It rests there for a moment as he tilts his head, dark eyes warm, and smiles. “See you around?”
“For sure,” Steve says faintly. He trips down the porch steps, flips Eddie off over his shoulder when he laughs, and tumbles into the seat of his car. His face is hot, the place where Eddie had touched him burning like a brand.
Shit, he thinks.
He needs to talk to Robin.
+1.
As it turns out – and after a long conversation with Robin on the floor of his parents’ en suite – Steve’s not straight.
It’s as much news to him as it is to her. It feels like pulling the scab off a just-healed wound, revealing new skin underneath, tender and pale. And Steve doesn’t feel lighter. He thinks he should, but he doesn’t. He feels like something has unravelled in him, but he’s still carrying a weight. Still heavy with something he can’t describe.
“It’s scary,” Robin had said, her cheek cushioned against the side of his head, “It is really scary. But we’ll be okay, right? We have each other. We have Nancy and Eddie. We’ll be alright.”
Steve believes her, and then he tells her he thinks he might like Eddie as more than just a friend, and then she starts fucking scheming.
He’s known Robin almost a year now, although it feels longer, and he knows when she’s scheming. She’s frustratingly tight-lipped about it, just keeps grinning at him as they circle job ads in the newspaper or when he’s driving her to school in the mornings. He resigns himself to only figuring it out when the scheme is upon him.
As it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait long. Nancy is the first to cancel on their weekend plans, citing babysitting commitments when she calls the day before. Steve isn’t suspicious until Robin cancels just as he arrives at Eddie’s, claiming she forgot that she actually had to help her mom with clearing out the garage. Steve hears all of this secondhand from Eddie after he hangs up, and immediately makes a mental note to strangle Robin the next time he sees her.
“Guess it’s just you and me, huh?” Eddie says as he removes the Jiffy Pop from the stovetop. He seems completely oblivious to Robin’s meddling, and Steve is really struggling to keep it together like a normal person without the buffer of their two other friends.
“Looks like,” he says, mustering up a smile, “At least we don’t have to watch one of Robin’s weird foreign movies.”
Eddie seems to take that as a challenge, insisting on making Steve sit through an incredibly confusing horror movie featuring William Shatner. It features a lot of Satanists and even more ooze, and Steve spends most of it watching Eddie instead of paying attention to whatever is onscreen. He gets his revenge, though – he’s been holding onto a copy of Slap Shot, waiting for the right moment to subject Eddie to two hours of meathead hockey players brawling. What he’s not expecting is for Eddie to genuinely enjoy it, howling with laughter at the gratuitous violence, and it makes Steve’s chest feel like it’s filled with a million agitated bees.
By the time the credits are rolling, though, they’re both struggling to stay awake. Eddie’s the one who makes the decision for the both of them, switching the TV off and hauling himself off the couch with a pained groan. “Alright, Harrington, let’s go. This couch fucking sucks to sleep on.”
“Huh?” Steve lifts his head from where it had come to rest on an overstuffed cushion. “No, man, I’m all good. Promise.”
Eddie cuts him a truly devastating look. “You just graduated back to sleeping on an actual mattress, Steve, don’t fall back into bad habits now. C’mon, my bed’s plenty big enough for both of us.”
Oh, god, Steve thinks, I’m going to kill Robin.
His bones feel like they’re buzzing all the way through brushing his teeth and changing into the clothes he’d brought to sleep in. He has to give himself a mini pep talk in the toothpaste-speckled bathroom mirror before he can open the door, looking himself dead in the eyes and hissing be normal under his breath. You can be normal. It’s just sharing a bed.
The second he’s actually in said bed, though – Eddie already under the covers next to him, yawning, his cheek squashed against the pillow – Steve realizes he absolutely can’t be normal.
He’s shared beds with girls before, sure, but they’ve either been girlfriends or, well, Robin. He’s shared beds with guys, too – he and Tommy during childhood sleepovers, or members of the basketball team after a particularly rough rager – but never a guy he likes. Or rather, never a guy he knows he likes. So Steve lies on his back, stiff as a board, and stares at the ceiling. He can’t even relax enough to close his eyes.
“Harrington,” Eddie says, voice slurred with sleep, “You okay? Need another pillow?”
“No,” Steve whispers, but his voice cracks anyway. “No, I’m okay.”
The sheets rustle next to him as Eddie props himself up on an elbow. “Sure about that? You don’t look okay to me.”
“I’m fine,” Steve says, refusing to make eye contact. Be normal. Be normal. Be fucking normal.
“Okay,” Eddie says, sleepiness vanishing from his voice to be replaced with suspicion. “You look like you’re lying on a bed of nails.”
Steve shifts uncomfortably, linking his hands together over his chest. “Seriously, Eddie, I’m good.”
“Right.” Eddie clearly doesn’t believe him. “Listen, if it’s too weird to share a bed –”
“No!” Steve blurts before Eddie can even finish his sentence, “No, no, it’s not – it’s not that, Eds, seriously.” Then he puts his hands over his face, because he can feel himself going so red that it kind of hurts.
“Okay,” Eddie says, “So…”
“I’m being weird,” Steve tells him, in case he hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, I got that. Steve, if you’re freaking out, I’d really prefer if you just told me –”
“I’m freaking out,” Steve says from behind his hands, “But not about you. About me.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything.
It’s scary. It is really scary.
Robin had been so certain Eddie would react well to Steve being – whatever the fuck Steve is – but now, on the edge of speaking those words aloud, Steve can’t help but think that maybe he’ll be the straw that breaks the back of their friendship.
“I think, um,” he starts. “I figured out the other day that I actually. I like guys?”
The silence stretches on for what seems like years before Eddie says, “I’m sorry, what?”
“I figured out I like guys,” Steve says, his voice weak, “Like, like guys. And this is sort of the first time I’ve slept in a bed with a guy since I figured that out? So I’m freaking out a little bit, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Eddie says, “Wait, I’m sorry, you gotta run that by me one more time. You like guys?”
“Yeah.” Steve blinks up at the ceiling, a lump suddenly in his throat. “Like Bowie. Guys and girls.”
There’s a heavy thump as Eddie falls back onto the mattress beside him. “Ho-ly shit.”
“Uh-huh.” Steve’s fingers are wound tight into the sheets. “So, um. I guess. If it’s weird for you to share a bed with, like, a guy who –”
“Oh my god, don’t even finish that sentence,” Eddie’s hand flies out and smacks him on the arm, “Harrington, you know I’m a fucking queer too, right?”
Steve frowns. “Dude, a lot of guys don’t want to share beds with other guys, especially if one of them is –”
“Not that kind of queer,” Eddie says, and then, “Well – yes, that kind, but the other kind too. The kind where I kiss guys and girls.”
“Oh,” Steve says stupidly, “Well. I didn’t know that. Cool.”
Eddie laughs. “Cool? That’s all I get? ”
“I dunno, man, I’m still kinda freaking out right now!” Steve’s voice cracks again. “This is only the second time I’ve said this out loud, cut me a break.”
Eddie’s laughter dissipates quickly, and then the bed shifts as he rolls over. “Okay, okay. Thanks for telling me, Stevie-boy. Seems like we’re more similar than I would’ve thought.”
Steve’s next words stick in his throat for a moment. More similar than I would’ve thought, Eddie says. The words sink in deep between Steve’s ribs, like an arrow aimed right for his heart.
“Yeah,” he croaks. “I guess so.”
He’s not like Eddie, though. Eddie is brave enough not to care what anyone else thinks of him. To grow his hair out long and wear makeup and tell anyone who thinks he shouldn’t to fuck off. Steve is, at his very core, a coward. He keeps his hair the length his parents like, and he doesn’t let his friends make him over in the safety of his own home, and he can’t even put words to this feeling he gets in his chest sometimes, when he looks in the mirror and just sees some guy.
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Eddie makes an alarmed noise, sitting up again. “Steve? Shit, did I say something? I’m being serious, man, thank you for telling me, I know it’s a big deal.”
“It’s fine,” Steve says wetly, “I’m fine, I’m just being dumb.”
“It’s not dumb to cry, Stevie-boy, I cried like a baby when I told Wayne – shit, what is it? What’d I say?”
Steve has his hands over his eyes again. He exhales a shaky breath, feeling his bottom lip wobble as he replays the nickname over and over again. Stevie-boy. Stevie-boy. Stevie-boy.
“Can you not call me that?” he asks, voice trembling.
“Call you – oh. Okay. No, that’s fine, man, that’s –”
“Stevie is fine,” Steve says, before he can stop himself. “I like – that’s okay. I just don’t like the boy.”
This time the silence must take up an eternity. Steve tries to swallow down the tears, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes as each breath shudders out of him.
“Hey,” Eddie says, and his voice is much closer now. “Hey, hey. Stevie. Hey, that’s alright. You know that’s okay, right?”
Steve does not reply to that, because he does not know that it’s okay. He presses his palms against his eyes until lights burst and spark behind his eyelids.
“Steve,” Eddie says, and then there’s a hand on his wrist, pulling it away. “Look at me for a sec, would you? You know I’d be a total fuckin’ hypocrite if I had a problem with that, right? Like, the biggest hypocrite in the world. They’d take my gay card away.”
Despite everything, a laugh bursts from Steve’s throat at that. “They give those out?”
“Sure, man. I got a spare one in my underwear drawer for you.” Eddie’s thumb is stroking over the joint of Steve’s wrist in little soothing movements. “You get all the good discounts at Bradley’s Big Buy. Fifty percent off condoms, if you can believe.”
Steve laughs again, wiping at his eyes with the back of his free hand. “Fuck. I’m sorry, I just – I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I dunno, man,” Eddie says. He’s looking at Steve with this gentle, awestruck expression. “I think anything wrong with you is definitely also wrong with me.”
Steve has to suck in another breath at that. Eddie doesn’t know that he’s the reason Steve’s figured all this stuff out. All of a sudden he feels like a real creep, crying his eyes out in his crush’s bed, just for a moment of physical comfort.
“Oh,” he says, voice still unsteady, “There’s probably one other thing I should tell you.”
“You don’t have to –”
“I really like you,” Steve confesses, staring hard up at the ceiling so as not to see how Eddie’s face reacts, “I think I have for a while. Maybe that’s weird to say, but I think you’re really cool, and I – get it if you don’t like me, I know I’m not into the same things as you are, and I don’t really know anything about how to be – whatever I am, whatever the word for it is, but –”
His mouth is half-open when Eddie kisses him. It’s a fleeting thing, a dry press of lips against lips, but it works to cut Steve’s panicked ramble off cleanly. His eyes fly open to find Eddie leaning over him, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. The mouth that had just been on Steve’s mouth. Because Eddie kissed him.
“C’mon,” Eddie says, clearly reacting to whatever expression is on Steve’s face right now, “Are you really gonna act surprised that I might possibly like Steve Harrington, hottest guy – hottest person – in Hawkins back? Do you think I’m blind?”
“Uh,” Steve says. Eddie’s smile is blinding, bright as the midday sun.
“Because I’m not,” Eddie adds, “I actually have great eyes. They’ve kind of been letting me down lately, though. They only seem to want to look at this one person who keeps showing up to eat all our pretzels and beat me at Family Feud.”
The noise Steve makes could be most easily categorised as a cartoonish huh? sound. It makes Eddie laugh, makes him throw his head back and expose the scar that crawls down his throat and into the neck of his loose-fit teeshirt. “Okay, you’re gonna make me say it. I really like you too, Stevie. Even when you’re not into the same things as me, and you don’t know how to be whatever it is you want to be, I really like you.”
“Okay.” Steve swallows, feeling a smile start to spread across his own face. “Even though I just started crying in your bed?”
“Oh, a hundred percent,” Eddie says, “Easy. That’s light work in terms of coming out, Stevie – I told you I didn’t have a dick while I was high on painkillers, you have big shoes to fill.”
The laughter that bursts from Steve feels more real, this time. Lighter, more unburdened. As if he’s just put down some heavy, awful weight that he’s been carrying for years.
“Okay,” he says, and finds an atom of courage enough to lift his hand and touch Eddie’s face. “That’s good. Even if I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Eddie’s eyes soften as he leans into the touch. “Nobody’s asking you to have all the answers, okay? I sure didn’t. Still don’t really know if I do.”
“That’s okay.” Steve’s eyes fall from Eddie’s eyes to his lips, curved into the kindest smile he’s ever seen. “Do you think I could kiss you again?”
Eddie’s smile becomes a grin. “I kissed you last time, but sure.”
“Oh, fuck off –”
“Nuh-uh,” Eddie says, and then he’s leaning in and pressing a slower, deeper kiss to Steve’s mouth. “Sorry, Harrington. You’re gonna have to work real hard to get rid of me now.”