Chapter Text
So there they were;
Cold bathroom tile, vomit punched air, Russian drugs leaving their systems through the sewers. Steve’s half-confession hanging between them, and Robin with that look on her face.
Like Steve’s an idiot.
And Steve with that look on his face, like a blooming bruise wasn’t the only thing making him swell up, like the tension was enough to make him vomit again.
And Robin saying something like, “if he knew her, truly knew her- she didn’t think he would even want to be her friend.”
And “No, that’s not true, no way is that true.” From Steve, and Robins face becoming even more confusing, some pantomime of secrecy and she’s saying
“Listen, Steve…”
And he is, he’s listening even past the faint ringing in his ears, past the rush of water through overhead pipes and the unsteady thrum of his heart, and Robin is hesitating, is looking up, up somewhere above his head. Then;
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Oh” Steve says.
“Oh.”
“Holy shit.” He says, although there’s nothing holy about it, nothing spiritual or ascendant about this moment, here.
“Yeah, holy shit.” Robin agrees.
“I’m an idiot.” Steve says, like the look on Robins face before was right about him all along. And she hums a noise that’s sort of pitiful, sort of sad, and she swallows so loud Steve swears it echo’s.
“I should have told you, just, you know me, can’t get a word out of me. Like a bank vault, just full of secrets…” She’s joking now, laying the sarcasm on thick to make Steve feel less awkward. Less holy shit holy shit.
And he asks who it is, he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t really even want to know. There’s this sinking feeling like the floor isn’t even tile at all, but a membrane of some sort, being stretched beneath him until he’s sagging into the thin spots.
And she gawks and puts a hand in her hair and tugs like she’s thinking really hard, and she says
“Eddie Munson.”
Steve only gets out “The-“ before Robin says
“Don’t call him that”
Not that Steve was going to. He was going to say “the metal guy?” Or “the guy with the hair?” Or “the guy who sells drugs out of his fucking lunchbox?”
But Robin thought he was going to call him by his unfavourable nickname, “The Freak”.
And her quickness to defend him makes it all real. Makes it start to fester.
And he starts to say “I wasn’t going to, I wouldn’t” even though he knows his reputation precedes him. The man he was then. But he doesn’t get it out, can’t, because Erica and Dustin are slamming open the door.
Then a monster made of flesh and ooze and cartilage tries to kill them.
Does kill Billy. His body maybe the only holy thing, he thinks, with his arms splayed like that, like he’s been crucified.
And then Hopper- hopper is…
And Robin having a boyfriend doesn’t matter anymore.
After Starcourt burns down, Steve and Robin get a job at Family Video. And they don’t talk about what happened in the bathroom. Something about secret underground Russian bases, and monsters bleeding into their world, and death, and near-death makes it seem small and silly.
So they stay friends. Get closer, actually. Long evenings just the two of them, stocking shelves and sorting and playing tapes on the small tv perched on the counter.
And Robin doesn’t talk about Eddie, and Steve doesn’t ask. Although it’s strange because Robin has a hard time keeping her mouth shut about anything, much less about what she’s feeling. A constant stream of consciousness bubbling out of her, like;
“Steve I’m tired, god, I barely slept, my neighbours were fighting again and oh- did I tell you I think maybe the guy next door is cheating on his wife? Maybe that’s what the fighting is about-“ and,
“Steve, I think I’m going to take up running, except that I can barely walk without tripping over my feet, so that’s probably a recipe for disaster. Seriously it took me so much longer to start walking than all the other babies, like it was embarrassing for my parents-“ and
“Steve, are you busy tonight?”
Except oh, that one is now. Friday night at the store, and “Weird Science” playing on the counter, not a customer in sight. Months of time stretched between them and Starcourt.
“Besides my hot date with this stack of videos I’m rewinding?”
“Yes, outside of that thrilling encounter.” She says, and Steve notes that she looks nervous. Like, really nervous. Doing that thing where she readjusts her vest and tugs at the ends of her hair and doesn’t quite inhale all the way.
“Don’t worry, I can give you a ride home” he says, like maybe that’s what this is about, although she should know by now that she doesn’t have to ask.
“No- no, actually I’m not going home. Eddie’s uh… Eddie’s picking me up.”
Oh, Steve wants to say, oh. Like he did back then. Some different version of himself having almost the same conversation, or a different one about the same person, the Eddie Munson of it all. And it feels weird because he knows Robin well. So, so well, he wants to think. But not this separate part of her life.
“Ah, fun.” He says instead, and a “tell him I say hi” although he doesn’t really mean it. And it’s not out of jealousy, not anymore, it’s just that the Steve Eddie knows is not the same person Robin knows. Not someone who would say hi to him.
It’s a bit of a surprise, actually, that it’s not out of jealousy. But again, everything that had happened made things seem small. Made Steve realize maybe he didn’t really want Robin, like that. Just wanted love. And Robin was giving that to him but in a different way, one that it took head-trauma and regular trauma and the Eddie Munson of it all for him to appreciate.
And Robin is saying something about “Eddies trailer” and “weed” and “you could come if you’d like.”
But Steve just shakes his head no, says a half-joke about third wheeling, thanks her for the invitation. They go back to watching Weird science and Steve goes back to rewinding tapes, the dull thrum of the machine in his hand, until they close the store together and there’s a black van in the near-empty expanse of the parking lot.
“Sure you haven’t changed your mind?” Robin says over the thumping of something guitar-heavy making the van vibrate. And Steve nods, gestures over, says “have fun” and watches Robin retreat, illuminated in the headlamps.
She gets in the van and Steve can see into the cab of it now, see Eddie, almost like he remembered him but his hair longer. His face more filled into his features, a cigarette between his lips that trails smoke out a cracked window.
Robin hates cigarettes, he thinks. Hates smoking.
So he’s not exactly surprised that they don’t kiss. Don’t touch, even. Before the van pulls out and takes the music and the smoke with it.
And Steve drives home alone.
When Eddie gets the call it feels like a prank. Like Robin is bored, or drunk, or giggling next to Steve or something, because she says
“Listen, I messed up. Big time.” Before they can even get through the pleasantries that come with a phone call with a sort-of friend.
But the rushed pace of conversation means that Robin doesn’t let Eddie ask what she means, which is good because his throat is already thick with worry, and she just gets on with it.
“I told Steve Harrington you’re my boyfriend.” Through the receiver. Alien words through plastic. He wants to laugh, really he does, but all he can manage is a bit of stunned silence until
“Why the hell would you do that?” With no malice. Not even really a tone to his voice other than curiosity. He of all people shouldn’t really have to ask, because he already knew the answer. He was a liar too.
“I panicked” she says, a shuffling on the other end. “He was getting all… mushy, saying stuff about feelings..”
“For you?”
“I know, right, can you believe it?”
“You don’t think you could have told him the truth?” He asks, and there’s silence beneath the static. “Seems like you two are real close.”
And she sighs, and she lets out a noise of frustration that Eddie knows all too well, when you want to tell someone something, need to, and you can’t. You just can’t.
Because it’s Hawkins Indiana and sometimes you have to keep your mouth shut just to stay safe.
And it’s a bit amusing, actually, that Steve Harrington asked a girl out- no, developed feelings for a girl who’s a lesbian. And Steve thinks that Eddie is the reason he struck out.
He does laugh now, just a small sound of amusement from his throat, says “never mind, I get it.” and she says something low and quiet like “I know you do”
And there it is, that unspoken bond that’s kept them tethered since Robin had clocked him in school three years ago. Had given him a look like “I know what you are” and after months of casual chat in band when Eddie actually showed up, she had sat up straight in her chair next to him, leaned towards his ear and said
“Me too.”
And he knew exactly what she was talking about.
“So if I run into Harrington, what’s the story? I’m happy to go along with it if anyone asks but we don’t have to go on dates or anything, right?” He says into the phone.
“What, you don’t want to court me?”
“You’re not really my type.” He says, and there’s a weak laugh, a nervous one.
“It doesn’t have to be too complicated. We go to school together, we started dating three… no, seven months ago. We’re like, totally in love.” She says, and Eddie rests his head against the wall next to the receiver, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Whatever you say, Robin.”
But a few months after that call, a rumour starts to spread like vile weeds through Hawkins. Something about Eddie with a cock in his mouth. And he takes a fist to the face in the parking lot of the grocery store when he’s just there to buy cereal.
It’s not the first time.
But this time, Robin’s given him a way out. So he calls her that night with frozen peas held up to a swollen eye and offers;
“Maybe we should go a bit more public.”
So now he’s parked on cracked concrete, van rumbling beneath him, lit cigarette sending nerve-calming smoke down his throat, watching Steve lock the Family Video door in too-tight jeans. And Robin has a look on her face, pale skin somehow even more white in his headlights, ghostly.
And Eddie’s not sure what will happen when Steve turns around, because Robin hadn’t called him with the update like she’d said she would, and Eddie’s hands are chemical soaked from the frantic cleaning of his trailer just in case Steve said yes. But her lips are moving, and Steve is gesturing. Towards the van, towards him.
They part, Steve watches Robin with some sort of expression that’s too small and too over-exposed to really understand. Then she gets in the passenger side silently, an air of disappointment clinging to her.
Steve is watching. They haven’t seen each other in years. Since Steve graduated and Eddie didn’t.
Well, Eddie has seen him but in the way you see a stray neighbourhood cat sometimes. Always catching just the tail before it slips into shadow, seeing it dart across the street.
He’d always seen him. It was impossible not to, back then, not when his persona entered the room before his body did. King Steve and all that shit Eddie couldn’t care less about. Not necessarily a bully, but never getting in the way of his shit friends and their slur-filled mouths, their shoulders pinning him against lockers.
He had called him a freak once, maybe twice. With no real venom in it, sort of just a parrot. That’s what highschool was, someone says something and you repeat it back, and that’s friendship.
The last time, Steve had been dressed up like a sailor, scoops uniform ridiculous but undeniably hot, and Eddie had abandoned hope of ice cream and turned the corner and hadn’t gone back to Starcourt. Hadn’t had the chance, because a few days later it was gone.
Robin said she wasn’t working that night.
He’d called when he heard, and her voice was almost imperceptibly small.
That was a few weeks before “I told Steve Harrington you’re my boyfriend.”
And now Steve’s staring right at him. And Eddie doesn’t smile, doesn’t wave, Robin doesn’t move towards him. They’re bad at this, he thinks, as he drives away. Steve getting smaller and smaller in the mirror until he’s gone.
“Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t join us.” Eddie says, and Robin nods, says
“maybe it’s enough proof just that you pick me up.”
And Eddie agrees although his face throbs a bit, the ghost of the punch, and Robin says she thinks she just wants to go home, so he drops her there.
This is hard for her. The hiding, the pretending. The suffocation of a closet, the lie of it all. He turns his music up loud after he’s pulled off her street, takes the long way just to listen to it, some mix of bitterness and relief that he’s alone now.
He goes back to his trailer cleaned for no one.
The sun is nearly finished it’s descent when the van pulls up again, like it has at the end of every shift with Robin for the past two weeks, like Steve is beginning to think it always will. The bass makes the floor vibrate a bit, even with walls and windows and distance between them. Makes Steve’s teeth feel like they’re buzzing.
He’s early this time, though, Eddie. Still half an hour left of their shift. Robins given up on asking him to join them, which is good, because Steve is so tired of disappointing her that he had crept ever-closer to saying yes.
And Steve says something like “your boyfriends here” in a sing-song voice, and Robin doesn’t respond, doesn’t register it, like when someone calls you by a nickname you don’t use anymore and your ears don’t perk up. Until she smiles, weird, not quite right and nods and keeps alphabetizing the horror section.
It’s just like all the other nights, an empty store, the after-work afternoon rush over, parents towing their kids in to pick movies for the weekend before they all go out or home and leave Steve and Robin here. Always here, which is fine, because Steve doesn’t really want to be many other places.
He’s not sure how his whole social circle became a bunch of teenagers and his best friend who he’d confessed faded feelings to on a bathroom floor before everything almost ended. But it’s become increasingly more difficult to spend time with people who don’t understand. Who haven’t seen it.
So he doesn’t mind.
And he doesn’t mind, like he thought maybe he would, when the music stops and the van door opens, closes behind a leather-clad Eddie, his hair picked up in evening breeze, tousling behind him until he reaches the store door and pulls it.
The bell chimes, which is an interesting contradiction, a soft sound to announce the arrival of him. All ripped jeans and rings and worn denim vest over his jacket. Cigarette tucked somewhere in the mess of curls behind his ear.
Steve does a little half-wave. Eddies never come in before. And Eddie looks at him warily, unsure, calls “Harrington” over to him before Robin walks over and hugs him sort of from the side. They dissolve into their own conversation by the door, forgetting Steve, who’s looking down at an inventory clipboard and tracing circles in the corners with a worn-out pen.
“Be my guest” Robin is saying after Steve’s circled one spot so many times the pen breaks through, her voice a bit louder, a gesturing of her hands. And then there are two elbows on the counter in front of him, a rough chin propped on shiny knuckles, and Eddie is very much in his space.
“What’s your favourite movie?” He asks, and Steve blanks for some reason. Forgets every movie he’s ever seen. Forgets what’s playing, right now, a few feet away from him with the volume turned down. Because Eddie is looking him right in the eyes and he smells like smoke, and now Steve craves one.
So he gets out “uh, Grease?” Because he’s thinking about Sandy, also in leather, grinding the butt of a cigarette into concrete with her heel. It’s probably not his favourite movie but he likes it, sings along to it with Robin when the store is empty, something she’d kill him for if he ever mentioned.
Eddie slams his hands down on the counter. Steve’s pen rolls away.
“Grease?” He makes the word sound like a groan, tosses his head over to Robin, who’s standing by the door still and looking amused. And he goes “you’re killing me here, Robbie.” And Steve’s wondering what the hell he’s talking about.
“I warned you” is all she says, and Steve straightens up a bit, suddenly defensive because hey, she likes Grease too and-
“If that’s what it takes” Eddie is muttering, and now he’s playing with the bell on the counter, ding ding ding ding until Steve gives him a sharp look like “can I help you?” And Eddie is saying “One copy of Grease please, video boy, with the employee discount.”
“But you’re not an employee.”
“No, but you are, and you’re watching it with us.” Eddie says like it’s fact, something not up for debate or questioning. Robin looks like a bird in the background of this conversation, her eyes sort of narrowed and nose scrunched, lips pursed and neck craned to gauge his reaction. But there isn’t one. Robins asked him four, maybe five times to join them and each time “no, sorry” or “can’t” or “next time!”
But now Eddie’s said it once and he knows it’s happening. Knows he’s going.
“Right.” He says, and he moves away, goes to get the movie for them. When he comes back Eddie has picked up the pen and filled in Steve’s circles, the tip of his tongue peeking out of his mouth.
He smokes outside while Robin and Steve lock everything up. Shut off the tv, turn off the lights, and Robin has a far away look, her hands shifting her vest around over and over. She locks the door behind them and Eddie offers Steve a drag, but his lips are wet and the cigarette must be too, with spit, and that makes his spine feel funny even though he wants the nicotine. So he doesn’t take it. Smokes one of his own, that he hasn’t touched in weeks, in his car as he follows Eddie’s van home.
He’s not sure what he expected. Maybe something more akin to the talk he’d heard, more satanic. More black paint or chains or something, but it’s not that. It’s just a trailer. A surprisingly comfortable couch Eddie had offered up and Steve had sunk into.
Eddie had shed his vest and jacket at the door, just a shirt on for some band Steve didn’t recognize, and he was puttering around in the kitchenette now. Fixing them snacks. “A feast worthy of king Steve” he’d chided and Steve had wanted the soft cushions to swallow him whole.
Robin at least looks more at ease, her hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head, sitting across an armchair the wrong way, with her legs over the side and head tipped back. Telling Steve a story about this dog she saw outside of the store when he wasn’t there yesterday.
“He was so fluffy, but not like the kind where they just shed all over the place, like the kind of fur that isn’t too thick, Yknow? All volume but no density. I should have asked what breed he was but honestly I was just too distracted-“
He just lets her talk. It’s sweet, the way she can make a story out of anything. Steve would have probably just said “I saw a cute dog” if he even said anything. But with Robin it’s a tale. A slice of her life she offers up and Steve takes, every time.
Now eddie is asking questions like, “how big was it?” And “what colour?” And “what were the shape of its ears?” Like he’s trying to figure out the breed for her.
“A poodle?” He guesses.
“What? No.”
“Papillon?”
“Papi-huh? What’s that?”
“A snickerdoodle?”
“That’s a cookie.” Steve interjects, and Eddie looks over his shoulder, away from the bread he’s laying out for sandwiches, grins at him in the way that makes his teeth show.
“You didn’t have to tell her that.” He says, and Robin raises her eyebrows at him, juts her chin forward.
“You have no idea about dog’s, do you, asshole?” She accuses, and Eddie just shrugs, goes back to his task, but Steve can see his shoulders stutter in a quiet laugh. A laugh that makes Steve hold his own in so Robin doesn’t glare at him, too.
Soon they’re presented with sandwiches, popcorn, some sad looking baby carrots in a small dish. Eddies got this look like he’s hoping it’s enough, standing up even after he sets everything on the small coffee table, fiddling with one of his rings. Robin breaks the air, calls him “babe” which sounds just wrong, the way she says it like it’s new.
Says “babe, sit down.” In that gentle firmness she does so well.
And he does. Sits down on the floor in front of Robin’s chair, the empty expanse of couch next to Steve ignored. So Steve takes a sandwich, stretches his legs out so it feels less lonely. Eddie hits play.
When Danny and Sandy drive off into the air on the small tv, Robin has long since fallen asleep, which is unsurprising. She rarely makes it through movie nights. And they hadn’t sung along this time. Steve too awkward, here in Eddie’s space, and Robin presumably quiet because Steve was. But once in awhile they’d catch each other’s eyes and do a little shoulder shimmy, and she’d smirk, and Eddie would do this thing where you knew he was watching even if it didn’t look like it.
So they didn’t sing. And Robin fell asleep, and now the credits are rolling and it’s just them awake in the hazy screen-light. And Eddie looks away from the screen, at Robin, smiles. Reaches up, tucks her blanket around her face a bit. The intricacies and intimacies of a relationship that Steve is just now getting a glance into.
Maybe it does make sense, in it’s weird way. Maybe after seeing him do that, it does.
“That wasn’t too terrible, right?” Steve says and Eddie turns the volume down a bit, shuffles his body so he’s facing Steve, long legs pointed towards him.
“It wasn’t good, necessarily, but sure, Harrington. It wasn’t terrible.”
“Cmon, you enjoyed it just a little.”
“You have absolutely no evidence of that”
“I saw your fingers tapping along, you can’t lie to me” Steve says, his voice lilting into a tease, a tone he doesn’t even expect from himself, and Eddie’s face splits into this sort of cocky half grin and he goes
“Were you staring at me, Harrington?” all theatrical and oozing and Steve goes
“No, man. Forget it.” And Eddie does, drops it, says
“Force of habit. Musician hands.” As he waggles his fingers, drops them to his lap, drums one down his thigh and onto his knee in a beat that doesn’t at all match the noise from the television.
“Guitar, right?” Steve asks, and the drumming stops. Eddie just stares at him. Says “yep” with an emphasis on the “p”, a popping sound with his still wet lips that shine in tv-light. He doesn’t ask Steve why or how he knew that.
Not that it’s an interesting story, Steve just remembers Eddie with a guitar case slung across his back in the halls, drawing even more attention to him. And Robin mentioning something about his band, about going to a show soon.
That one had made Steve maybe a little jealous. Not in the Robin has a musician boyfriend kind of way, not even in just the Robin has a boyfriend kind of way. Steve just wanted to be talented. To be really good at something. Something outside the realm of swinging a bat at a demogorgon or keeping a bunch of children alive.
Suddenly he feels very small.
Maybe Eddie notices because he hauls himself up off the floor, socked feet sleeping on dirty carpet for a second until he rights himself and then he’s in front of Steve, hand reaching, gripping his wrist, pulling him up up up with more force than he’d expect from a wiry frame.
“Onward my liege” he’s saying. “I know Buckley promised I’d smoke you out, and I’m not one to dissapoint an honoured guest.”
Buckley, he thinks, not really the most affectionate term. But then again they weren’t really very affectionate at all, so he doesn’t question it, doesn’t make a joke. And Robin had mentioned something about weed, but that was three invitations ago, so he hadn’t expected anything, but Eddie is already out the front door. A gust of balmy night air hits him, screen swinging shut.
So he follows.
So there they were;
sitting on dead dry grass, a joint in Steve’s hand, smoke heavy in the air, and a stretched silence between them. And Steve with a look on his face.
It’s different from whatever expression he wore the first night eddie picked Robin up, Eddie can tell that from here. Less of a furrow in his thick brows, more relaxed, like he’s half asleep. Maybe it’s the weed. Maybe it’s the strange sort of magic the trailer park can take on at night, once everyone is shuttered in and the roads have gone quiet.
They haven’t talked much.
Steve had said a thank you when Eddie handed him the joint first, sparked it up for him and watched Steve’s eyes glow in flame before he’d turned away. Eddie had said something like “don’t mention it”, like it was no big deal, although it kind of was.
This whole thing kind of was.
Because they’re sitting outside his trailer, their backs up against the siding and the moon is staring down at them, and it’s Steve fucking Harrington, lips around the paper he’d rolled, breathing into his space.
And his fake girlfriend is asleep inside.
Somewhere in the distance a dog howls, a gust of wind shakes the leaves of the tree line, and Steve’s fingers brush Eddie’s as he passes the joint off to him.
“We don’t have to have the “if you hurt Robin I’ll hurt you” talk, do we?” Steve says then, not looking at him, and his voice is just as tired. It’s funny though, the vague threat, because Eddie isn’t scared of Steve.
Not at all, not anymore. So he nudges his elbow into Steve’s side, laughs it off, says
“Please, spare me” and Steve makes a gesture like “okay, okay” and then Steve’s saying
“I’m happy for you two” and Eddie bites his tongue. Literally bites down into it because what is he supposed to say to that?
Happy we’re pretending to be who we’re not so I can grocery shop without a knock to the skull? Happy Robin is lying to her best friend because she’s an easier target than me, smaller, less intimidating, and god-knows what would happen to her?
But Steve doesn’t know that, how could he. And Eddie thinks that if it were just his secret, if it weren’t inextricably part of Robin now, he just might tell him. Look him dead in his half-open eyes and say
“Steve, I’m gay” with no jokes and Steve would probably spit and wipe his mouth where their shared joint had touched his lips, and get into his stupid car and leave, but at least Eddie would have had the courage to say it.
But instead he says “thanks” with no jokes, and Steve puts his lips where Eddie’s were when the joint gets passed back, because he doesn’t know where Eddie’s mouth has been or where it wants to be. And later, much later but still few words between them, when it gets sort of cold, Steve thanks him again, says goodnight and gets into his stupid car and leaves.
He comes back two days later though, with Robin, and this time Eddie makes them watch “Children of the corn” and sits on the floor still, but in front of Steve’s couch this time. And Robin doesn’t fall asleep until after, after the credits roll and the food is gone and Steve has teased her for being scared, although Eddie had felt the couch shift when he’d jumped.
Then the ceiling was a kaleidoscope of shadows, and the floor hard and unforgiving under him, bad on his back. And Steve didn’t say anything but the question was there-not an expectation.
And Eddie wants to get high anyways.
So they’re back outside, Steve sitting sort of on his feet still, perched on his ankles but weight rolled back into the siding. And Eddie standing, digging his shoes into the dirt because his ass hurts from the floor, and Steve looks really good. He’s in those jeans that look like they were painted on to his body, that hug his calves just right especially now, so Eddie stays standing and looks out into the lot. And they smoke, but Steve says more this time, says something about stereotypes that Eddie only catches the end of, something about
“Not what I expected” but Eddie doesn’t ask him to repeat it, just takes a long drag and passes it back to Steve again, their fingers touching on the hand-off.
“You ever see max?” Steve is asking now, and that gets Eddie’s attention, so he says
“Sinclair‘s heart-breaker?” And Steve scoffs, shifts a bit, goes
“Yeah, I guess so.” He’s looking over to the red-heads trailer, across the way, where all the lights are off. Eddie shrugs, watches Steve tap a bit of ash onto the ground.
“Not really. People sort of keep to themselves here.” Which is true in some ways and really not in others, because even here of all places where there’s little room to pass judgement, there’s always eyes on the freak. Steve nods like he understands and says something surprising, says
“I worry about her” like it’s casual. And Eddie knows that Steve knows them, Henderson and Wheeler and Sinclair, his newest campaign recruits who don’t shut up about what a good guy Steve is. He hadn’t believed them until Robin had agreed, and even now he’s still wary.
Eddie wants to make a joke about how all of Steve’s friends are kids, but he isn’t really one to talk, so he just gives Steve a look like “oh?” even though he thinks he knows. Because Billy Hargrove died in that mall fire and he’s pretty sure Red-head’s his sister or step-sister or something. And Billy was a grade-A asshole, but loss is still loss.
Grief is still grief.
“She’s been through a lot.” Steve says, but nothing else. And his tone is so gentle it tugs at something in Eddie’s chest. Maybe it’s the weed. Maybe they’re just tired. And the moon is blinking down at them, lulling them off to somewhere, and Eddie’s tolerance is high but he feels the pot creeping in a bit, making him all fuzzy. So he decides fuck it, he’ll sit, maybe the grass out here is softer than his living room floor.
It’s not really, but Steve’s knee knocks against his when he stretches his legs out, so maybe that makes the sitting worth it.
But he shouldn’t be thinking things like that.
Not about his fake girlfriends best friend who was Steve Harrington, of all people.
“They’re good kids” Eddie says, not knowing what else to say, and he’s doing the thing where he’s drumming his fingers down his legs, and he thinks Steve’s watching him do it. “Better than I was, at their age, Yknow. Smarter. More… evolved as people.”
“In some ways more than others.”
“Don’t tell the little shits I said that though, they won’t respect me as their DM anymore”
“Their… huh?”
“Dungeon master? Dungeons and dragons?”
“Oh” Steve says, “right.” And he’s smiling, looking amused. “Dustin talks about that, Hellfire right?” And Eddie nods, his hair in his face. “Dustin actually doesn’t stop talking about it.”
That stirs some warmth in Eddie, prompts him to say something like “well, he certainly does not shut up about you…” and Steve purses his lips, looks away and then he laughs, shakes his head like he’s thinking of something funny that he doesn’t share.
And his laugh feels like it doesn’t carry, feels like it exists just in this space, for Eddie to hear. But that’s probably just the weed. And he’s probably just tired. And the clouds have hidden the moon away. And they finish the joint while Steve asks him what dungeons and dragons even is, sits there silent and smiling and watching as Eddie explains as calmly as he can.
And later, much later, when the breeze becomes a chill, Steve thanks him. Stands and helps Eddie up, pulls him by the hand, and gets into his stupid car and leaves.
It’s hot, too hot in Steve’s car when Hawkins high comes into view, even though it’s a cooler day today. His collar feels like it’s itching. Like all the hair on the back of his neck is damp and sticking to skin.
He doesn’t really like being here, because it feels so distant from everything. Like who he was in that building hadn’t seen the shit he had now, couldn’t even fathom it. And he didn’t like who he was but in a way, maybe he mourns that innocence, feels the loss a bit as he parks in the lot and sweats and waits.
It’s not the first time he’s picked up the kids from a “campaign”, but it’s the first time he’s sort of intrigued. They’d always been too loud and excited to ever really explain what the hell they were talking about to Steve so he’d sort of just shut it out.
“It’s like entering another world, where you can be whatever, whoever you want. You decide what your backstory is, how you got to where you are, make decisions. And also, there’s wicked magic, and spells, and some really fucked up monsters…”
And Eddie had gone on to list names that sounded strange and made-up, which technically they were. And Steve didn’t tell him that he knew all about other worlds and fucked up monsters, or that he wished he knew what it was like to be whoever you want to be. He’d just listened and finally sort of understood what the big deal was.
And he’s early, like really early, and sort of curious, and so hot, too fucking hot in this car so he treks around the building and raps on the back door to the drama room, where he knows they are. There’s the squeaking of metal on a rough floor, and Mike is flinging the door open with so much exasperation on his face it’s almost comical.
“We aren’t done yet.” He says, blocking the entrance like whatever is behind it isn’t for him. And Steve says something like
“Do you want a ride home or not?”
And Eddie calls from somewhere in the red-lamp illuminated darkness, from a throne, Steve see’s when he squints. He says
“Wheeler, let the man in and close the god damn door would you? You’re ruining the ambiance.”
And Mike goes “Steve’s ruining it.” With a huff but he lets him through, and steve shoves a hand into mikes hair, ruffles it, mutters “nice to see you too, freeloader.”
And Robin’s here. Robin, Dustin, Lucas, Mike. Two others guys he doesn’t recognize. But Robin surprises him, takes him aback for a moment because she hasn’t mentioned, he didn’t expect-
And then oh, he reminds himself. They’re dating. That makes sense. But she’s sitting sort of sandwiched between the two other guys, looking a bit sheepish, and she waves to Steve but looks back down at the table before he has the chance to wave back.
Eddie gestures him towards a chair tucked in a corner. Mike shrugs away from Steve to rejoin the group and it’s as if isn’t here, because Eddie’s voice is different now and the whole room turns heavy and quiet.
Steve doesn’t really follow. He doesn’t know what’s going on but he feels it. Feels anxious. Feels like he’s under attack as Eddie stands and paces and says something about “hit points” and smacks his hands on the table. Gasps, sometimes, shouts. Dustin groans, Lucas has his head in his hands. Eddie makes the shape of an imaginary sword in his grip, plunges it to his heart, gargles. Coughs. Falls to the ground.
Then everyone’s cheering and Steve feels like he’s won, especially when Eddie jumps up off the floor and bows and splays his hands out and claps, and someone turns off the blood-red projector light, flips the switch so fluorescents burn his eyes, and it’s over.
The kids are packing their things.
And Eddie is in his space, again. He always manages to do that. Steve didn’t even see him coming until he was crouching, balanced on the balls of his feet, in front of Steve’s chair.
He puts his elbows on Steve’s knees.
“So, whaddya think, Harrington? You joining our club?”
It is really so hot, Steve is thinking, how is everyone else okay with how hot it is-
“I don’t think so, man.” He’s saying. And he’s not used to seeing Eddie like this. Just in the dim light of the video store with its burnt out bulbs, or the washed out flicker of the television, or the humming lamp and moonlight outside his trailer.
So he can really see him, right now, and his eyes are fucking huge, Steve realizes. Huge and rimmed with lashes that dig in to the creases below them as he smiles. And his hair isn’t actually that dark, the almost-black it seemed like, but a rich brown. The smell is the same, though. Like denim and leather and smoke.
Steve craves a cigarette.
“You wound me, my heart is shattered.” Eddie is drawling, and Steve makes a joke, says “pretty sure your heart was stabbed straight through”, and Eddie’s expression shifts, his eyebrows go up, up, then back down and his grin changes a bit, and he goes
“Watching me again, hey?”
And Steve says “You were laying it on a little thick.”
And Robin is behind Eddie, watching. She looks tired. Eddie seems to follow his gaze, turns his head, elbows still there and digging into Steve, and Robin gives him this look. Always a look.
Then a hand slaps his thigh and Eddie is standing, stretching, slinging an arm around Robin who looks small and a bit washed out next to him. Steve wants to hug her.
“Your chariot awaits, my lady.” He says, and suddenly Steve doesn’t want them to go.
“Movie night?” He offers, even though that would be their third in twice as many days. And now he knows the look on robins face, because she’s confused, her mouth open a bit, and Eddie is the same- a mirror of her except the corners of his lips turned up a bit.
“Can’t say no to that” he says, and Robin looks down at her hands, says “I’m beat.” And Steve goes
“You fall asleep every time anyways.” And she says
“You two feel free, I think I’ll go home.”
Then Eddie looks at him, confusion turned into questioning, a sort of pause in the air like they’re seeing who’s going to say “you sort of need to be there for the two of us to hang out, Robin.”
But neither of them do, Steve just nods and offers to drop her off along with the kids, which she accepts, and Eddie’s stature has gone a bit limp.
“Should be at your place in an hour.” he says, and Eddie let’s go of Robin, shuffles his feet around a little bit and says
“Bring a movie, it’s your turn to pick.”
Steve drops the kids off first even though it doesn’t make sense to do it that way. And Robin notices, her eyes set on the road, shoulders shifting a bit and a silence in the front of the car until it’s just them.
“You okay?” He asks, and maybe it’s a loaded question, because how could any of them be after the whole people in Hawkins turned into a giant monster and we were almost killed by Russians and we’ll never be the same again thing. She pulls her knees up to her lap which Steve knows she knows is dangerous, but he doesn’t say anything this time.
“Just haven’t really felt like myself lately, I guess.”
“Do you want to, I don’t know, talk about it?”
She looks at him, blinks. Opens her mouth and shuts it again, snakes her hand up behind her ear and Steve thinks he see‘s her tug on it out of the corner of his eye. But she shrinks back into the seat, leans her head back.
“I do” she says. “I really do.”
“Okay, let’s hear it then”
“I can’t.”
And that’s concerning, because Robin isn’t a person you have to pry information out of.
“Cmon, rob, there’s nothing you could say to me that’s crazier than what we’ve seen. I mean we-“
“Steve, let’s not do this, okay?”
“You know I understand” he says, gentle, stealing a glance away from the road and towards her. And she says, quiet,
“Not every problem that I have is about inter-dimensional monsters, believe it or not.” And that shuts Steve up.
Until he pulls up outside her house and she goes for the door but he locks it first, and she turns, her face yellow in streetlamp. And he loves her, god he loves her, but not at all in the way he thought he did in that bathroom. In a new way that he’d found somewhere in the mess of saving the world. Like he’d protect her, and the kids, no matter what. Like he just wanted to see them safe and happy.
But he doesn’t know how to say that, never does, so he says
“I’ll always be your friend, no matter what.” Like maybe that’s good enough. And for a moment it seems like it is, because something flashes, some recognition maybe, before she smiles and says
“I know, dingus, you’re stuck with me.” And Steve smiles back, offers to stay, which she declines, and she says with a knowing tone
“Have fun with my boyfriend.” And Steve unlocks the door, squeezes her shoulder, and she leaves.
Eddie isn’t sure why he cleans his trailer for Steve. He doesn’t clean it for anyone, really, barely even enough for Wayne and himself. But he’d driven home faster than he should have and flung himself through the door and scrubbed dishes and tidied and rearranged the couch cushions, flipped them so they were softer, and scrounged any snacks he could find even though Steve and Robin were eating him out of house and home, and and-
He’s nervous, god he’s nervous. No cushion of robins presence to keep him from tipping over tonight, which was especially unexpected because he was only hanging out with Steve to make him and robins relationship seem real.
Which also didn’t even really make sense because Steve Harrington was no longer the axis of Hawkins social hub, and the rumours hadn’t quite stopped, even when Eddie and Robin started holding hands in the hall.
Which he hated. To no fault of Robin’s. He really likes her, he does, hell in another universe where they were both straight maybe they were dating for real. And holding her hand wouldn’t feel so dirty.
So Eddie’s pacing, all nervous energy until he hears tires rumble onto gravel, see’s the swinging bleeding light of headlights through the blinds, and he opens his front door before Steve even has the chance to get out of his car. Leans on the doorframe.
And Steve doesn’t see him, doesn’t notice, at least Eddie thinks. Because he can see Steve through the windshield even though the lights are off now, and he’s fixing his hair in the mirror and muttering something to himself. Rolling his shoulders back. Taking a breath.
It feels like an intrusion to watch. He’s about to move, to go inside and just let Steve knock, but Steve spots him then. Eyes wide, just staring at each other and Steve’s face goes smooth- The Harrington facade, and he gets out of his stupid car with one, two three, four movies in his arms.
“We watching all of those?” Eddie calls as Steve comes up the walkway, which is really just a more trodden on patch of dirt, and he breezes past Eddie with their shoulders touching for a brief second. And he kicks his shoes off into the corner where they’ve been three times now, drops the movies on the counter, says
“I wasn’t sure what you like, but I figured at least one of these would be enjoyable.” To which Eddie reminds him that it was his turn to pick, and Steve makes a joke about how Eddie had suffered through grease and Eddie admits, painfully, that he had actually kind of enjoyed it, which makes Steve tilt his chin up sort of proud and say “I knew it.”
But they don’t pick a movie right away. Because Steve sheds his jacket and drapes it over a stool by the counter and sits on it, looking sort of cautious and says
“Do you know what’s going on with Robin?”
And Eddie does. Painfully so. There’s this sinking feeling like he’s standing in the soft dirt outside, like his feet aren’t quite steady. So he just says “yeah” really quiet, kind of firm, and he’s relieved when Steve doesn’t press it. Just sort of nods with a look like he’s not in on the joke, eyes pointed away.
“And you’re there for her?” He asks. Which makes Eddie’s stomach hurt a little bit because he knows, or at least he thinks he knows, in this moment, that if Steve knew he wouldn’t mind. He’d be okay with it.
But he just says “yeah” really quiet, kind of firm, and Steve just sort of nods and says
“Thank you.” Like Eddie is doing him a service.
And Eddie’s thinking about his phone call with Robin last night, where she’d said she hated this, hated the lying. And Eddie had offered to break up with her, or, better yet, have her break up with him. Some big dramatic thing so people would still talk about them even dating in the first place.
And she’d laughed, said “guess we’ll have to do that eventually.”
And Eddie had said “I’m looking forward to you breaking my heart, Buckley.” Even though they both decided after that it was too soon.
Because Eddie had been filling up his van with gas the other day when some jock from school sauntered up with a lit cigarette and put it out right onto the exposed skin of his forearm, with a slur on his tongue, and in the distance his friends had laughed.
And Eddie had just stood there. Feeling like he was on fire.
So then Eddie says something stupid, really stupid, because his arm stings even though the skin isn’t tender anymore, he says
“she told me about the bathroom conversation.” Before he even knows why he’s saying it.
But Steve doesn’t look surprised. He looks relieved almost, eyes meeting Eddie’s again and he says
“You have nothing to worry about, man, those feelings are long gone.”
And Eddie says “I’m not worried.” And then, “I’m glad someone cares for her so much.” And Steve says
“So am I.” And it’s sort of funny, because Steve has no idea what he’s talking about. Especially because Eddie is seeing this side of Steve that he’s heard so much about, this talked-up hero, protective and wonderful, and he might be lying but Steve said “those feelings are long gone” with so much sincerity that Eddie wants to kiss him.
Isn’t it funny, Steve has no idea how much his best friends fake boyfriend wants to kiss him.
Eddie thinks maybe he always has, just a little bit, somewhere under his skin like an itch.
Instead Eddie offers the next best thing, a way for their lips to touch without touching, a way to make his nerves calm down a bit, so they go outside together like a little ritual, and sit on the dead, dry grass.
When they’re back inside, hungry and fuzzy and laughing about something Eddie doesn’t even remember, Steve picks up the movies and holds them behind his back, tells Eddie to pick a hand.
“That doesn’t work with four movies, Harrington.” He chides, and steve just grins, hands moving behind him as he shuffles.
“Guess we’ll just have to watch two.”
So Eddie picks the left, his heart skipping, and Steve pulls them out but doesn’t show him, just mumbles “oh boy” and heads for the VCR, fiddles with it while Eddie makes the popcorn he’d put out on the counter earlier.
When he’s done, two bowls balanced precariously in hand, he flicks the lights off and finds Steve on the couch. But not the way he usually is, not all sprawled out on it, but sitting neatly in the corner like he’s leaving space.
And maybe it’s the weed, or maybe he’s just tired. And there’s moonlight through the windows that sort of seeps into the space, sort of washes over Steve, and it carry’s Eddie’s body to the open end of the couch like an invitation he can’t refuse.
And Steve hits play on what Eddie soon realizes is “Videodrome”
So they sit next to each other. Knees sort of almost touching, armchair empty of Robin, Steve thinking Eddie is his straight best-friends also-straight boyfriend, and Eddie wanting to kiss him.