Chapter Text
“Lucas, get your knee out of my freaking back!”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m just trying to duck, man!”
“Mike, stop breathing down my neck, gross-ass.”
“Then shove over, Erica, god!”
“Infants!” Steve snaps, peeking his head beneath the blanket covering the bed of Wayne’s truck, “if you’re going to insist on hiding, stop sucking at it!”
“Steeve,” Dustin whines, “you said he’d be back any minute. It’s been, like, seven minutes!”
“I also told you that one, you didn’t have to hide, and two, if you wanted to hide, you’d have time to hide behind the truck once we saw his van turn onto the street. But no, you dumbasses wanted to be all flashy about it, so, lay in the uncomfortable, hot bed you’ve made,” Steve says, looking like he’s enjoying the sight of them piled together, cramped in the truck bed way, way too much for Dustin’s liking.
“This is more fun,” El tosses out from where she’s balled up in the corner, near the tailgate.
“Yeah, Steve.” Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, and Erica in unison.
“Oh my god,” Steve says, dropping the blanket back over them. “Like he’s not going to notice the bright orange blanket.”
Dustin listens to Steve walk away, hears Robin laugh at something, and then says “Shit. He’s going to notice the blanket.”
“Yeah, probably,” Will says, laughing already, and then he yelps at the bang on the side of the truck bed.
It’s Max, their lookout. “Van incoming,” she says, and Dustin hears her lean against the truck, and he thinks that yeah, Steve was probably onto something.
He hears hushed voices outside, and the sound of the house door opening and closing a few times; Robin, Vickie, Jonathan, Nancy, Joyce, and Hopper going inside, he thinks, everything to plan, the plan he had helped hatch with Steve and Wayne the weekend prior, while Eddie was out with his band, practicing somewhere else for once, one more time before his bandmates left for school. Dustin crosses his fingers on both hands, hoping that Eddie doesn’t scan the street, doesn’t notice the cars parked at the Harrington’s.
That should leave Steve and Wayne outside, he knows, and he feels the same giddy kick that he has throughout the Summer every time he’s seen Eddie and Steve together, the joy at knowing that two of his favorite people get along, like each other, regardless of their stupid, jealous whatever at the beginning.
He hears Eddie’s van pull into the driveway and holds his breath as the engine dies, and the van door opens and closes.
“Well,” Wayne’s voice. “How’d it go?”
“I won’t know for sure until I get the official letter thing,” Eddie says, and Dustin strains to hear from under the blanket, lifting his head up; Lucas pulls him back down, “but I totally fucking killed it.”
It’s so hard to stay quiet with the burst of joy that courses through Dustin, the joy he knows everybody else feels with the way Mike dances a little and Erica and Lucas slide each other a quick high-five from across the truck bed. It’s especially difficult not to yell out when Dustin hears Steve give a loud “Woop!”, hears the three men outside laugh and the sounds of their congratulations, the sounds of either high fives or shoulder slaps, Dustin’s not sure, and he hears Eddie say “c’mere,” and then he hears Max, just outside, slip out a quiet “...oh.”
He hears Steve clear his throat. “Anyway, since we had no doubts about that big brain of yours, we have a surprise for you.”
“Oh yeah?” Eddie.
“10-4,” Steve replies, loud, and it’s chaos. They hadn’t really worked out the logistics of throwing off the blanket and standing all together in tandem; Dustin winds up covered with the blanket for a moment, struggling to get the fucking thing off his face, Erica never fully manages to make it to standing, Mike nearly falls out of the truck bed and would have if not for Lucas catching him, and everybody says “Surprise!” at different times, except for El, who yells “Congratulations!” instead. At least Max seems to have gotten it right, pulling herself onto the hood of the truck, posing on her stomach with her arms flailed out in a moment of silliness that makes Dustin laugh in that hyena way his Mom loves so much, and the adults kind of get it right too, Vickie and Robin hurtling down the porch steps in tandem, and the Byers/Hopper/Nancy Wheeler foursome rounding out the last chorus of “Surprise!” just in time to make the whole ordeal sound like the rendition of Row, Row, Row Your Boat that Dustin remembers from Kindergarten.
It’s a fucking mess. Dustin’s still laughing by the time Eddie starts cackling, hand on his chest over his heart, looking around the yard with a smile on his face that Dustin’s never seen before, not even during Eddie’s most brutal campaigns when he’s delighted in their torture.
Eddie stops laughing after a moment and Dustin watches him wipe his eyes, nod his head, and give his assessment of the family around him.
“Metal,” he says happily. “Totally metal.”
*
Wayne grills, talking to Hopper and Joyce about god knows what while he does it, while Nancy hooks a sprinkler up to the Munson’s hose and Lucas unpacks squirt guns and water balloons from a tote bag that he and Erica brought from the Sinclair's. There are lawn chairs, unmatching, brought from various houses, even a few from Steve’s that Dustin had helped bring over from his garage earlier in the day. It’s nice, Dustin thinks, laying in the grass next to where Max lounges in a lawn chair, almost like it’s still Summer even though school’s started. It’s still hot out, everyone is chattering, and everyone is happy. His leg doesn’t hurt anymore.
Max whacks him with her cane, fuck, ow, well my leg hurts now. “Damn, what was that for?”
“I’m thirsty,” she says, smiling sweetly.
“Yeah, and?” Dustin shoots back, but he’s already clambering off of the grass, brushing himself off. “What do you want?”
“Coke?”
“Ooh, can I have one, too?” Mike.
“I’ll take a Dr. Pepper.” Lucas.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dustin says, waving them off. “I’ll make Steve help with the cooler, cool your shorts.”
Steve’s not in the yard and when he asks Robin, she mentions something about the kitchen, so Dustin heads inside. The door’s propped open so he walks right in and hears Eddie’s voice in the kitchen, figures if Steve won’t help him, Eddie will, and he won’t have to be anybody’s drink bitch for the rest of the afternoon.
When he turns the corner into the dining room, ready to ask Eddie for help, he freezes.
His mind registers a few things at once, unable to focus fully on what he knows is alarming: there’s a cake on the counter and he hadn’t known there would be cake, so that’s awesome, there’s bunched up wrapping paper on the dining room table and shit, he hadn’t thought to bring a gift, so he’s probably a jerk for that, and Steve and Eddie are hugging each other, which yeah, that tracks, they’re super affectionate and Dustin thinks that’s awesome, he loves hugging his friends, Lucas gives the best hugs, but they’re also kissing and huh. That’s new.
Eddie’s back is to Dustin so it’s Steve who sees him when he opens his eyes and pulls back slowly. Steve motions toward Dustin with his head and Eddie turns around. The blanket of quiet in the room is so thick and heavy that Dustin starts to sweat, and he has to say something, has to, or hell, someone has to, this is more awkward than when Benny Hamden popped a boner during his seventh-grade social studies presentation.
“Hi,” Dustin says, and instantly wants to facepalm.
It’s Eddie who smiles and relaxes, moves toward Dustin first. “Hey, Henderson. Want to see something badass?”
“Uh, sure?” He didn’t mean for it to sound like that, what’s wrong with you?
Eddie comes up to him and holds out something small in his palm. Dustin remembers that, duh, he’s supposed to take it, and he unfreezes, picking it up from Eddie’s hand. He brings it to his face and looks, looks some more and motherfucker, what is it about these two being in a room together that makes him feel like crying? Ridiculous.
“Where did you get this?” he asks, turning over the small painted figure to get a full look at it. It’s clearly supposed to be Eddie, a guitar in his hands, bandana holding back long hair, clothes matching what he’d worn into battle the day they’d brought down Vecna.
“Turns out they don’t just make models of DnD characters,” Steve says quietly. “I forget who it was originally, but they had them at the record store.”
Dustin’s eyebrows shoot up. “ You did this?”
“Badass, right?” Eddie says again, and he’s looking back at Steve, and Dustin’s also looking at Steve, who is still, well, standing so still by the dining room table, gaze locked onto Dustin like Dustin might scream, or yell, or spit on him, what the shit.
Dustin grins. “You’re a giant nerd,” he tells Steve. “This is the best fucking day of my life.”
Steve’s exhale sounds forced out of him. “It is?”
Dustin nods and opens his arms wide, knowing he can’t fit them both but wanting to try his hardest. “Come on, Mom, Dad, bring it in.”
And they hug him with such force that it knocks an “oof” out of him, and then a laugh, and damn, it’s a good hug.
*
Jonathan catches it on camera when he comes inside after the kids complain that Dustin’s taking too long getting the cooler. The polaroid makes it to Eddie’s wall, front and center, surrounded by the others that they’d brought from Steve’s room, a growing collection.