Chapter Text
When Steve and Eddie broke up, the world might as well have stopped turning.
Everything Steve had thought about his future came crashing down over the course of less than an hour. There was no fighting or screaming, which honestly Steve thought he might have preferred. Fight for me Eddie please god keep loving me his insides screamed but he knew that he didn’t deserve it. Instead, the pair spoke calmly, evenly, about what they should do next. They sat at opposite ends of the couch and they measured their responses because even though Steve wanted it to be loud and messy, Eddie just looked tired.
They had spent a couple of months before that point dancing around the reason why they had stopped touching while they slept, stopped being so enthusiastic when the other got home after work, until one day it was too obvious to ignore. It had become more than an angry slip of the tongue that couldn’t be forgotten no matter how hard they tried and no matter how much they tried to bury it. It was a boulder between them that made them stop just short of touching each other on the arm when they spoke, or stopped their smile from reaching their eyes when they made jokes together. It wasn’t until it was staring them right in the face yet again, thanks to a flier in the mail, and if one of them didn’t say it out loud, it would eat them both alive.
“This isn’t working anymore, is it?”
“No. No, it’s not.”
Steve was the one to move out because of course he was. Neither of them said it but it was him that caused this. They both knew it. Steve was too embarrassed to admit it. Eddie was too polite. He’d called Robin and offered to pay rent for her spare room which she would refuse to take even though Steve insisted. Eddie went to stay back with his uncle for a few days. Give him space to pack up his things, there would be no arguments over who owned what. The more Steve packed away the more he realised how different their tastes were, but he still thought it all fit together so well.
They had spent three beautiful years together. The each knew the other’s favourite weather, predicted how they’d react to a new movie in the theatre or song on the radio, found the curves of each other’s bodies in the dark and knew what noises they’d make when they touched right there. They could feel their way to paradise without even saying a word. They didn’t need to speak, they knew what the other liked, wanted. They’d know each other blind. Steve was new to basically everything that came with this relationship, but Eddie was a great guide. Patient, gentle, reassuring. Everything Steve had never had and everything he wanted now.
When Steve had nightmares, Eddie knew the right things to say to soothe him back to sleep. He would take him in his arms and pull him close, right into the crook of his neck, and whisper sweet promises of how bright the morning would be. Steve would rarely wake up screaming anymore, but he would shake violently into consciousness gasping for air. He’d be flailing and trying to reach for a weapon, so sure that they needed to go rescue someone. Eddie was always right there to grab him and hold him. Steve would breath in deeply while his boyfriend cooed his reassurances, drinking in the smell of Eddie’s skin. Sweat and cigarettes and the awful scented candles the record store he worked at would burn.
Whenever Eddie would have a flashback to his time in the Upside Down, Steve would remind him that Vecna was gone and couldn’t hurt him anymore, couldn’t hurt any of them anymore. Eddie cried in his sleep sometimes, some distant part of him remembering how it felt to be trapped there, but Steve knew how to help him. Softly. Always softly. Anything too fast or that wasn’t whisper-gentle would make him wake up in a panic. Steve had perfected calming him while he was still sleeping. He’d scoop Eddie’s long hair into his hands and hold it away from his face as he kissed his jawline while he spoke truths of how much he loved him against his pulse. The whines would slowly subside and Eddie would become peaceful as he relaxed under Steve’s touch.
It was bliss, for a while. But it was, Steve thought, ignorant. It was never built to last.
Perfect things never last, do they. They come like a flash and they leave shadows behind them. Eddie was much more than just a shadow in Steve’s life now, they shared all the same friends so he was still a glowing presence in his weekly routines of seeing the kids and having big family dinners at the Byers-Hopper house. Oh man, those were awkward for a few weeks after the breakup. Lots of small talk about nothing and sideways glances from one to the other because they were sitting on different sides of the table now instead of on each other’s laps. Steve started making up fake dates and talking about fake partners and only used girl’s names to twist the knife even though it twisted just as hard in his own gut as he hoped it did in Eddie’s. He said it all just make himself seem fine because Steve being fine was the only way to get people to stop asking him if he was fine. Besides, he’d only started doing it after Dustin had asked Eddie carelessly loud one night about who he’d seen him driving around with the previous day. It was two months after Steve moved out. Eddie’s hurried head shake told Steve all he needed to know.
God bless Nancy Wheeler for making as much noise as she possibly could (“Oh my gosh Joyce I’m so sorry I dropped my glass!”) to cover up the tiny noise that came out of Steve’s mouth before he could stifle it. He was glad they’d repaired their friendship. She was better off with Jonathon anyway, he treated her better than Steve ever could. Loved her, not just the idea of her.
He hadn’t shown up to one of the dinners in a while. He’d made sure that he was working every time there was one on by swapping shifts. It was easier than watching people try to be subtle about pitying him.
It was a stupid thing, really, that triggered the end of it all. On any other day it wouldn’t have even registered on his radar. The day it happened, it had been two years, or thereabouts, since Steve last saw his parents. They arrived back in Hawkins with no notice, turning up at the video store with a stack of paperwork. They were signing the house over to him and were just back in town to gather the last of their things. They’d be gone again by the end of the week. Steve could throw away anything they left behind that he didn’t want. He thought it was funny because they clearly thought they were doing him a favour. Giving him the big empty house that they barely spent any time in after he was old enough to be left home alone. He didn’t fit into their new life in France full of champagne on boats and air kisses and oh darling you look simply fabulous in that new fur coat. He signed the papers with a Family Video branded pen and rented the house to a family who’d lost theirs during Vecna’s reign of terror. He didn’t see them again before they left.
He had been standing in the kitchen with a coffee when the phone rang. His mother doing her bi-annual check in. Not making sure her only child was still alive would surely make her a bad mother so this was how she made herself feel like mom of the year. She asked how he was doing and if he had found himself a nice girl to settle down with yet. For the first time, he decided to answer honestly and that was Steve’s first mistake. Mom I’m seeing someone, have been for a while, we live together, I love him-
Him?
That’s what did it. That’s what finally broke apart the tentative relationship that he and his parents had. He had almost forgotten that it wasn’t just that they were bad parents, they were bad people too. She screamed herself hoarse and then when his dad took the phone he repeated all the same terrible things that she did. Steve sat like a good boy and listened to what they had to say. Just like when he was a kid and they were telling him all the reasons that he disappointed them. He was almost twenty three now and still the worst thing that had ever happened to them. At least they had an excuse to stop caring about him now. They didn’t have to pretend like they loved him anymore.
It was barely twenty minutes before Eddie arrived home with that damn newspaper. If he was home later, Steve would have calmed down and avoided everything. He was to blame because he had come home early and Steve wasn’t prepared for it. It was his fault that everything crumbled.
Well of course it’s not his fault but Steve had to tell himself something in those early days to keep himself alive. He had to tell himself that he was only half the problem, not the full problem.
So when the love of his life arrived back through the front door far too soon after Steve had hung up, it was never going to have a happy ending. He felt like cat on its heckles. When Eddie spoke, Steve thought his only option was to attack when he should have protected. That would have saved everything. The world would have kept turning.
Steve and Eddie lived in a tiny apartment over the mini market in town. Two bedrooms, to keep undeserving people from knowing why they really lived together, and easy to fill to the brim with love. The population of Hawkins weren’t special enough to know about their love, or at least that’s what they told each other late at night when they lay in bed, hushed voices pretending that they’d walk down the main street hand-in-hand the next day. They would paint a picture of strolling down the pavement without a care in the world for who might see them or the names they might be called. Occasionally it would turn into a contest of who could suggest the most outlandish thing that they could do on this imaginary day. Whoever made the other laugh most would be declared the winner.
Until Steve said something he couldn’t take back and pulled the plug right out from underneath them.
“What did you just-?”
“You heard me”
And of course Eddie didn’t know how to react because Steve hadn’t told him about his parents’ phone call. He never told anyone about it, in fact. Not even Robin knew. All Eddie knew was that suddenly the man who had promised to keep him safe and knew all of his insecurities had just spat one of them out into the space between them. Steve wanted to claw the words out of the air and shove them back into his mouth. Swallow them. He wanted to pretend that he hadn’t said anything. He’d cover it up with a cough and instead go stand behind Eddie, wrap his arms around him, tell him it was all going to be ok. Too late, Eddie heard exactly what he said and their life together was over, even if it was months later that it officially ended.
Steve made himself feel better for a little while afterwards by looking up things called Trauma Bonds in the local library. He had heard it on TV and latched right onto it. They had gone through literal hell together and confused feelings of relief and platonic love for romance. They clung together because they felt like they had to. Eddie only wanted Steve because Steve was the one who had dragged his body back through the gate and Steve was the first person he’d seen when he woke up in the hospital. Reducing it to a trauma bond meant that he had never actually loved Eddie. Not really, it just felt that way. Adrenaline was to blame, not hormones. Sometimes he reminded himself that this logic meant Eddie never really loved him either, but that thought always made his stomach hurt so he could never dwell on it for too long. But if that’s what their relationship was built on, then it was destined to fail and it meant that Steve would be back to his old self in no time.
He wasn’t.
*
Steve had never felt so lost.
He’d sit alone after work wondering how he could ever talk to anyone else the way he had talked to Eddie. How would he explain all the things he liked or didn’t like to someone who couldn’t already guess. How could he tell someone all about his favourite movies when he knew that they wouldn’t watch him while he spoke the same way Eddie had. No one would ever care so much about anything he said the way Eddie did. He’d think about this for hours every single night until it was late enough to lie in bed and force himself to try and sleep.
Steve had never planned on there being an ‘After Eddie’, never planned on there being a ‘next person’. He wasn’t even sure how he’d go about finding a next person. Eddie had arrived in his life fully formed, ready to love and be loved. Like a dream that he’d pulled out of his mind and into reality. Where did you even come from, Steve had asked him once, the night they said I Love You for the first time. Steve had said it first, of course. Blurted it out in the middle of a laugh while Eddie told him about accidentally smacking Will Byers during a particularly animated DnD session.
“You do?” said Eddie, still with his arms outstretched, but the story was firmly on pause.
Steve shifted in his seat. Of course he did, but he hadn’t meant to say it. It had barely been three months. Eddie’s grin was obscene.
Steve cleared his throat.
“Y’know, sure, I mean, why not, right?” he stuttered out, looking at his hands.
Eddie was on him before Steve knew it. Kissing him and holding him and filling his head with a million different ways to say I Love You Too.
Later that night as their hands roamed, still testing boundaries and checking reactions at this very early stage, Steve’s lips brushed over Eddie’s as he revelled in having this beautiful creature writhing in his arms.
“Where did you even come from?”
“All that matters is I’m here”
That was Steve’s least favourite memory. That was the one that hurt the most.
No one was here with him now and it terrified him. Not because he wanted to be surrounded by people, or be in a relationship. No, it scared him because he didn’t know how to be alone with himself. He was always the one that saved everyone else, the babysitter, the best friend, the safe space. But Steve had no idea how to be those things for himself. He couldn’t make those promises to himself because they felt like a lie.
Any time anyone asked how he was doing, it was easy for him to shrug his shoulders and pretend. He’d make up some lie about doing better or feeling lighter. Maybe if he could convince everyone else, he’d start to believe it too. Maybe one day he’d wake up and wouldn’t think about Eddie before he opened his eyes. Maybe he wouldn’t have a split second where he forgot and almost reached his hand out to find warm skin beside him.
The longer the charade went on, the more he knew he couldn’t ask for help. He felt pathetic by this point. He knew that the only advice he’d get would be to move on, try find someone else, try find a hobby, so he didn’t even see the point in trying. The same bullshit that got spewed at him at the start. It was always so easy for people to rattle off some generic hallmark advice and then pat themselves on the back acting like they’d helped and were waiting so say I told you so when he was suddenly cured. Still, he just wanted someone to sit down in front of him and read him like a book. Insist he tell them what was wrong. Let him be sad about it and not pity him for it. He was desperate for someone to decide he needed help without him asking for it. He needed help.
Max had suggested therapy one time. He was driving her home after the kids, who were now deciding what colleges to go to so probably weren’t really kids anymore, had bumped into him at the mall. They were all in high spirits but Steve could see her leaning a little too heavy on her cane, so he offered her a ride if she wanted to leave early. She only let on to him how grateful she was for it. They had been listening to the radio when she spoke up, like she’d been on a countdown to convince herself to say something.
“Have you talked to anyone about the breakup?” she asked, too quickly to pass it off as casual.
“Uh, what?” asked Steve, caught off guard.
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
“What? Uh, yeah, I talk to Robin all the time about-”
“I bet you don’t,” she said, cutting him off. “I bet you say you’re fine and you just need to keep working through it”
Astute little thing, wasn’t she?
“Max I don’t know what you want me to tell you here?” said Steve, at a loss.
“I still talk to someone. About Billy, about Vecna, all of it”
“That’s good, it’s good to talk to your friends”
“No you idiot. I talk to a professional”
“Oh”
“I think you should too”
Steve chewed the inside of his cheek.
“I’ll think about it”
When Max got out of the car (as far away as Steve could possibly be from her trailer without having her hobble for too long, in case Eddie was visiting his uncle), Steve did actually think about going to see a therapist to help wade through everything he was feeling. In fact he spent a good ten minutes thinking it was a great idea. It would be exactly what he needed to get rid of the last of his feelings. But then Steve did what Steve does best when he’s alone, and he started to think of all the things wrong with it.
Talk to someone? About what? A relationship they weren’t part of, with a man they didn’t know? They’d sit there once a week for an hour and someone would pretend to care about him and how he was doing. Stupid. He couldn’t talk to them about how he missed the way Eddie’s thumb felt when it dug into the back of his neck during sex. Or what about how he hated not smelling Eddie’s sweat first thing in the morning after they’d been up late gasping and moaning? Oh wait, he knew. He could tell them every detail of how Eddie held him and told him he was doing so good for him, how perfect he felt for him. He was sure that would be worth talking about, oh yeah. They’d probably try dig right in to all those dirty little feelings instead of helping him to feel better now and all that would mean was Steve would be humiliated by the break up all over again. Only this time, in front of a stranger. What a dumb idea. Paying someone to act like they gave a shit? He might as well waste his money on a whore.
*
Steve hated that he still worked in the Family Video store.
He’d saved the world but still had to remind people to rewind a damn video tape. Robin still working there with him was the only saving grace. Eddie used to come in a couple of times a day, the record store he worked at was in the same strip mall, to say hi or ask Steve for his front door keys because he’d forgotten his own again. These days instead of looking through the window eagerly whenever he seen that mop of curly brown hair through it and waiting for the door to open, he’d find something to do urgently in the office if he so much as thought that Eddie would be coming in. He had every right to come in as much as he wanted to, of course, Robin was still one of his closest friends, but even though Steve was fine and Eddie was apparently more than fine, he couldn’t bear to stand and chit chat when all he could think about was who might have had their hands on Eddie’s body since Steve last lay beside him. It was even worse when he tortured himself by thinking that Eddie would have enjoyed it, too.
“Earth to Steve!”
Robin was waving her hand in front of his face. Steve had been putting tapes back on the shelf, thumbs threaded through homemade holes in the long sleeves of his t-shirt, when he’d found himself holding a copy of The Lost Boys. It came out the year after they won the war against Vecna and it quickly became Eddie’s favourite. Steve had bought him a copy for their first anniversary and they watched it at least once a week. Eddie knew all the words and would speak along with all his favourite parts. Steve loved it. Loved how Eddie would do the voices of the characters and if they’d been drinking he'd get up and act it out too. He snapped himself out of his stupor and continued his task of restacking the shelves as if he hadn’t just spent over a minute frozen in place and reciting Eddie’s favourite lines in his head.
“What’s up Rob?” he said, hoping to sound nonchalant.
“Just checking in…” she replied, eyebrows furrowed and looking unconvinced.
Steve swallowed hard against his own breath and adjusted his demeanour as best he could.
“Yeah? You ok?” said Steve, still looking at the shelves as he worked, not daring to look at her.
“I was asking about the moving truck, is it still coming at three on Saturday?”
Steve’s gut dropped. The fucking moving truck. He had been staying with Robin and Vickie while the rental lease on his house ran out and this weekend he’d be able to move back in. He had almost forgotten even though he’d had his stuff packed for almost a month now. He was rewashing the same two t shirts and three pairs of boxers instead of opening his bags and taking anything else out.
As hard as he knew it would be, he was almost counting down the hours to the truck arriving. Robin and Vickie were great but they were so in love. Being around them made Steve sick to his stomach because he knew neither of them would ever say to each other what he had said to Eddie. He knew they would never experience that kind of nuclear fucking bomb going off between them.
“Three sharp!” chirped Steve. “And then I’ll be a distant six month long memory. It’ll be good to be back in the house, you know, back to familiar territory, I might even move into my parent’s old room instead of my one, it’s way bigger and they had that huge tub in their bathroom. And you guys will have some real privacy again too, you know? You probably don’t even realise how much you miss it”
He was rambling now.
“Steve…” started Robin, placing her hand on his arm.
Steve flinched away from the touch, from the dull shock of pain that came with it, and kept his eyes on the shelves as he pulled his body sideways away from her. He didn’t need to see if she had put two and two together from his reaction. He didn’t care either, he just kept talking.
“I’ll probably have to hire a cleaner until I’m used to having so much space to myself again but that’s fine, there’s some phone numbers on the wall in the grocery store offering help so it won’t be hard to find someone to help me”
Please someone help me
The bell over the door tinkled and they both spun to look, Robin starting on her Welcome To Family Video spiel before they even saw who was standing there.
Eddie. Of course it was. Steve spends longer than ten seconds thinking about him and like magic, there he is. The curse of small town living. It’s too easy to see the exact person you wish you wouldn’t. It’s too difficult to hide when they do appear. Everyone asks you about them because you’re just such good friends and it’s so great that he was able to rebuild his life after everything so please give him my regards. Sure Barbara, I’ll tell him.
It’s only in the darkest parts of the night that Steve lets himself think about Eddie because that’s the only time he’s sure that he won’t just turn up next to him. No matter how much he wishes he would. Steve would curl himself up in the thin blanket of Robin’s spare bedroom and pretend he can still hear Eddie’s breathing beside him. He’ll cradle his arm beneath him, screw his eyes closed until they hurt while he remembers how their feet would stay tangled together until they woke up. He’ll let himself take a peek into that little corner of his heart that is reserved especially for memories of Eddie and pull at his hair to keep himself from crying. How could Eddie have moved on so easily? How could he have forgotten how all that felt? Steve couldn’t even jerk off anymore because all he could see when he closed his eyes was Eddie.
Trauma bonds Steve reminded himself. Nothing but a trauma bond. He just came out of the fog sooner than you did.
Robin went to greet Eddie while Steve mumbled something about filing receipts and slunk off down the Employee Only hallway to the office. He pushed the door closed behind him and threw his head back. It hit the heavy wood of the door so hard that he saw stars for a second. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Steve’s mantra for whenever he saw the man who made his chest feel like it was imploding. Just keep breathing and no one will notice that he’s not angry or irritated. No one will notice that he's in so much pain that even breathing felt like too big a task. Eddie was his oxygen for so long, and now he felt like he was suffocating. Six months since he left their little home and six months that he’d had a bag over his head while Eddie apparently had a fucking scuba tank.
He stood still for a long time, staring at the dirty grey ceiling in the badly lit office and trying to clear his mind. He was fighting hard against tears. He kept tapping his head back against the door as if he was trying to knock some sense into himself. He couldn’t keep living like this. He couldn’t stay in love with someone who didn’t love him back anymore. But the more he hit his head, the less he was able to stop thinking about him.
A buzzer rang and Steve opened his eyes to look at the CCTV screen on the desk. Robin had pressed the ‘Get Out Here Now Please’ button because a hoard of customers had just arrived and she couldn’t serve everyone alone. He couldn’t see if Eddie was still around but he couldn’t leave Robin alone any longer either. Steve flexed his fingers and balled his fists, willing himself to calm down, before plastering on his best retail smile and walked out into the busy store, planting himself behind the desk to work through the queue that had formed while Robin was giving recommendations on the floor.
“Oh Eddie, good luck tonight!” called Robin as Eddie walked backwards out of the door, pushing it open behind him with his shoulders.
“Got plans, Munson?” asked Steve while his next customer shuffled towards the counter, rustling in her handbag. He kept his expression neutral and his voice flat. He spoke before he could help himself.
“Yeah,” said Eddie shortly, not looking at Steve. “Real hot date”
He disappeared outside and Steve had to make a physical effort to stay standing. The words had hit him like a steam train, like a punch right to the stomach. His knees buckled and he just about managed to steady himself with a hand on the countertop. He caught a split second of Robin’s reaction before she had to go back into Customer Service Mode. That was probably the most they’d said to each other since Steve moved out and it was more than he ever wanted to say to him again. His ears were practically ringing and any chance he had of providing good service to the people of Hawkins today was out the window.
He knew Eddie had moved on, he’d basically said as much that night at dinner in Joyce’s house, but hearing it from his own mouth was something Steve hadn’t been prepared for. He would have preferred to have acid thrown in his face than to have heard that. He was instantly on autopilot. No smiles for the customers, no trying to upsell a loyalty card. At one point, he slammed a tape down on the counter so hard that the stand of mini peanut packets shook violently and threatened to fall over. There was a definite lull in the noise around him while everyone looked to see what happened. He didn’t care. Let them look. He acted like nothing happened. Noise, what noise? Didn’t hear anything.
He and Robin spent the next two hours working through a particularly bad rush of people and when it finally died down, she approached him slowly. Like someone trying to sneak up on a wounded animal to help it. Or kill it.
“Steve?” she ventured quietly.
He was stood at the computer, bent over and bashing the keyboard much harder than was necessary to input the returns for the day.
“What,” he snapped. He hadn’t meant to snap but whatever.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be ok?”
“Well…Eddie said…I thought you might…”
“What did he say?” he asked, straightening up and spinning to face her, daring her to repeat it. “Didn’t hear him”
Robin looked into Steve’s eyes and was clearly desperate to say one thing, but deciding to go with another.
“Nothing. He didn’t say anything” she sighed.
“Figured,” said Steve, taking off his uniform vest and throwing it onto the seat. “You good to close? I gotta go”
“What? Where are you going?”
Steve was already half way out the door as Robin tried to chase him and bring him back. She was worried and he knew it, but he’d spent this long being fine so why couldn’t he still be fine. Why was now the time to notice that he had been anything but fine ever since he started sleeping on a bed that wasn’t his. Wasn’t theirs.
*
Steve woke up with a creek in his neck the next day. He was shivering and needed to piss but anything was better than going back to Robin’s place and letting her pity him in a private space. At least if he turned up to work after sleeping in his car, albeit unshaven, unshowered, and with his hair doing god knows what, she could only make use of the short periods of quiet between customers. As he shifted from his awkward position on his side around onto his back, he jumped as he rolled over his still-open pocket knife. The last thing he needed was his work pants getting ripped open.
He dragged himself into the front seat, slipped on his sunglasses, and rolled his shoulders to try and undo the knots that had appeared overnight.
The moving truck that was coming to bring his things back to his old house was only small, so to save on space he’d crammed some extra bags into the trunk last week. At least he was able to use a bundled up old shirt as pillow. It was too early to go to work so he decided to swing by the house and drop that stuff there early. The family had moved out already so he had no reason to put it off any longer. He was really going to living in this place again.
Anyone else would love to have a house like this handed to them on a platter. Pool, huge bedrooms, nice basement, great kitchen. Steve was sure that plenty of people would envy him having all that space to himself to do what he wanted with. He knew already that he’d pick one bedroom, probably his old one because why not, and move between that and the kitchen. He doubted he’d ever even open the other doors. The kids were all going off to college soon so he wouldn’t have to worry about them wanting to come over to use the pool or sleep over. He wouldn’t need to worry about anyone. He'd be all alone.
He drove slowly through his old familiar neighbourhood, reminiscing about things that had changed since he’d last been there. Nothing was too different, mostly just doors and fences that had been repainted, and one new stop sign that caught him by surprise when he almost ran straight passed it. The trees were taller and the bushes were wilder, but he felt like a teenager again, driving home from school or from a basketball game. He didn’t like the feeling. Especially not when he pulled up outside the house and didn’t see any other car in the driveway. That made it just like old times.
Steve sat in his car for a few minutes, staring up at the house. The windows were lifeless and dark even in the sun, the whole place just cold looking. Not entirely different from when he was a kid, really. His rubbed his thumbs on the steering wheel as he prepped himself to go up to the door and open it. It was like getting out of the car would make it final. Not living with Robin for six months, not having most of his things in a storage locker. No. Opening that door and returning to his old life, a life without Eddie, without love, would be what made it real. He was never going to buy a fucking newspaper again. He took a deep breath and started counting to ten. At ten, he was going to get out and take two bags from him trunk and walk towards the door.
He made it to a hundred and seventy five before he turned the car back on and drove away.
*
“You look like shit,”
Fuck
“How was your date, Munson?” said Steve, deadpan as he bumped Eddie’s shoulder as he came through the door into the video store to start his shift. He made sure his thumbs were firmly through the holes in his sleeves as he passed his former lover.
He must have been visiting Robin, who started two hours before Steve did. He’d be closing alone tonight. Fridays were only busy until seven. Steve called him Munson during any interaction now very much on purpose. They had hardly ever used their surnames during their relationship. They had nicknames, Stevie and Eds, or baby and sweetheart, or others that were panted out in heavy breaths onto sweat-stained skin, which flowed like honey out of their mouths. But they were never Harrington and Munson.
Except once. They had been joking about the idea of Lucas and Max getting married someday, and how she would probably insist on Lucas taking her last name. Eddie sounded a little too serious when he said he’d take Steve’s last name if they got married. Steve almost choked on his own tongue. Eddie’s eyes lit up when he saw the reaction. The flush had swept over his face in a second and he couldn’t hide how beet red he’d gone. Eddie played up to it as much as he could. Started talking about flower arrangements and how’d they’d decide which side Dustin would stand on in the wedding party. He had gone around singing Eddie Harrington! Eddie Harrington! for three days, wearing one of his giant rings on his fourth finger and waving it around saying that it was almost the right size, if Steve was getting any ideas.
That wasn’t anything to be concerned about now, though. Now he was back to being Munson and Steve was back to having no place in his life, or his future. There would be no more talk of weddings, real or fake, no more rings worn on suggestive fingers and kept there a little too long for it to be a joke anymore. No chance. The last phone call Steve ever made from their home was to inform the tenants of the house that they wouldn’t be getting another year on their lease. They had said thank you for giving us such a long notice period, Mr Harrington, we appreciate it and he wished he never had to hear his last name again.
Robin smiled and looked relieved to see him after he didn’t arrive home (Home? No. He just slept there. Turned the garage lights on at night to keep foxes away, turned them off again in the morning. But it wasn’t home>. Hadn’t been for a long time.) last night, but her face fell almost immediately when she saw Steve’s face.
“Where have you been, dingus?!” she called as he passed the counter. “I was worried sick!”
“Real hot date,” said Steve, turning to look back towards her and walking backwards towards to rear of the store.
He caught Eddie’s eye just as the man left through the front door. Steve couldn’t quite pin down his expression. Was he annoyed? He looked it. His upper lip had curled in the same way it used to whenever someone called him a ‘freak’. Like he was trying not to react but couldn’t hide his distaste. Let him be annoyed, thought Steve. Why should he get to move on but I can’t. Even if this date was as fake as the rest as he’d bragged about before.
Steve had checked his red eyes in the car mirror as he drove away from his hidden spot near Skull Rock this morning but hadn’t quite gotten the full effect of how he looked yet. Vickie was standing with Robin and when she seen her girlfriends expression she too turned to look at Steve.
“Oh Steve, are you sick?” asked Vickie.
Sweet, precious, naïve Vickie.
She was the epitome of pure, up to the point of being cartoonish. She had an impossibly positive outlook on life and was almost nauseating in her optimism. When Steve had gone to stay with them, she gave him a big speech about being grateful for the memories. Use them to grow for the future. Learn how to love yourself before you try learn to love anyone else. Steve had smiled politely and said thank you. In reality he'd wanted to knock her out.
“Just tired,” he told her, winking as he went to the employee washroom to throw water on his face and finally empty his bladder.
Jesus.
The mirror in here was a lot less forgiving than the one in his car. He really did look like shit, Eddie wasn’t lying. Now that he could see his whole face all at once, he could see the red blotches that covered his cheeks. He had finally let himself cry last night and boy did he look like a mess this morning because of it. For the first time in months, Steve let himself sob. He howled. He lifted his sleeves and hissed at the pain through heavy tears. He had been determined not to cry about what he’d been trying to convince himself was a fake relationship built on trauma bonds that he couldn’t save, and had fought off tears for as long as he could. But last night as he folded himself into his back seat and swore to himself that it was comfortable, he seen something under the seat that broke his heart all over again.
One of Eddie’s rings was under the passenger seat. But not just any of them. His favourite ring. The one he had used in his Eddie Harrington joke. They had thought he lost it.
Steve had lifted it slowly, carefully, like it was made of wet sand and might fall part if he held it too hard. He had no idea how long it had been there. Was this really laying there since they swam in the quarry last spring? It must have been. That day was really far too early in the year for it to be anything other than freezing cold conditions to swim in, but they were wild and free and had no idea what was coming. They swam at night under the dark sky, letting the stars and the moon light the water for them. If Steve thought any of the kids had tried to swim at night he would have killed them, but for him and Eddie it was special. Nothing could hurt them when they were together, they were untouchable.
“Take your rings off! I’m not letting you drown trying to find any if you lose them in there!”
He cradled it in his hand and held it close to his heart. Steve he put his lips against it and whispered all the words he wished he could say to Eddie now. He begged for forgiveness, knowing no one would hear him. He slipped the ring on and off his fingers, spinning it around. It fit his fingers the same way it did Eddie’s. Too tight on the middle, comfortable on the index, but just perfect on the fourth. He closed his eyes and imagined he was back beside Eddie. Look what I found today, he’d say. Oh wow, I thought I’d lost that! would come the reply. And then they’d kiss and be happy, laughing about how well hidden it had stayed for all this time. Steve had fallen asleep while holding it, clinging to the fantasy of unlocking the front door and seeing Eddie smile as he presented it to him.
It sat in his jeans pocket now, in the white tiled bathroom of the Family Video. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, too afraid to leave it down in case it disappeared and he once more had nothing of Eddie’s left. He couldn’t wear it, obviously. But maybe he could find somewhere safe for it at the house. Somewhere that it wouldn’t escape from. Somewhere that if Eddie came looking for it, Steve would be able to say, it’s right here, I kept it safe for you.
Eddie wasn’t going to come looking for it though. Even if he knew Steve had it, he wouldn’t want it back.
*
At twenty four minutes past three on Saturday afternoon, the moving truck showed up outside Robin and Vickie’s place.
The place where he had most of his stuff stored offered a moving service, so using them meant that the truck was already packed with boxes that they’d collected from the facility before getting to him. There wasn’t that many, only five, mostly full of clothes and cassettes. He could have rented a van and moved it all himself, really. He might have fit it all into the car, if he tried.
Robin was at work and Vickie was visiting her parents so Steve had some time alone before it arrived to process what was happening. Or rather, fail to process it. His head was spinning and he was sure he was going to pass out at some point. The biggest thing he was feeling was confusion. Even after all this time he couldn’t figure out why this was happening. He obviously knew the reason but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t fair. He was a good person and he deserved to be happy. So why had he thrown everything away because he let his parents, of all people, who he barely cared about to begin with, upset him.
Anytime he thought about it now, Steve felt nothing when he remembered how they spoke to him on the phone while they disowned him. He hadn’t yelled back or defended himself because he just didn’t care what they thought. They had so little impact on his life and the man he was today that their opinion of him meant nothing, and hadn’t for a long time. Even afterwards, he still didn’t feel anything. But hindsight is twenty/twenty. Steve sometimes wondered if it had something to do with that inner-child thing that he’d read about when he was looking up trauma bonds. You know, the hidden parts of your personality that stays in your childhood and remembers all of the bad things that happen to you.
Steve’s inner-child must have been screaming that day. When he was a kid he had been so desperate for the attention that bounced around the house just to get them to look at him.
“Mommy tell me I’m your favourite boy! “
“You’re my only boy, now calm down before you break something”
All he wanted for his mom and dad to act the same way all his friends’ parents did. Basic stuff really, like turning up to sports games, insisting that they have some snacks when he was around at their houses, picking them up from school. He thought he’d only been picked up from school twice in his whole life. The rest of the time he took the bus or walked, and he was sure that the only reason he got a car for his 16th birthday is because he’d gotten the flu from waiting for the bus in the rain a few months prior. Throwing money at the problem was a much better way to fix it than actually finding a real solution as far as they had been concerned.
A bigger boy ripped his sweatshirt once in elementary school. Steve had been grabbed and teased at recess, and the front seam had come right open under the pressure of the boy’s fist. He ran right home as soon as the bell rang at the end of the day and raced up to his mother’s bedroom where she was reading a book on her bed. Tears spilled as he told her what had happened through sobs and hiccups. He felt humiliated and scared.
“M-mom it was so embarrassing-ing, everyone saw and I t-thought he was going to hit me”
“Did he?”
“No he j-just threw me on the g-ground and laughed m-me”
“So you’re fine then. You can buy another sweater we go to the store on Saturday. Now, go on downstairs and make yourself some dinner. And don’t bother your father, he’s on an important call in his office”
All he wanted was a hug and to be told it was ok. That was the day he started to realise that he couldn’t ask either of them for help when he needed it. He stopped telling them about what happened at school every day because he noticed they never actually asked, he just started talking when he got home. He didn’t ask about how to talk to girls or how to make friends. Steve didn’t even bother mentioning that the bully who tore his clothes punched him in the stomach every day for two full school years, until the boy moved on to middle school. A few times he’d arrived home with a black eye, the bully had gotten a bit too excited and thrown a punch in a more obvious area, but it was never brought up. Either they didn’t notice or just didn’t say anything, but Steve was sure he could have walked in dressed like Jackie O and they’d ignore it.
Over the years he’d try to talk to them and ask something benign, like whether or not his friends would still like the same music as he did as they got older. He’d be met with blank looks across the dining table. They’d look briefly at each other before rattling off some generic Well What Do You Think About It? response, but Steve learned to just shrug his shoulders and not engage further. Trying to drag a conversation out of them only ended up with them telling him that he needed to be more independent and think for himself.
So as he leaned against his car and watched the guys with the truck put his last few bags into the back, he couldn’t help but think that maybe that was why. His mom and dad were angry at him and he reverted right back to how he dealt with it as a child. Shut down, close off, say something vile to the next person to come near you. Steve turned into a bully himself for a few years for that exact reason. Jonathon Byers knew all about that. They’d had an impact on who he was after all. They brought out the worst in him. Maybe it was the real him. He’d even let Eddie pull away from him over the months that came after what Steve said without trying to pull him back, just like he’d let his parents go.
Steve made a mental note to sit down in front of a mirror and have a good long talk with his inner-child because that little bastard had a lot to answer for right now.
“Ok we’re all set,” the mover called to him, pulling the shutter down on the truck. “Are you riding in with us or you got another way to get to the address?”
“I got my car, I’m good,” replied Steve, rapping his knuckles against the roof of his car.
The mover waved in acknowledgment as the driver started the engine.
He half wished Robin was there with him, but he’d given her the cold shoulder in work all day yesterday, refusing to give the real story of where he’d slept the previous night. He stuck to the lie that he’d slept at someone’s house and not in his car. Robin had always saw right through his stories of fake dates but for his sake, she played along in public and never pushed the issue in private. She had offered to get her shift today covered so she could help with the move but he told her not to bother. He didn’t need help, he was fine. She was hurt by how blunt he’d been, he could see it plain as day on her face, but he’d been such an asshole the whole day that she just turned away from him and left. When she poked her head into the bedroom that morning to try and say goodbye, he’d pretended he was asleep.
*
Steve beat the truck to his house by about ten minutes.
He popped the trunk and stared in at the things he’d crammed in there. It would make sense to take them out, open the door, and walk upstairs to a bedroom with them. He could just lift them out, and put his key in the door, and be right back where he belonged. He stood looking at it all until the truck pulled up behind him, and now he had no choice.
He waved at the movers as they hopped out and went to start lifting boxes from the back. Steve waited until they were almost on the front step before finally sliding the key into the lock. He hesitated. Oh god. He laughed a little and told the guys that the lock was stuck to buy himself another couple of seconds before steeling himself and pushing it open.
As the door swung on its hinges and Steve stepped inside, he was struck by all of the memories of the place. Sitting in the kitchen eating cereal alone before walking to school. Christmas’s that looked great from the outside with tons of shiny decorations, but felt empty from the inside. Watching tv shows with his dad and thinking they’d finally found a common ground, before his dad would announce that it was trash and would rot the brains of anyone who enjoyed it. Pool parties. The birth of King Steve. School night ragers that his friends all loved because they didn’t have to clean it up. Finding someone’s vomit in the pool the next day when he got home from his classes. The stool he sat on when he first noticed how Eddie’s hair moved around his face when he got animated as he spoke. The spot they’d sat on the floor in the living room and had their first kiss. The bedroom upstairs were they’d spent the night together for the first time. Told each other they loved each other for the first time. Swore they’d never be apart.
They all hurt, now, those memories, just as bad as each other.
He stood to the side to allow the men to leave the boxes down before making a second and third trip to grab the rest. One of them asked if he wanted them to bring the bags from his trunk in too, an offer which Steve gratefully accepted. He didn’t think he’d be able to carry anything in here by himself. His arms and legs had turned into spaghetti. The house didn’t smell like it used to, the other family used different perfumes and air fresheners than he had grown up with, but it was exactly the same as he remembered. They hadn’t tried to paint the walls or move the furniture. They were good tenants and Steve probably would have let them stay for years.
The last of the boxes were deposited onto the floor of the hallway and the movers said goodbye, thanking Mr Harrington for such an easy job on a Saturday afternoon. Steve plastered on a smile as he paid and tipped them. When he closed the door behind them, he took stock of what was in front of him. Three bags of clothes from the car, one box and three bags from Robin’s place, and two bags and six boxes from the storage place. It wouldn’t take him long to get it all put away if he started now, and besides the sooner he started the sooner it was over. He knew that procrastinating would only make it worse for him in the end and-
Wait a minute.
Six boxes? That wasn’t right. He knew it was only five boxes because he’d taken them from Family Video after emptying them after a delivery. And true enough, nestled in between the white boxes with the store’s logo on the side, was one plain brown box. Steve sighed and assumed that someone else’s stuff had gotten mixed in with his stuff at some point. He moved towards the box with the intention of putting it out in the garage. He’d call the company on Monday morning to let them know about the mix up and offer to drive it to where ever it needed to go. Moving this box would be the start of a productive evening for Steve. He'd get this out of the way and then come right back to the rest. He’d be done before he knew it and would even have time to go to the grocery store for stuff to stock the fridge.
But when he bent to pick it up, he noticed the handwriting on the side. He recognised it immediately. Scratchy and messy, with the first letter too big for the rest of the word.
Steve
It was Eddie’s writing. When had he packed that? He hadn’t helped Steve put his stuff together. So where had this come from? He gently opened the top of the box, almost afraid of what he might find. There was a receipt shoved in between the folded cardboard at the top that read Added to Unit 495, late drop off, extra charge paid with a date underneath. It had been left there only about two months ago. Steve wondered if Eddie had a new boyfriend coming over and gone through the place with a fine tooth comb, getting rid of any final traces of him from the place.
Steve sat on the floor, spreading his legs out in front of him with the box between his knees. He closed his eyes and delved in. There were some cassettes that he’d forgotten belonged to him. Hmm, they could be easily passed off as part of Eddie’s extensive music collection, so it was weird that they were in here but whatever. Nothing else made much sense to be in here either. Some photographs of them that had been taken on Jonathon’s camera that he couldn’t bear to look at right now, a half used bottle of cologne that Steve was sure was actually Eddie’s, some old action figures. This was all stuff that could have easily just been thrown away.
Steve was about to push the box away when he noticed what was folded neatly at the bottom. Now this, this made the least sense. Steve pulled the t shirt out and held it in front of him as he stood up. This was Eddie’s favourite t shirt. He wore it as often as he could, but Steve hadn’t noticed if he’d worn it since the break-up. Steve used to sleep in it some nights. In the early days if he woke up after a nightmare, Eddie would stir awake next to him and try calm him down. If it had been a really bad one, Steve would feel this shirt being pulled down over his head as Eddie mumbled that nothing could hurt him while he wore that. He’d explained to him that the zombie guy on the front was also called Eddie, he was the mascot for the band on the shirt, and he would fight off anything that tried to come for Steve.
Steve laughed at first, brushing off his boyfriend’s attempts to get him back to sleep, but he did always sleep soundly in that shirt.
Eddie must not have been able to stand the sight of it anymore. Tainted by Steve.
He was lost in his thoughts as he held the t shirt when a knock came on the door. He threw it back into the box and closed the cardboard over it. He didn’t know why he was hiding it. He was half afraid that Eddie was at his door now, asking for it back because it had definitely gone in there by accident. Steve opened the door and Robin stood in front of him, holding a bag from the local drive thru.
“I knew you wouldn’t have eaten,” she said sheepishly, holding the bag out for Steve.
He took it and stood aside so she could come in.
“Thanks, you’re right, I haven’t,” he told her as he walked to the kitchen and placed the bag on the counter. He wasn’t hungry but knew having something there for later was a good idea. Robin took in her surroundings.
“Wow, talk about memory lane,” she said softly as she sat on a stool by the island in the kitchen.
“Yeah, wild right?” said Steve, standing on the opposite side, leaning down to rest his elbows on the marble.
“Yeah…” she said, nodding.
Steve didn’t know what to say to her. He was glad to see her but his head wasn’t screwed on right for visitors right now. He wanted to put on Eddie’s t shirt and spray the cologne that belonged to whoever around the house so it at least smelled familiar, and try to think of this place as home. He wouldn’t succeed of course, because home to him was his hands in Eddie’s hair while they gave each other lazy kisses in the early mornings. He wouldn’t ever be home again.
“How does it feel?” asked Robin.
“What?” said Steve, pulled out of memories of Eddie’s hair. “How does what feel?”
“Being here,” she said, looking around. “Being home”
“This isn’t my home,” said Steve quickly. Robin shrunk a bit under his gaze.
“Steve…” she began.
“Robin, don’t,” he said quietly, looking down at his hands.
She sighed.
“This is your home, and you need to-”
He cut her off.
“I need to what, Robin?” he said quickly. “Move on? Yeah no shit. Not as easy as Munson makes it look though, right?”
She was shocked and opened her mouth to reply but he held up a hand to stop her.
“I mean god forbid I take longer than a few weeks to find someone new like he did, right? Jesus christ I must be crazy to spend a while getting over the love of my fucking life, is that what people are saying about me?”
“Steve people don’t say anything about you,” she said. “We’re worried, yes, but we want to help”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” he asked. “Come on, tell me the grand plan to fix me”
Steve held his breath. This was it. Someone was finally going to help him. Please Robin tell me how you’re going to help me please god tell me
“That’s not what I meant,” she said in a small voice.
No one wanted to help him, then. Just like that, he was sure it was about feeling sorry for him rather than wanting him to feel better. It’s easier to be around someone who isn’t sulking all the time, so him being back to his old self would be better for everyone else. So fucking selfish.
“You know, Rob, there’s a reason I stopped going to those dinners at Joyce’s house, why I got coincidentally scheduled for work on that exact day at such short notice. Everyone making such a huge effort to keep poor Steve happy got exhausting, stupid fucking small talk that no one even cared about and doing my best just to try act normal and not like I’d rather be dead than without him. I’m not an idiot, I heard people whispering when they thought I couldn’t hear them. Pitying me and talking about how poor Steve needed to get himself together,”
“Steve that’s not-”
“Yes it IS!” he yelled. “That’s exactly what it is! Do you think I’m dumb, Robin? Do you?”
He was standing in front of her now, he didn’t know when he had walked around to the other side of the island. Her eyes were wide and she looked shell shocked. Steve had never spoken to her like this before.
“He’s moved on, good for him,” said Steve, his chest heaving. “You want to wish him luck for his real hot date then good for you. He wants to drive around with someone new or move them into his home, INTO MY HOME, then good for him and good for whoever’s fucking him. But as for me, Rob? I don’t need to do shit on anyone else’s timeline,”
“None of that is true, Steve, please, let me explain-” said Robin, but again, he didn’t let her finish.
He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up off the stool, holding her maybe a little too tight. He moved them towards the front door.
“Steve you’re hurting me!” cried Robin. “You’re not thinking straight, let me talk to you!”
“I don’t need an explanation for what Munson or anyone else says or does,” he said while she struggled to free her hands.
He let go with one hand while he opened the door, and practically flung her through it and out onto the porch. She stumbled forwards but didn’t fall.
“Bye Robin, thanks for the food,”
Steve slammed the door closed and placed on hand on the frame, ready to brace if she tried to beat against it. But that never came, and a few moments later he heard her footsteps across the wooden porch as she left. He put his back to the door and let out a frustrated yell. His eyes fell on the box of things that Eddie had packed. He swung a kick at it and as the contents flew across the hallway and into the living room, Steve promptly fell onto the ground and, for the second time this week, started to sob.