Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It starts out as friendship.

Well, no, all right, it briefly begins as mortal enemies. Broken glass to the vulnerable column of Steve Harrington’s throat and a wild look he thinks he knows something about in Eddie Munson’s dark eyes. Desperate, right on the ragged fucking edge and he doesn’t know Steve, so he isn’t messing around with the bottle and he holds him hard for a few breaths.

They’re enemies for less than ten seconds, but it’s where it technically begins, so fine.

Where it really gets going, where it matters is when they become friends.

They’re not friends right away, though.

*

Steve has known a lot of guys, lot of people. He doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone quite like Eddie, though. The man just doesn’t fit. There’s nowhere he’s comfortable, no seat he sits fully in, no situation he’s calmly on board with. He is… Steve tries to think of a wrap-around, a descriptor, but he has nothing. Eddie is unique. A new term in and of himself. Anyone Steve ever meets again remotely like this guy, he’ll think, they’re an Eddie.

There’s no real time in between for bonding, no time to do anything besides try and save the world, save their friends, keep the bad from the good with whatever they have, but Steve finds himself watching Eddie more and more.

When they walk together in the woods, Eddie is open and honest, generous with his kindness in a way that seems second nature and Steve, who’d been jealous about the very idea of Eddie before he’d ever met him, is transfixed by the simple, straightforward way he says things.

They’re standing real close when Eddie says, ‘I don’t know what happened between you two—’

And Steve shakes his head, cuts him off even though he sort of doesn’t want to because Eddie has a nice voice, it rumbles when it’s low. ‘We’re not in love,’ he tells Eddie, smiling to himself. ‘I mean, I do love her, but it’s not like that. It hasn’t been for a while.’

Eddie cocks his head, hair tipping over the shelf of his shoulder. He just looks right at Steve, like he sees all the way down into him. ‘Yeah?’ he says, instead of trying to talk Steve into it. ‘How is it, then?’

It feels direct, almost unearned because Steve doesn’t know this guy and the first time they clapped eyes on each other resulted in a jagged piece of glass to his throat.

Yet he answers. ‘I just don’t feel that way about her. I don’t know…’ His breath comes out shaky, weird thing to feel nervous about, isn’t it? ‘I don’t know that I ever did.’

Eddie is patient and he’s clearly listening, but that look, the soft intensity playing about him, it’s fucking Steve up to tell the truth. Unmooring him from the usual places he hitches to, casting him adrift in the upside down.

‘Hmm,’ Eddie just says. Then he smiles, warm and enigmatic as ever, despite being a wide open book, despite his inability to shield any feeling he has in the moment, contradictory motherfucker, this one. ‘Well, my mistake.’

*

The more Steve watches him, the more involved he feels with how Eddie worries, with how he frets. It’s a physical pull behind Steve’s naval, his paternal instincts kicking in like always. He’d been a prick when he was younger, careless and unkind, found cruel joy in tormenting others to elevate his own status, but now it’s anathema to see anyone suffer.

Eddie is not one of his kids. He’s got a year on Steve at least and he’s deceptively strong, solid despite his jangled nerves, the way he can’t sit still, can’t relax for even a second unless he’s doling out kindness… but Steve still wants to help. It’s just his nature now. He doesn’t give a fuck what anyone outside their circle thinks, if they think it makes him weak or girly, whatever the fuck.

They’re gearing up to go in, big fucking fight and Steve’s got this sick, squirmy feeling in his guts like he left a tap running miles back or some shit. He watches Eddie and Dustin, the worry crystallising sharply.

When the two friends drift apart, got other stuff to prepare, Steve follows Eddie over the little hill nearby, he goes and sits right beside him.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey yourself, Harrington.’

The horizon isn’t some glorious thing, no bright sunshine mess in the skies, nothing breath-taking. It feels like it might rain later, that’s about it, but Steve’s not really involved in the skyline.  

‘This doesn’t feel right,’ he says, apropos of nothing. He rests his arms on his knees.

‘What doesn’t?’

‘The whole plan. It’s too dangerous, you and Dustin.’

Eddie’s back straightens. ‘I’ll keep him safe.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Those fucking bats are lethal, just three of ‘em nearly gutted me. It’s not the right move.’

‘What are you thinking?’

Steve pushes his fingers through the rough, dry grass and frowns. He knows plans aren’t exactly his thing, he’s just there to babysit most times. ‘I just… bats hear high noises, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you know that sound a mic makes when you put it near the amp? That bad, loud one?’

Eddie chuckled. ‘Yeah, I know the one.’

‘Well, maybe we could make it, that sound.’

‘It’s called feedback.’

‘Yeah. Feedback.’ Steve licks his lips. ‘Then you and Dustin can get a good distance away before they get there.’

‘Run away you mean?’ It’s quieter, Steve can hear an edge of dry self-deprecation that doesn’t sit right.

‘All plans have moving parts, just ‘cos you’re moving, doesn’t mean you’re running.’ When Eddie doesn’t respond, Steve looks over. He’s got one knee hitched to his chest, the other straight out, muddy boots with the laces untied and Steve has a weird compulsion to move in front of him and tie them, make his god damned outfit safer somehow. ‘You’re not running away, you’re running to us. We need you.’ Steve’s throat bobs. ‘We need you, Eddie.’

*

It goes to shit anyway.

Steve blames himself, thinks they should have just stuck with the original plan. The feedback was probably too loud, it made the bats too angry or whatever. They leave the Creel house and run flat out. Every time his foot slaps on the ground, he thinks let them be OK, let them be all right, please, but when the trailers come into view, he sees Dustin on the ground. Steve skids gracelessly to a halt, nearly topples over.

‘Fuck, Dustin!’

The kid isn’t hurt though and any relief Steve feels for that, once his hands have roamed that rounded face, skimmed over his sheep-skin armour for injuries, that relief dies in an instant because Eddie is hurt, Eddie is who Dustin is crying over.

‘What happened?’ Robin asks while Nancy pulls Dustin away and Steve lays Eddie flat, checks him all over. He’s bleeding, it’s bad.

‘I—it was my fault,’ Dustin chokes out, his voice cracking all over the place. Steve feels icy calm, mind going quiet. Eddie’s breathing is harsh, uneven. His eyes flutter and Steve just thinks no. No fucking way. ‘I got stuck, I got caught and he—he came back, he… Steve, please don’t let him die, please!’

His kid is screaming and his friend is dying and Steve has never felt so centred in his whole life.

‘You’re gonna be fine,’ he tells Eddie, putting pressure on the first wound he finds. ‘Robin, gimme your shirt, babe.’

Robin hands him a ball of material and Eddie tries to smile, to hold Steve’s hand but he can’t quiet grip it. He really is hurt bad, worse than Steve had been, but it doesn’t matter.

‘Huh-Harrington,’ Eddie wheezes and Steve glances at his face, but only for a second. ‘You’ll make a real good Dad, y’know that?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Steve tells him, implacable but not unkind. ‘No speeches, no last words. Robin, pressure right here and don’t let go. Nance, go back with Dustin, get help.’

Nancy doesn’t need to be told twice, but Dustin doesn’t want to go, she has to drag him.

Eddie’s lips are red, bloodied up with iron and salt and when he smiles, it’s beautiful and ugly in a way Steve has never seen before. Now, if he ever sees anyone look like that, he’ll think, they look just like Eddie in the upside down. Eddie is the base impression for every new experience he brings to Steve’s life. ‘You torch that motherfucker?’

‘We did.’ Steve feels around his sides, seeking out wet spots and then he finds the big one, hand comes away drenched. Steve yanks his jacket off, then his tee. He knows about this, knows how to keep blood inside a body, but it’s a lot of blood. ‘I feel like I told you not to be a hero, Munson.’

‘You told me not to be cute too, guess that’s a failure across the-the board, huh?’

It’s breathy and his s’s are slurring. Steve plugs the wound, holds it as tight as he can and then uses his jacket to tie around Eddie’s waist; crude tourniquet, but it should hold.

‘You know,’ Robin says, conversational tone belied by the way her voice shakes. ‘I’m kinda disappointed you didn’t get to play, though.’

‘Yeah me too,’ Steve says quickly, easily because he knows how important it is to keep Eddie conscious, keep his brain sending signals to his heart. ‘What song were you gonna play, man?’

‘I—I uh…’

‘Eddie, hey c’mon, no napping, not here.’ Steve lightly taps his cheek, gets blood on it, but that doesn’t matter, it’ll all wash off later. ‘Look at me, Eddie. Open your eyes and look at me.’ Dark brown eyes roll and for one horrible second, they close, but Steve Harrington is just not having that. He slaps his cheek again, ignores the vicious sting of guilt and says, louder, ‘Eddie!’

Then he comes back. His eyes open, he blinks rapidly and coughs out a little more red. Eddie’s fingers close around Steve’s wrist, the hand he’s using to keep Eddie’s insides inside his body.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘I’m lookin’ atcha, Harrington.’

*

The world has a crack in it.

Hawkins is half in ruins, slowly succumbing to the darkness Steve knows they only pushed away. Everything is fucked up and people are hurt, dead, lost.

‘Have you seen this man?’ the cops ask Steve, while he wears the blood of the man they’re looking for.

‘He died in the quake,’ Steve tells them, such iron in the backbone of a lie that does not waver. ‘He’s dead.’

Maybe the cop doesn’t quite believe him, maybe he’d take Steve in for questioning any other time, but the world has a crack in it. The law has bigger things to worry about.

They can’t take Eddie to hospital, not like Max, whose eyes are white and streaked with red, whose bones cracked like chopsticks because this plan had been plucky at best, suicidal at worst. Steve kisses her forehead, holds her hand when he’s by her bedside. He envelopes Lucas into a fierce hug and holds him for a long time, longer than they’ve ever hugged before. He can feel how the kid blames himself.

He checks in on everyone else. He does what he can, shoulders what he can’t and whispers to each of them that Eddie’s OK, he’s alive.

But in truth, it takes a long time for Eddie to be OK.

To wake up, even. They clean his wounds, they patch him up. Steve and Nancy sew stitches while Robin hooks up the drip she borrowed from the hospital, running it off the camper van batteries. It’s not the best place for Eddie to heal, but it’s all they have for now.

Steve keeps Eddie’s Hellfire Club shirt even though it’s ruined. Blood doesn’t come out, he knows from experience, but he can’t part with it, so he wraps it up tight and stuffs it in his pack.

‘He was so brave,’ Dustin keeps saying, hardly leaves Eddie’s side except to go help at the shelter. ‘You should have seen him, Steve.’

*

Five days later, Eddie can sit up and drink water. He moves carefully, evident pain in each little flex of his muscles. Steve is the one there in the camper van when he wakes. They take it in turns.

A rush of something light and happy comes over Steve, hits him a bit too hard because he’s just been sat there, stitching up clothes (he’s getting good with a needle) and there’s no radio signal in Hawkins anymore, so it’s been horribly quiet.

‘Eddie.’ He hands him the water carefully, watches as Eddie drains it nearly in one, a single rivulet running down his chin, then his neck.

‘Fuck, that’s good.’ Then, ‘Ow, fuck that’s bad, ow.’

Steve helps him to sit back and get as comfortable as possible in this ripe tin can. The windows only open so far and they need to keep the door shut in case the cops come around.

‘Yeah, that’s generally what happens when you nearly die. Here, lean back.’

Eddie does. His eyes flutter. It reminds Steve of that moment he almost went away.

‘How you feeling?’

Hair matted and filthy, he’s bandaged up all over, but Eddie cracks a grin, holds Steve’s gaze and says, ‘Alive.’

*

Eddie can walk.

Steve doesn’t show it, but he’s so relieved he could cry. The whole week Eddie’s been out of it, he’s done nothing but obsess about the wound closest to Eddie’s spine, the bad one on his back.

He leans heavily against Steve all the same when they go for a little walk outside the trailer. Steve braces his weight like it’s easy, feels glad that Eddie wants his help.

‘What happened to the skies?’ Eddie asks, looking around. They’re dark and overcast, the trees are slowly dying. There is a crack in this world and the other is bleeding into it. Infection seeping determinedly, draining life wherever it can. They’ve already moved the camper van a bunch of times, outrunning the rot, but they can’t run forever.

‘Like I said, it’s bad. You wanna rest?’

‘I’m OK.’ Eddie has one arm around Steve’s neck and Steve holds him carefully about the waist, avoiding the wounds he’s cleaned well over a hundred times by now. ‘Shit, what are we gonna do?’

He means about the world. Hawkins. The upside down. Things are so fucking bad and Max still hasn’t woken up yet. He means those things and Steve knows that, but…

‘Yeah, I’ve got worse news still I’m afraid.’

Eddie halts, swivels enough to take some of his own weight when at a standstill. His eyes are wide, lips parted.

‘What is it?’

Steve grimaces, shakes his head. ‘Your tattoos,’ he said with heavy, exaggerated grief. ‘Some of ‘em got wrecked.’

Eddie blinks once, hard. Then again. ‘What?’

And Steve leans into it. ‘Yeah, I didn’t know how to tell you, but that Metal In a Can tattoo on your hip—‘

‘Metallica,’ Eddie corrects, sounding like Steve took the lords name in vain.

‘—that’s pretty much gone. I’m really sorry, man.’

He still has to hold onto Steve to stay upright and Steve isn’t letting go until the guy can do cartwheels as far as he’s concerned, so they just stand there, in one of the last patches of woods that aren’t dead and grey yet, holding each other, staring.

Eddie laughs first. The sound splits Steve’s mouth in a wide grin, ridiculously pleased that it paid off. A small, silly thing that holds no weight in the world with a crack in it, but making Eddie Munson laugh seems bigger then, important.

‘You fuckin’ idiot,’ he says affectionately, cackling softly because that big laugh made his lungs hurt. Steve smiles and Eddie shakes his head. They’re staring at each other, happy.

‘In other news,’ Steve says. ‘You’re dead.’

Eddie sobers slightly at that, understands right away.

‘Officially?’

‘It was on the news and everything. We might have to change your look a bit,’ Steve tells him. ‘Maybe give you a buzzcut.’

‘You can try, Harrington!’ Eddie warns, but he’s still caught in the laughter from before so it comes out playful, teasing. ‘My hair is my whole personality.’

‘All right, lemme braid it then?’

He expects more denial, more teasing. Eddie just shrugs.

‘If you like. Can I get a bath?’

*

By the time Robin comes to take over Eddie Watch, Steve has helped him to clean up all over, wash his hair (un-braided, but tied back for now) and they’re eating beans and toast with strong coffee. They’ve spent hours together in the little van, sharing breath and food and stories of the upside down. Eddie's stories and Steve’s. By the time she comes in with fresh supplies and ointment, Eddie manages to limp to the tiny fridge to get more milk.

‘Eddie!’ she squeals, dropping everything.

‘Robin, hey!’ He matches her chaotic energy, opens his arms when she hugs him even though it must hurt. They’re alike, Steve thinks as he picks up what Robin dropped. There’s something wildly friendly about them both, despite how they seem scary at first. ‘You OK?’ Eddie asks when they part, still holding each other. He scans her eyes, searching for sadness, for any loss that Steve might have withheld from him.

‘I’m good,’ she tells him, chuckling when tears roll down her cheeks. Everything is so fraught these days, so fucking awful that a little bit of good news feels like the best news, Steve knows. He feels it too. ‘We’re all good, ‘cept for Max, she’s still not woken up yet.’

‘Steve told me. Are you all right, Robin?’

He knows this is his cue to leave them be, go and take a proper shower, sleep for a few hours, but he doesn’t want that.

So he stays. He mostly listens to the two of them, how they chatter back and forth, their energy so similar it makes him smile, warm and often. He lets Robin fill him in on the latest and when Eddie winces, he offers to change his dressings.

‘It’s a lot better than yesterday,’ Steve says, of the worst wound, the one he hates on Eddie’s lower back. It’s the only one that still bleeds sometimes. The one that would have killed him, he thinks as he lightly dots ointment over the sensitive area, skin red and raw. Eddie hisses softly, but doesn’t comment. Robin hands Steve a clean gauze patch and then quietly says, ‘Hospital is noticing supplies going missing,’ and he knows from now on, they’ll have to switch out, start boiling bandages to re-use, taking care of Eddie themselves.

Steve doesn’t mind, doesn’t let it faze him. Eddie is walking, eating, drinking, alive. He’ll be OK.

He knows he’ll be OK.

*

Two weeks and Max opens her eyes. She’s groggy and in pain, she’ll need time to heal, more than Eddie, more than they’ve got, but she’s awake.

Eleven cries silently, kisses her hand. Max’s eyes are less white, but she still can’t see. They say she might never see again. It’s the first time they’re all in the same room. Like, everyone. The first time Will and El meet Eddie, his hair is tied back and he’s incognito in a yellow Hawaiian shirt and bright purple shorts with the scruffiest sneakers anyone’s ever seen.

‘The perfect disguise!’ Robin had declared, the clothes from goodwill. Steve thinks Eddie looks like Eddie no matter what, thinks they’ll recognise him, but no one does. Maybe no one cares, maybe they forgot already.

Now they’re all together for the first time ever, squeezed into one of the last functioning hospital rooms, one of the last places with electricity, powered by a generator.

They take turns to embrace one another, to delicately wrap arms and hands, to bring themselves close and whisper what they can’t say aloud.

Eddie’s hug with Max is unbearably sweet. Steve doesn’t know why it affects him so much, why his throat swells with a lump right in the middle, why his eyes burn and his jaw clenches. Max smiles and feels around for Eddie’s hair, finds only a ponytail and laughs weakly. Eddie is one of the last to hug her and his capacity for kindness seems boundless to Steve. He barely knows the girl, but he seems genuinely thrilled she’s awake.

Eleven won’t leave her side, Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas are setting up to do the same. Max’s Mom is getting coffee somewhere down the hall, was kind enough to let this circus of people have their time with her daughter.

‘No, we need to get out of here,’ Max tells them, thumb rubbing over El’s knuckles. ‘We need to gear up, right? I can’t see it, but I can smell the rot. Big fight coming?’

Steve doesn’t want a big fight to come. He’s sick of it.

*

There’s an inter-rim.

A span of weeks where they split up again, but not going far. No one is leaving the town, let alone the state. But there’s too much to do for them to huddle together, even if it’s what Steve wishes for. Keep his six close, keep Nancy, Jonathan, Robin and Eddie safe, have the grown-ups close by, even though he’ll never instinctively be able to turn to them for anything. They leave too often, all parents do, he knows.

His own parents were out of the country when the world cracked. He’s spoken to them twice on the phone, both times the call was mercifully brief. He heard concern in their tones, but they weren’t in Hawkins, they couldn’t smell the death in the air, so they didn’t force him to come to them. Flee the country and join them in sunny Bali, no. They’re worried but they let him do what he wants. They wire him money and tell him to be careful.

Steve likes it that way.

He’d never even think of expecting more from adults. To him, he is the adult. Nancy, Robin, Jonathan and Eddie. They’re the adults, they are the parents.

And unlike Hopper and Joyce, Murray and even the new guy, Dmitri, he knows nothing would ever make him leave the kids.

But still, they can’t huddle all the time.

So they stay in contact. They establish bases. They assess, they amass and they begin to create strongholds around the worst of the splits. The air thickens, grows fouler every day. They have five central places that are safe, that they use for supplies, for armaments and meet-up points.

There are barely three hours of daylight in each day.

Eddie can cartwheel by the time Max can see clearly through glasses.

*

They are never alone.

It’s Steve’s rule, adamant and unbreakable. Two minimum, always. No matter where they go, what they do, even if it’s to take a shower, no one goes alone. Hawkins is full of monsters now. Creatures that run greedily through the dank, dark places. In shadows of buildings that had once been bastions of sunlight and stupid-ass normality, monsters unfurl and hunt, waiting to pick off anyone who’s alone.

Steve’s family are never alone.

In the downtime, in long, dark days that stretch like a lazy cat in summer, they light candles and hang out, reading books, researching sometimes while the others do a sweep to keep away the worst of the evil. The cops abandoned the town last week, the army prevents the worst of the dangers from spilling past the borders and as far as Steve knows, everyone who wanted to leave Hawkins, has.

The town is the mouth of hell now. Only those who can fight stay behind.

It’s one of those days when he and Eddie are together, always two. Candles burn in the corners, warm yellow light fills the trailer as Steve reads Different Seasons by Stephen King and Eddie sits cross legged nearby, shuffling cards.

It’s quiet for longer than usual. Eddie likes to talk a lot and Steve likes to listen, so once they find a comfortable spot, it’s perfect.

Steve looks up from his pages, frowning.

‘You’re quiet.’

Eddie’s face is drawn in shadow and candle-light, like art come to life. Steve wants to tell him that, say, you’re like a work of art, Munson, but every time he tries, the words get stuck.

The older man smiles, but it’s thin, shallow. Steve closes the book, loses his page but doesn’t care, and joins Eddie on the small, narrow sofa.

‘What’s up?’ He scans for problems. Eddie is cross legged, sat like a kid despite being a man. The playing cards have weird faces, they’re not numbers and spades.

‘I’m doing a reading,’ Eddie answers and he sounds like he’s fine, like he’s telling Steve something so Steve will join him in thinking it’s dumb or silly or whatever, but he looks shaken, not right at all.

‘Tarot?’

‘Yeah. I found ‘em. Been years since I…’

He trails off, staring at Steve. The camper van is cold, but the nearby candle is warm and Steve thinks maybe he shouldn’t have sat so close to Eddie, but things like that are hard to care about when there’s a crack in the world and all he has are the people he would die for.

‘Since you what?’ he encourages gently, the way he would with one of the kids if they were alone, if they were sad.

Eddie smiles, but it’s still not right.

‘There was a guy who knew all about this shit. Tarot, divinations, astrology, y’know? He taught me some of it.’ Patient, knowing Eddie will tell him when he’s ready, Steve waits. ‘When I was with Robin earlier, doing a sweep, we found a body. It was him, Daniel. He was…’ Eddie’s breath catches hard, cracks right into a sob as his expression crumples. ‘Ripped apart.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Steve wraps his arm around Eddie, knows it’s OK to do this, that Eddie is naturally tactile.

Tears spill and Eddie doesn’t rush to wipe them away, but he leans into Steve, he wraps his other arm around him and they’re hugging. It’s the first time they’ve really, truly hugged. Some of the cards flutter to the floor of the van.

‘He had a backpack,’ Eddie tells him, whispers like it’s a horrible secret.

‘We always check backpacks,’ Steve said, reassuring him, knowing where this was going.

‘The cards were in there. He still had ‘em. They mattered to him enough to bring. And now he’s gone.’

Steve shifts to make the hug better, to hold Eddie proper. It’s an awkward angle because the camper van is small, but it doesn’t matter. Both Eddie’s arms go around Steve and they tighten. It feels so good to hold him like this, to feel the frantic thud-thump of Eddie’s heart against Steve’s ribs.

Eddie cries for a little while. It’s quiet and heart-breaking, but Steve just rubs his back, up and down, sometimes he makes circles until the sobs taper off and Eddie eases away. His hair is loose and clean, it frames his face, all tear-tracked and flush with the kind of grief that comes from seeing a memory of your past torn to bits in the present.

‘I’m sorry,’ he utters.

Steve shakes his head, lifts a hand to push back what hair falls into his eyes. Eddie’s throat bobs for a moment and Steve thinks, he’s beautiful. He is so fucking beautiful.

The moment doesn’t break. It doesn’t end.

Eddie has more to say and Steve knows it.

He sort of already knows what he’s going to say, too.

‘Daniel was my uh,’ Eddie tells Steve, wiping his nose on his sleeve. ‘My first boyfriend.’ Dark brown eyes flit between Steve’s and he’s nervous to tell Steve this, it’s written all over him. ‘He was my first boyfriend,’ he says again, like Steve maybe didn’t hear the first time, like he didn’t already know deep down.

Steve gives a slow nod, fights the urge to stroke all that long, soft hair because that more than anything would make it clear that Eddie has nothing to worry about, right?

‘That must feel awful,’ he says instead, walking the fine line between determinedly normalising Eddie’s quiet confession and being sensitive about what Eddie had seen that day. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

Something cracks in Eddie’s expression, relief breaking the last of his resolve. They hug again and Steve gently rocks him until they fall asleep that way, tangled up together as the candles burn down to nothing.

*

After that, they rarely part and they hug very often.

Very often is, in fact, inaccurate as fuck, Steve reflects, because apparently Eddie had just been waiting for them to hug that first time and now there’s no stopping him. They hug at least ten times a day, sometimes for no reason.

Sometimes, Eddie Munson will just drape an arm around Steve Harrington and hold him close while the others talk. It’s easy and it feels…

It feels wonderful. It feels like having a best friend.

Steve doesn’t ever really think he’s had this. Not with Tommy, not with anyone. Not like this.

Sometimes, when they’re walking in a group, Steve will look back and check on Eddie, who always lags. He’ll extend his hand, crack a grin and then Eddie will run to catch up, take hold of the offered hand and pull Steve around in a circle, the pair leaning back but holding on. They’ll spin and laugh, make wild noises until one stumbles and they both go down in a pile of leaves, Nancy or Robin telling them to hurry the hell up.

When it’s family dinner night, an increasingly rare occasion, they’ll sit beside each other and share their food. Eddie noticed very quickly that Steve has kind of a thing about eating. It's just that he struggles to clean his plate, especially when supplies dwindle and his six are still growing, for god’s sake. They need protein, they need peas, they need more than he does, he’s fine, he’s an adult.

But Eddie has noticed it.

‘Did you try this?’ he asks, casual and easy, while Hopper re-tells old stories of Kamchatka, making them bright and bold for the kids, grimy parts all left out. Eddie’s fork has a chunk of potato on it. He holds it out expectantly, but not pushy. He would never push, never has. Instead, he frames it like he wants Steve to try it. ‘It’s so good.’

Steve feels safe to take a bite. Eddie’s food feels safe, not off limits. ‘Oh, it’s really good,’ he says, enjoying the taste somehow because it was Eddie’s. Then, like clockwork, he stabs something off his own plate and offers it to Eddie. ‘Try this.’

The others don’t really stare, not anymore, but Eleven always smiles when they share food, when they sort of feed each other like lovers in a restaurant. It’s not about that, Steve feels sure. It’s that Eddie noticed Steve doesn’t clean his plate or finish even half of his food and this way, even though they share, Steve always feels full.

Sometimes, they wash each other’s hair.

Showers are a thing of the past in Hawkins, as is hot running water, but they have a little set up with a bowl and shampoo. Steve finds it hard to wash his own hair, different than washing his body which is easy, even though it’s cold.

So when they’re alone together, Eddie might say, ‘Want me to wash your hair?’ and Steve will smile and say, ‘I’ll do yours too.’

Fingers run through hair, sometimes massaging scalps and temples and lower necks because keeping the end of the world contained within Hawkins is hard work. Eddie will ease the suds into Steve’s hair and smooth them around, tips of his fingers slipping and sliding all over. Then he’ll carefully rinse it away. The water is always cold but Eddie’s hands are warm and they talk throughout. They talk all the time. Steve doesn’t know how they haven’t run out of things to talk about yet.

Steve will roughly dry his own hair with an old towel and then re-fill the bowl. Eddie’s turn is always second because it takes longer, it’s more work and Steve doesn’t bother to hide how much he likes this.

Eddie’s hair is so long and so fucking lovely. Steve has never told anyone but long hair has always fascinated him. Max lets him braid it sometimes, she showed him how a few weeks back. Max is quiet a lot these days, but she’s still so much smarter than Steve will ever be. He loves her so much.

Steve will dip the ends of Eddie’s hair in the clean water first, bring the bowl up under all those curls and drench them. He cups water in his hand and ladles it over the top, letting it trickle where it needs to go until it’s all wet.

Then he’ll pour shampoo into his palm and lather it through Eddie’s hair, making a glorious soapy mess at the roots, combing the creamy bubbles all the way down the ends. Steve wants to braid it, to play with it.

‘That feels so good,’ Eddie sighs, eyes closed. Steve smiles and lets the soap sit for a minute or two, lets it work away all the sweat, dirt and blood as he presses his wet fingers into Eddie’s neck, seeking knots. Making people happy makes Steve glow inside. Eddie will groan and sigh, then he’ll ask how Steve got so good at this and here, this is where they’ve made a little routine.

Because each time he asks, Steve tells an outrageous lie.

‘I learned to massage the aching bodies of the trapeze performers in the circus I grew up in.’

Or…

‘When I worked downtown as a hooker to pay for all my hair products, I learnt to massage the women first so they enjoyed it more.’

Or…

‘In my past life as a travelling healer, this was my speciality.’

One day, he’ll run out of things to say and then he’ll have to be honest, tell Eddie that he’s not good at this, he’s just good at making Eddie feel this way. He’s never given a massage to anyone else.

But for now the silly lies run steady and Eddie laughs each time, plays into it, joins in on the fantasy and the role play. Eddie must miss playing with the kids so much, because he has all this pent up energy, all this chaos inside him.

They play the roles and they wash each other’s hair. Then they read to one another as the candles burn low and more often than not, fall asleep on that sofa together.

After two months, Steve lets Eddie read his fortune in those old cards and Eddie lets Steve braid his hair.

*

They’re best friends.

This is where it really starts.

Eddie is the person who Steve face-checks when he walks into a room (on the off chance they don’t walk in together). Eddie will wink at Steve from across the room, subtle but not secretive. It does exactly what Steve thinks Eddie means it to; reassures him. Steve has this posture, he knows, where when he’s nervous, he wraps his arms tight across his chest and leans against the wall.

Eddie notices it every single time. Offers a wink and smile that Steve is helpless to return once the warm sensation of safety spreads through his chest. When they do that, when they smile across the room at each other, Max will elbow Eleven and the pair will whisper something.

Dustin starts calling them Mom and Dad, which makes everyone smile, even Steve, who has to be the fucking Mom. Eddie plays into it, of course.

‘Go ask your Mom,’ he says when Dustin wheedles and whines for a DnD campaign that night, even though no one really has the time. They’re going into the town centre tomorrow. It’s going to be dangerous, it’s a whole thing that might bring them closer to ending this shit.

Dustin just wants to be a kid.

Steve’s heart breaks for him a little, he thinks maybe they shouldn’t have let the kids stay. God knows their parents had begged and pleaded to haul them away to safety. Karen Wheeler had been the only one who seemed to understand, who helped convince the others that they needed to accept that their kids were the only ones who could help.

The kids would have jumped out of the cars had their parents tried to take them away, they’d have found their way back no matter what, but times like this, Steve knows it would have been easier to just do this with the adults, his adults.

Everyone chuckles and Steve rolls his eyes. Dustin comes running over, pouts. Hopper and Murray are double checking weapons, Joyce is speaking quietly with Will in the corner. Steve’s heart clenches tightly, worry flaring. Steve remembers how much Robin had been shaking in that bathroom stall, how terrified she’d been. He knows Will’s Mom is a good person, but she’s not like Steve. What if Will tells her the thing he needs to, just like Eddie needed to, and she says the wrong thing in return?

He loves Joyce, of course he does, but he’ll never trust a grown up to do the right thing when it comes to shit like this, no matter their good intentions.

Max and Lucas are leaving, hand in hand. She can see better now, but she’ll always need those glasses. Her broken bones healed, she walks fine, but that gruesome brush with death scarred her all the same.

‘We’ll meet you guys here tomorrow,’ Lucas says. Steve catches their gaze, holds it meaningfully for a moment. They’ve had this talk, the one where he’d told them anything they need, they can come to him, he’ll get it. Lucas makes the universal no we’re fine signal and Max smiles.

Hopper and Joyce don’t even notice. Steve loves them, he does, but they don’t see things like that, they don’t notice.

It’s fine, though because Steve is there.

He’ll always be there.

‘Go tell your Dad, yes, we can play,’ Steve says, rolling his eyes. All for them, they love when he’s resigned, when he plays it up and grumbles. It’s stability, surety. He’s happy to give that to them.

He ignores the weird feeling in his chest when he calls Eddie that name, when he stops himself from elongating it into something else.

The grown-ups think it’s a great idea, distractedly telling them to have fun. Joyce and Will’s conversation ends with a hug, but Steve can tell it’s not the conversation he suspected, he reads it in Will’s face. Poor kid.

*

In the trailer, with Nancy and Jonathan on watch (probably making out) outside, Eddie gathers them around and works his magic.

Steve never really got the whole thing with games, not before. It had never appealed. Now, though.

Now he loves it.

But he never plays.

He makes food instead. Snacks, maybe. He sits with each of them and checks their scores, listens to their plans. If Max was there, she’d let him braid her hair, but she’s off with Lucas, enjoying her time as is her hard earned right. He just hopes they’re safe, in all ways.

Robin gets insanely into the game. Hyper and happy to have her wild imagination engaged, she will often drag Steve into her lap, hiss all her zany schemes into his ear and he’ll chuckle, catching Eddie’s gaze.

He thinks that’s the natural destination of his gaze.

They play until well past midnight and when the kids fall asleep, they sleep like kittens, all piled together, Robin snoring loudly. Only Will, Eddie and Steve remain awake.

‘Hey,’ Steve calls softly to the young boy. He hears Nancy and Jonathan returning. ‘Come for a walk with us?’

Will blinks, unexpected offer jolting him from his reverie, but he smiles hesitantly and nods, untangling himself from the pile. Eleven likes to sleep in Robin’s arms.

When they meet Nance and Jonathan outside, the scene is contrary to what Steve expected. No kiss-bitten lips, no flushed faces or messed up hair.

They seem sad, but lightweight.

They’ve broken up, he realises.

‘Hey,’ Nancy says, gripping his shoulder for a minute. She waits until Jonathan goes inside and then her face crumples. Steve is hugging her without thought, silent and sure. He’ll never not love Nancy Wheeler.

‘It’s OK,’ he tells her. ‘Everything is gonna be OK.’

‘I know,’ she sighs. ‘It just hurts.’

‘You want one of us to stay?’ Eddie offers.

‘No, it’s not awkward. I’m just gonna wash up and then sleep, anyway. Thanks.’ She looks between them both for a moment, Will by Eddie’s side. Nancy smiles softly and when she looks at Steve, there’s something there, like a little flash of recognition. ‘Be safe,’ she says, the customary parting nowadays.

With gas lanterns and weapons, they do a very basic sweep around their trap-laden perimeter, checking everything is still intact. As they walk, Steve makes small talk. He speaks about what they’ll do after all this is over, where they’ll go.

‘Somewhere sunny and warm,’ he says, checking the trip-wire on a front facing explosive device pointed at the darkness. ‘Maybe some beaches, what do you think?’

‘I’m down for that,’ Eddie says. ‘But I have to warn you, I burn up in the sun.’

Will laughs. It’s small, but it’s there.

‘You do?’ Steve asks, whirling around.

‘I burn like a page filled with eeessential instructions to kill an un-slayable dragon, my friend,’ Eddie declares. ‘What about you, kid? Where do you wanna go when we save the world?’

Will thinks for a beat or two, carrying his weapon with a bit more confidence now he’s had the chance to practise. El is their superhero, she’s the one who dazzles, but they’ve all come so far. Steve is proud of them all.

‘I don’t know. Somewhere…’ He casts a look around. ‘Like a busy city. Where there’s lights everywhere, people everywhere. Somewhere noisy and-and fun.’

Eddie and Steve share a look. Steve knows Eddie is on board for what he’s about to do, just from that single look.

‘What city, though?’ Steve asks thoughtfully, checking another trap. They’re all intact, have been for a while now. The evil is amassing in a single place, he knows. ‘New York, LA?’

Eddie says, ‘I went to San Francisco once with my ex-boyfriend, that was cool.’

Will doesn’t stop dead, he keeps walking, but Steve can feel how rigid he goes, he can just sense it.

‘Oh yeah?’ Steve is all casual interest, normalising what the world doesn’t find normal as hard as he fucking can. ‘Were there sandy, warm beaches?’

‘I saw some nice horizons, sure, but mostly the city life is what’s cool.’

‘There you go, Will,’ Steve says. ‘What about San Fran? Buy a little house right in the middle of the noise and the lights.’

‘Get me some sunscreen,’ Eddie reminds them.

‘And hit the beaches!’

‘They have pretty rad concerts there, y’know.’

‘They do? Wait, it’s not Metal in a Can, is it?’

Eddie makes the sound, like he’s been mortally wounded.

‘You keep offending my gods, Harrington, and one of these days—’

Steve’s Kid Sense tingles and he turns. Will has stopped walking a little way back.

This was it.

‘You all right, Will?’ Eddie asks. Steve lets him go closer, lets him be there because that’s what Will needs, he hopes. He prays he gets this right.

Will takes a deep, shaky breath, finds comfort in the dark of his closed eyes and says, ‘I like boys. I’m… I…’ His voice breaks, it gives out and Steve feels that break right in his own chest. ‘I think I’m gay,’ the kid settles on, voice so soft it’s barely even there, but Steve heard it. Eddie heard it.

And it’s Eddie who puts his hand on Will’s shoulder and says, ‘That’s OK.’ He says it like he means it, which Steve knows he does. He says it like that makes it a universal, undeniable truth.

When Will starts to cry, Steve is right there and so is Eddie. Will cries hard, like a small child and he clings to whoever offers comfort, he clings hard and Steve slams his eyes shut. He loves this kid so much and it hurts that he feels this way, that he’s crying to speak his truth.

‘We’re here,’ he promises into Will’s hair. ‘Everybody loves you for exactly who you are. You’re perfect.’

‘I’m a freak,’ Will gasps. Eddie moves back enough to let Will wrap himself all the way around Steve and hide in his neck. ‘They’ll hate me, Mike will hate me.’

‘No one hates you,’ Steve says and it’s Eddie he’s looking at while he speaks. Eddie holds the torch, one hand resting on Steve’s forearm, like he’s lending him his strength or something. Connected in this big, ugly moment the night before a battle that could rip them apart. ‘No one. You’re not a freak and even if you were.’ Will sniffles and retreats enough to look to Steve, hungry for approval, for kindness. Steve has that in spades, he’s full of it. ‘That just makes you one of us. We’re all weird, we are all freaks.’

‘You’re not,’ he whispers, shaking his head as tears spill. ‘You’re not… like me, you’re normal.’

Steve snorts and rolls his eyes. ‘Oh please.’

Eddie agrees. ‘He’s an absolute weirdo, Will, trust me.’

Will turns just enough to look at Eddie. The taller man is stable and solid, he’s right there for whatever Will needs.

‘You’re… gay too?’

‘I am,’ Eddie tells him. ‘Pretty much the queerest person you’ve ever met.’

Steve keeps one arm around Will, but he makes it so it’s more like friends hugging now. ‘Except for Robin.’

‘Oh yeah, Robin is the gayest little Gay Goblin in existence.’

Will’s eyes widen. ‘Robin is…?’

‘You didn’t know?’ Steve asks, knew he didn’t, but he’s all about the normalising. ‘Robin only likes girls.’

‘And it’s different for Robin,’ Eddie says, like he can read Will’s mind. ‘It’s just as hard, but it’s different when you’re a guy in this fuckin’ country, I know. But you have us, you have everyone and you’re not alone.’

Steve watches Will’s bottom lip wobble, watching his face screw up again. ‘I’m not?’

More hugs. This time, it’s both of them hugging Will, making him feel safe, making sure he knows he’s loved and that no matter what, they will always have his back.

‘You’re not alone,’ Eddie promises, resting his forehead against Steve’s.

*

It’s that moment Steve thinks of when they’re fighting.

He holds it close to his heart, thinks of how it was to stand in the deep dark of Hawkins and feel so fucking happy that maybe now Will Byers would walk a little taller, wouldn’t question himself so much.

Would not feel alone.

He thinks of how the kid hugged him when they got back to the camper van. He thinks of whatever Eddie whispers to Will. He thinks of their foreheads pressing during that hug, how real it had felt then. Mom and Dad.

He thinks of how, after Will settled down into the pile of friends and family, Steve and Eddie went back out to finish the sweep properly.

He will never ever forget the things they said to each other as they walked.

Those words are branded into him, always.

As demodogs snarl and rush, as foul beasts rent the air with hungry screams, Steve closes his eyes, grips the nailed bat tightly and keeps the feeling close to his heart before he fights for his life.

*

After the fight, it’s frantic.

There is blood absolutely everywhere, on everyone. No one is left unscathed. The streets are ripped to bits, concrete in great huge chunks like fallen boulders, except that had been El. She’d torn up the earth to rain it down upon Vecna. She had done so many things Steve didn’t even realise someone like her could do.

And they had just about beaten him back, this time.

But they hadn’t won.

El is unconscious in Hopper’s arms as he carries her to the outpost, to his truck maybe. Joyce is patching Murray up, he’s lost an arm. Dmitri helps Jonathan, yanks bandages around his thigh to stem the bleeding.

Steve wants to help more, he wants to see if everyone is OK, but there’s like four people around him as he lays on the street and no one is letting him move.

‘You stay right there,’ Eddie commands and of everyone, he is by far the most calm. Nancy is shock white with a splash of red across her face from a bad bite. Dustin is babbling, he’s saying things non-stop but he’s crying too and it all feels so familiar.

‘Pressure here,’ Robin says, stronger than he’s ever heard her. ‘Good. Dustin, you gotta go help the others.’

‘No, no!’

‘He’s gonna be fine,’ Eddie says, though there’s no smile. Steve is getting irritated now, he has to get up and help. It’s not a big deal, he was just knocked back, he—

Oh.

There’s a bar sticking out of his chest.

A metal bar where it does not belong.

And his blood is slowly soaking through all his clothes, it’s making a warm mess of his friends, his best friends in the world who try desperately to stop the bleeding.

This is it, he thinks and it’s not a bad feeling. It’s light, it’s bittersweet because he could have done more, he could have done so much more for these people he loves, but if he has to die, at least he gets to go first.

‘You dare even think about it,’ Eddie says tightly and Steve realises he’s said that out-loud to some extent, or maybe Eddie can just read his mind. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Harrington.’

‘God, you’re so dramatic, babe,’ Robin says, padding the wound around the bar. Her voice doesn’t waver, he’s so proud of her. ‘Always have to be the centre of attention, huh?’

Steve tries to laugh, he wants to laugh. The earth beneath them trembles, but none of the people with him seem to care. Nancy hands them what she has left from her pack and then she helps Robin to lift Steve on his side enough to wedge something beneath him. The pain is unbearable and Steve’s own scream startles him so much that it ends in a soft little cry, the hot and cold of his own emotions giving him whiplash.

It leaves him shaking, teeth chattering when they lower him back down. ‘It’s OK, you’re OK,’ Nancy tells him, kissing his hand. ‘You’re gonna be fine.’

Steve grits his teeth to stop them chattering in his head.

‘The kids?’

‘They’re all right, only El seems badly hurt, but I think—’ Nancy catches her breath as Robin presses a gauze pad to the bite on her face. It’ll scar for sure, but she’ll always be beautiful. ‘I think maybe it just drained her.’

Steve tries to sit up. Eddie makes an impatient, disapproving sound, shoving his shoulder down none too gently.

‘Where are they?’

‘Steve, you have a rebar in your torso,’ Eddie tells him. ‘No one is hurt as bad as you, all right? You’re gonna stay still and let us take care of you.’

It wasn’t a suggestion.

Steve accepts it, hates to be useless, but he does as Eddie says.

The skies are darker than usual, less cloudy, no red. Maybe this helped, he hopes. Maybe this gives them a chance.

‘I love you,’ he says to no one and to everyone and yet someone. The darkness is coming for him, it’s seeping in through the cracks in Steve Harrington, like a boat with a hole. Beneath the surface, a patient monster circles.

‘Steve,’ Eddie warns, but he sounds far away now. Hawkins is slipping through his fingers. ‘Hey, no, no.’

‘I love you so much.’

*

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Eddie Munson. Head in his hands, hair an absolute riotous mess and Steve thinks he needs to wash it.

Then he sees sunlight behind Eddie. He hears soft beeping sounds. He tastes sterile static and he feels something hard and plastic jammed down his throat.

His hand twitches, that hurts too. The canula is painful, it makes even lifting his fingers hurt.

Eddie’s head snaps up, eyes going wide and his jaw goes lax. He stares at Steve like…

Steve doesn’t know what. Anytime he sees anyone make that face ever again, he’ll think, that’s the face Eddie Munson made when I didn’t die.

‘Oh my god.’ It’s soft and breathless. Eddie looks exhausted and he’s beat up, got some fresh cuts, but he seems OK overall. Steve tries to speak, but he can’t. He can’t do anything except twitch his fingers and stare.

Eddie is right there in a second. His hands come up to lightly cradle Steve’s face, but the touch is feather-light, like Steve is spun glass.

‘Steve, you’re… oh god, can you hear me, baby?’

The world is slowly coming into focus again, filling in around the edges. He nods, groggy and hurting. There is a dull ache in his chest, it’s hot and horrible.

Eddie calls for the nurse and then lightly traces Steve’s cheek with the backs of his fingers.

‘Fucking hell, don’t you ever do that to me ever again,’ Eddie whispers, eyes slamming shut. He’s shock white. ‘You hear me?’

Steve feels caught up in whatever Eddie is feeling, he’s helpless but to nod again, promise made when he can barely recall his last name.

Two nurses come inside.

‘He’s awake,’ Eddie says. He looks at them with a strange mixture of determined pride. ‘I told you he’d wake up.’

*

They’re about eight miles outside of Hawkins, in a neighbouring town that still has basics like electricity and running fucking water, so when Steve can sit up unaided, when they take the hideous tube out, he drinks water and tries to speak.

Eddie never leaves his side.

‘Kids?’

Eddie laughs, but it’s undercut by the two tears that roll, thick and heavy, down his pretty face.

‘You’re such a fuckin’ Mom. Christ, Steve, they’re fine.’

Steve sips more water when offered and then lays back against the plush pillow. ‘Tell me.’

One by one, Eddie reels off their names and their injuries, where they are now, who they’re with. Most of them are nearby, down the hall with El, who woke up yesterday and was a little dehydrated but is otherwise fine.

‘Your favourite child,’ Eddie finishes with and Steve grins. ‘Is probably running to the next state to try and find your favourite gummy bears or whatever the fuck. Kid has been out of his mind with worry.’

‘Dustin’s OK, though?’

Eddie rolls his eyes and reaches across to sweep Steve’s mop of hair aside. ‘He’ll be OK now you’re awake.’

‘Others?’

Steve made him run through everyone, he needs to hear it, that they were all alive, all walking, all awake. Eating, drinking, laughing, talking.

‘Aren’t you forgetting someone?’ Eddie asks, brow quirking slightly. ‘What about Steve Harrington? Is he OK? Don’t you care about him?’

Steve just stares at him for a little while. He likes staring at Eddie, watching him, memorising his face.

‘I’m alive.’

‘You nearly weren’t.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Steve says, shifting to encourage blood flow into his ass cheeks, they fucking hurt. ‘Now you know how I felt.’

Eddie looks down.

They’re not touching. That’s almost weird for them. Maybe, though, here in this daylight town, with the normal world all around them again, Eddie doesn’t want to touch Steve anymore.

‘Oh, it’s payback is it?’

Steve can’t detect his mood, he can’t feel it.

‘You’re mad?’

Brown eyes lift to Steve’s own and oh, yeah he is mad. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen him mad before. Eddie’s bottom lip trembles and his expression is so overcast it makes Steve’s insides curl.

‘You don’t remember, do you? Shoving me aside, protecting me when that… that thing wasn’t even coming for you it was—it was coming for me.’

‘That’s what you’re mad about?’ God, it even hurts to talk.

‘What happened to no heroics, huh?’

Steve bursts out into a little laugh, he can’t help it.

‘That doesn’t apply to me.’

‘Well,’ Eddie says, stone cold sober and more intense than Steve ever knew he could be. ‘It does now, from this moment on. You made the No One Goes Alone rule. I’m making the No Fucking Heroics rule.’

‘I think El might break that rule.’

Eddie just stares. ‘I thought you were dead. Your eyes closed and I… I thought you were gone.’

‘I’m not.’

It’s insufficient, though. It doesn’t reach Eddie, it can’t because Steve knows all about that kind of fear. The bad kind that sends a javelin through your heart and lodges it there until the person you worried about is walking and running again.

‘You said…’

‘I said what?’

‘You said, I love you.’

Steve blinks. ‘I do.’

‘You don’t know who you said it to.’

‘Doesn’t matter, it’s still true.’

There’s a shift in the atmosphere. Steve’s heart monitor beeps on and on, rhythm picking up slightly. Eddie drags his chair closer and with solemn contemplation, he takes Steve’s sore hand very carefully in his own.

‘I don’t think,’ he says, clearly choosing his words. ‘I can live in this world without you now.’

And Steve is too stripped down, he’s cut to the quick, death shaving all but the most basic parts of him away in a close call he’ll wear all his life. Just like Eddie, just like Max, like everyone he loves.

‘Me neither,’ he answers honestly. It feels like it should be some monumental thing, but he’s tired, exhausted really and he has no energy to lie or pretend otherwise.

‘Then you have to protect yourself the way you protect others.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just… I’m not made for that.’

Eddie’s face is framed by a halo of sunlight from behind. His hair is a warm shade of chestnut and Steve can’t wait to feel better again, to play with it and wash it. He hopes that’s something Eddie will still let him do.

‘You’re my best friend,’ Eddie says, like it’s the only thing he believes in, like it’s a prayer. ‘I love you and I need you to understand that you matter too much—‘

‘Well so do you,’ Steve interrupts, weirdly defensive, heart twisting tight in his chest.

Eddie weathers the storm of brief irritation before he calms and says, ‘Then let’s promise to always take care of each other. To let one take care of the other. Yeah?’

Steve can agree to that, he can. Like it doesn’t make his stomach hurt if the food comes from Eddie’s plate, then it won’t be selfish to allow some care in his life if it’s Eddie giving it.

‘All right.’

‘Say it for me.’

‘I’ll let you take care of me, Eddie.’

‘And I will let you take care of me, Steve.’ Eddie kisses his hand, leaving a small smear of salt from his tears there. ‘Always.’

*

Steve has to stay in hospital for a fucking month.

He hates it, does everything he can to heal faster, but there was a hole in him and apparently, holes take a long time to close.

The kids practically move in to his room and the nursing staff knows all their names by day two. Eleven is up and walking. She hugs Steve carefully and the two of them discuss Vecna, how he slipped away again but Hawkins is no longer under siege from the upside down. Hawkins, everyone keeps telling him, is slowly healing.

‘We’ll find him,’ Steve tells her, stroking her face.

Her own smaller hand covers his. ‘I know we will.’

The army officials come and go. The others help to hide Eddie in almost comical fashion. There’s one fucking hilarious day where two cops arrive unannounced and Eddie is naturally perched on the side of Steve’s bed when they walk in, so Steve just grabs him and yanks him under the thin white sheets with him, burrows deep, ignores the flare of pain in his chest and keeps his arms wrapped around Eddie Munson as Dustin tosses a blanket over them to hide the lump shape.

‘He’s asleep,’ Robin tells the cops from outside the world of cotton and shared breath. ‘Keep it down.’

They aren’t there for Steve, they’re looking for Hopper, just to try and get things straight, apparently. Steve and Eddie hide under the covers, nose to nose, staring into each other’s eyes. It’s both funny and not, but Steve knows he never wants to let Eddie go again.

 He knows he wants this all the time.

When the cops go, Nancy draws the covers back and bites her lips into her mouth, preventing a smile from forming.

‘All clear,’ she says, shooting Robin a very knowing look.

When Steve sits up, he winces. Eddie pulls his shirt up and scowls.

‘You idiot, you popped a stitch, Harrington.’

Steve just grins, oddly breathless. ‘Worth it.’

*

It’s a long month, but Steve is never alone.

Everyone he loves is around him. It’s a nice feeling. They come and go, there’s clearly a shift pattern. He likes it best when they pile in, all six kids and all four of his adults, declaring they’re using his room for a killer campaign. His final night there, Hopper brings pizzas and Joyce drops by to check in on them, but neither of them stay long. They check on their kids and they cuddle them, but they don’t stay and play.

Will sits beside Steve on the hospital bed during the campaign, taking a small break while Eddie leads the game with Robin co-Dungeon Mastering just for the sheer chaos of their combined energy.

‘I told her,’ Will whispers to Steve when there’s a loud swell of arguments about the legitimacy of a certain move. Steve looks over, is suddenly in Mom Mode, ready to listen. Will just links their hands and gives a gentle squeeze. ‘I told Mom and she wasn’t mad.’

He sounds really happy in a secret sort of way. Steve cannot wait for the day he’s happy without feeling the need to hide it.

‘I’m so glad.’

‘I told her she didn’t have to worry, that I wasn’t alone.’

‘You’re not, you never will be.’

‘I just wanted to say thanks. I already spoke to Eddie.’

The co-Dungeon Master, as if sensing Steve’s attention, lifts his gaze from the folder and winks at Steve the way he so often does. Steve winks back.

‘You don’t need to thank me.’

Will snuggles in close, like he’s smaller than he really is, like he’s that little boy who got lost in the woods again. Steve envelopes him completely, holds him there and they watch the battle together, side by side, in good company, never alone.

*

The nurses declare him free to leave and Steve wants to run, he wants to scream and shower for three hours. He wants to put his bare feet on lush green grass.

But it still hurts to walk too far. His legs haven’t been used much while in recovery and so Eddie wheels him outside in a chair, makes it fun, makes it pretty fucking dangerous as he races alongside several cars, but Steve just laughs, he breathes the fresh air and he feels alive.

That feeling dims swiftly when he realises they’ve all been living for a month in a row of shitty nearby motel rooms. He puts paid to that real fucking quick.

‘Dad, hi,’ he says dully into the phone, dialling out of the country. They’ve not spoken since before Steve got hurt. He knows Hopper called them to let them know, but they didn’t come back, his parents. They just asked Hopper to keep them updated. ‘Yeah, I’m out now. I’m all right. Listen. I want my trust fund.’

*

It’s been four months since Steve was impaled.

Three months since he’s been out of hospital.

Two since he can walk unaided.

He can’t cartwheel, never could, but he can run flat out now and his heart doesn’t hurt anymore, not from physical exertion at least.

It takes a while to convince everyone to use what he calls the family account for whatever they like. His money comes in real fucking fast, rush aided by twenty years of guilt, he thinks, but it’s not a sour thought. His parents aren’t just… that interested in him.

Not like Steve is with his family.

The kids, thankfully, have absolutely no problem whatsoever in spending the money. To kids, it’s just coins going into an arcade slot. They don’t care where it came from, they haven’t been taught to be ashamed of money yet. They spend it happily, recklessly. Steve fucking loves them for it.

He buys a few houses and a whole bunch of cars. People are rebuilding Hawkins and Steve knows that’s where they should go, ought to be close in case Vecna rears his head, but for now, for just a little while, he wants them all to be happy. Besides, he’ll never go back there because nothing is worth risking Eddie being caught.

He buys the houses in San Francisco. They’re pretty little things, like cottages on a hill surrounded by paths and roads, but there’s a few little trees too. They can see the whole spill of the city from the front windows.

The houses are all close by, practically neighbours. Mike calls it Hawkins 2.0.

Hopper, Joyce, El and Will move into one. Hopper insists on paying rent. Steve is happy to let him, just tells him to put it in the family account, knows the kids will enjoy spending it on cool bikes or whatever, but maybe he doesn’t tell Hopper that part.

The Wheeler family relocates to San Fran after a solid week of wheedling, pleading and then finally, intelligent reasoning from Nancy.

Max and her Mom live in the other. Steve speaks with Susan for a while, just the two of them over coffee. He tells her it’d help him out if she’d live there, that an empty house won’t increase in value or whatever the fuck and she smiles at him over the coffee, eyes bright.

Dustin and his Mom move there too, pick a house just down the road. She’s just so relieved he’s all right, so proud of her boy. Steve offers to buy the house but Dustin’s Mom is stern and he knows he’ll need to work on her over the next few months.

Lucas, Erica and their parents move happily too. Steve wonders sometimes about how the parents might have bonded in the absence of their children. They saw things too. They saw the feelers of death come calling for their kids, they saw it, he knows and so they don’t want to split the kids up.

Eddie and Robin live with Steve.

It’s pure bliss. Absolute fucking madness. The kids have a key to his place (the family home, Steve dares to think) and they traipse in and out as they please. He loves hearing the door open at 10 at night, he loves the noise and the laughter. The house is full, it’s messy, lived in.

It feels weird though, sleeping in different rooms. The entire time he’s known Eddie Munson, the world had been ending. So now, in this lovely place, with very little to worry about for the time being, there doesn’t seem to be any need to share a bed.

That lasts a week.

A week of Steve waking up alone, too much space, too much nothingness and he knows he was yelling because Eddie or Robin comes in and they don’t seem tired either. Sometimes all three of them sleep in the same bed, cuddled up like puppies in a basket. He always wakes up in Eddie’s arms, though. When he blinks awake, he’s right there, usually awake first.

After a week, Eddie hauls his single bed into Steve’s room, brings a load of his stuff too and declares himself Steve’s roommate. It feels weird to say, like a downgrade almost from how much they’ve shared in that world before. Hawkins with three hours of daylight, where they had to wash each other’s hair.

But it’s better. Steve feels safer having Eddie near.

One night, Robin and Nancy come to dinner and they’re holding hands. Steve just smiles. He loves them both so much. The ensuing din from the kids is near deafening, but that just makes it even better. They’re happy, outrageously so.

Steve looks over to check on Jonathan, to make sure he’s all right, but the guy seems fine. He seems level and happy, Argyle congratulating the girls in very typical Argyle fashion.

And beside him, he feels Eddie’s fingers slip into his own and something twists in his chest. His best friend rests his head on Steve’s shoulder and sighs gently.

‘They’re so beautiful,’ Eddie says.

‘They are,’ Steve agrees and he doesn’t know why, because Eddie is naturally tactile and so is Steve when he’s honest with himself, but that small, unremarkable contact starts something.

It starts a revolution.

A riot.

A crank being turned a single notch. The place Steve Harrington’s best friend holds in his heart… swells as he realises something new for the very first time.

*

He’s falling in love and Steve is both terrified and yet completely, utterly calm about it.

He knows it’s happening. Maybe it’s already happened and this is just now getting deeper, more involved. Space between them contracting slowly, drawing them nearer.

They touch all the time.

When they make breakfast together, Eddie will come up behind Steve, wrap his arms around his waist and then lift him for no reason. Steve will huff a laugh, he’ll protest and then struggle to turn. It becomes a game. Trying to lift each other, calling each other princess, trying to win and they both lose, because gravity does not take sides. They end up on the floor together, laughing and breathless, tangled legs and messy hair.

‘You’re wild, Harrington,’ Eddie sometimes says when they’re real close and increasingly, there’s an edge to it. Rough, almost serrated. One time, his hands wrap around Steve’s wrists as he pins him down. It’s gently violent, it’s beautiful and absolutely heart-stopping for how it steals all Steve’s breath away. ‘You’re so fucking wild.’

Steve Harrington has been called many things in his life, but that’s the first time anyone called him wild.

And it doesn’t matter if other people are there, Robin half lives there still, half lives where Nancy got a little apartment a few blocks down. The kids come and go as they please after school, sometimes during. No one bats an eyelid.

At night, when they watch a movie, Eddie will make a nest of blankets and lay the table out with tiny snack sized delights and he’ll open his arms to Steve and say, ‘Get in here, big boy.’

Steve laughs every time and when he slides into Eddie’s embrace, it feels more and more like coming home.

They fall asleep together pretty much every night. They wake that way. They eat together. Steve drives him around. They shop together. They do almost everything together. Eddie will brush his teeth while Steve showers and they’ll talk the whole time. It’s normal and yet Steve knows, deep down, it’s not.

But it only gets weird, or whatever that heavy intense feeling really is, when they start almost kissing.

*

Eddie Munson is dead.

He died in Hawkins in the earthquake. The only person outside their circle (parents all sworn to secrecy) who knows, is Eddie’s uncle.

So, Eddie lives off the grid. He doesn’t deal drugs here in San Fran. He’s not in school. After five months of long sleeps, of lazy days and family dinners, biking till their legs ache and then spending all day in the cool shade of light, safe woodlands, Eddie starts to get antsy.

Steve knows this was coming.

He knows people will drift. Nancy gets a fantastic job with a newspaper, Robin wants to make candles and sell them, so she takes a course. The kids finish up school and they’re always coming around still, but they’re kids. They want to go do their own thing sometimes. Jonathan, Joyce and Hopper all find jobs. The families become individual families once more. It slowly becomes Hawkins 2.0, just like Mike said.

Steve doesn’t want them to drift, but he knows he can’t stop it.

‘I should get a job,’ Eddie says on a Tuesday afternoon. They’re laying outside on the grass in the shade of an oak tree. It’s warm and quiet. Eddie’s fingers are tracing lines down the soft, under-skin of Steve’s forearm and Steve’s head is in his best friend’s lap. ‘Steve?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I should get a job, right?’

Steve opens his eyes. Eddie’s fingers are conducting an orchestra of sensory delight, it makes him dizzy sometimes when Eddie does that. When he plays with him, just to feel him. Like when Steve plays with his hair.

‘I don’t know,’ he answers, frowning a little. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘I know. But I feel like maybe I should do something with my life.’

Steve tries so hard not to take it personally. Not get panicky about the final person who wants to be here all the time suddenly not wanting to be there all the time anymore. It’s not Eddie’s fault that Steve’s parents started leaving him on his own when he was thirteen.

Phone calls every day at first, sending neighbours to check but Steve had been thirteen and his parents being away had been the coolest thing ever then so he’d pushed hard to make sure they thought he was fine.

It worked a little too well.

‘Yeah, I mean,’ Steve rolls over to sit up. ‘It’s your choice.’

Eddie was anticipating it, Steve can tell.

‘I’ll still live here,’ he says levelly, seeking to calm, to reassure. Like how they hold hands under the table sometimes, like that one time he… the one time when Steve woke up from a nightmare and Eddie pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth, just to let him know he was there. That Steve wasn’t alone in a big empty house. ‘I’ll still be with you.’

Steve lays belly down on the grass, no longer touching Eddie. It burns in his blood, even the phantom sense of rejection, but its unearned and he knows it.

‘What do you wanna do?’

Eddie shakes his head, chuckles, ‘I have no idea, but I…’ There, he hesitates, choosing his words. ‘I want to chip in.’

Steve loses the battle to keep his cool. He scowls and pushes off the grass, heads inside.

It’s been a really long time since he felt angry.

The feeling is bitter, it scalds his insides like bile. Steve fumbles blindly in the kitchen, starts aggressively making a sandwich, or maybe toast, he’s not sure until strong, sure hands take hold of his wrists and cease his frantic motions.

‘Hey, look at me, Harrington.’

‘What?’

‘Listen real close when I tell you,’ Eddie says and he’s so in control, so steady. ‘That I will never not see you first thing in the morning and last thing at night.’

Steve swallows. His mouth feels dry and his palms feel hot. This… this isn’t what normal friends say to each other, and if they’re just going to be normal friends from now on, if Eddie’s going to get a job and a new life, he’ll make better friends than Steve. People who don’t need him this much. People who can spend the night alone.

People who don’t have holes in them.

‘Whatever, man,’ he mumbles, childish anger unable to break under the weight of this love between them. He tries to pull away, but Eddie’s grip is sure. He can’t pull away, he can’t leave.

‘Not whatever. Look at me.’ Steve does, he meets those dark brown eyes and feels gravity tug behind his navel. ‘I’m not leaving you alone.’

Steve’s eyes sting, his bottom lip begs to tremble.

‘Like I—like it matters,’ he tries to say, wants it to sound better than it does. ‘Everyone leaves, everyone—they all have lives, I get it.’

‘You’re my life,’ Eddie says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. ‘You’re my home. You are where I will turn to, where I’ll always come back to. You’re my North, Steve Harrington.’

Steve is caught, locked in the moment and its torture, it’s blissful agonising torment that he’s never felt before to be held in this way and to be told so sternly things that he desperately wants to believe.

‘You needed time, we all did,’ Eddie goes on when Steve stops struggling. ‘I needed time too. What we went through… what we might still have to go through, it was bad. But now,’ he adds, tone gentling. ‘Now we can start to stretch out a little more. We can make plans.’

The pain is still there and Steve can’t stop himself from saying, ‘Like running away?’

Eddie gets this kind of look, it’s disapproving almost but far too intense for that really. ‘Steve. If I’m ever running, it’s to you. It will always be to you, not from you. A plan has moving parts, you told me that, remember?’

Steve closes his eyes to try and stop the tears from spilling, but they do anyway. Eddie’s hands slide down over his wrists, under his elbows and then he pulls Steve in close.

‘I don’t wanna be alone.’

‘You’ll never be alone again,’ Eddie tells him. Steve wants him to burn the words into his skin, he wants it tattooed there so any time it’s in question, he can just show Eddie and remind him. Hold him to it, even though the idea of keeping someone in his presence under the weight of a promise is repellent. Eddie’s lips brush the curve of Steve’s neck and Steve shivers, can’t control it. His skin breaks out in goosebumps and Eddie must feel it, because he makes this little sound right after. Like a muted, sharply drawn breath.

Steve doesn’t even realise he has his hands in Eddie’s hair until he pulls back enough to look at him. Their noses brush and their breath plays across one another’s lips.

Steve is falling for Eddie, he’s falling so hard.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and it’s laden with meaning, with hidden layers.

Eddie’s jaw works for a moment before he sweeps back Steve’s hair, it’s so long now but Steve doesn’t want anyone to touch it except Eddie, doesn’t seem right.

‘Nothing to be sorry for, baby,’ he says and Steve’s eyes cross a little. That word feels like a hand roaming down his body, pushing past skin and bone, right into his fucking soul. ‘I know you hate being alone.’

Their noses brush. They hold each other in a way that is fraught with desperation, but feels gentle too.

For the first time, Steve leans into kiss Eddie

It is the most natural thing in the world.

He leans in to kiss him because why wouldn’t he kiss him? It’s what he yearns for, heart, body, soul and mind, he’s wanted to kiss his best friend for longer than he ever realised.

But then he catches himself a split second before it’s too late. He stops. Eddie hasn’t really moved and their eyes are open, staring down into one another.

Steve looks away, removes himself from the warm embrace. It’s hard, like resisting gravity.

‘I do,’ he says, like it’s not obvious, like he didn’t buy a bunch of houses to try and keep people with him. ‘But you’re right, I know you are.’ He looks at Eddie. ‘You’re so fucking incredible, you could do anything you want. I know you’ll be amazing.’

Eddie takes a shaky breath, cheeks red.

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Well, I do,’ Steve tells him, even though he still feels off-kilter, wounded somehow. ‘I know it. So let’s go find you something cool to do.’

*

There is something petty and small inside Steve that shrivels up when Eddie makes new friends. It’s fucking gross and he hates himself for it, but he can’t help it.

Eddie gets a part time, cash in hand job at the record store. It’s a job he’s made for and everyone there loves him. He gives a fake last name, but it’s cash anyway. Eddie gets to talk music, he gets to choose whatever he wants to put on and he makes a ton of friends.

He also hosts DnD nights there sometimes. Always invites Steve, but sometimes Steve doesn’t go. Sometimes he stays inside and tells himself he has to get used to this, that this is how it’ll be eventually.

After a month, Eddie gets a car and even though he doesn’t have a permit, he still drives it around. He’s a careful driver.

‘You should find something you like doing too,’ he tells Steve, as he wraps his arms around him from behind while Steve makes coffee. He doesn’t try to lift him up, they don’t wrestle like they used to. Now he’s just kind of… holding Steve like this.

And Steve stares ahead, fighting it. He knows how fucking nice Eddie is, how sweet and caring. Worse still, he knows Eddie is worried about him, that he’s trying and in doing so has broken the easy balance between them because they’ve never needed to try before, never.

Steve shrugs and moves away. ‘Have a great day.’

*

No matter the parties Eddie gets invited to, no matter how many people (men and women) ask him out, he always says no. He keeps his promise. He is there when Steve wakes up, he’s there when he falls asleep.

They don’t always share a bed anymore, but he’s there in the room, bed not far from Steve.

Sometimes, Steve is sure they’re both laying there wide awake, suffocating in silence.

‘Big campaign tonight,’ he tells Steve the next morning, no embrace, barely any touching at all. ‘Some of the kids are coming. You gonna be there?’

Steve wants to be there. He wants to go and be with them, be central to everything again, be Mom to Eddie’s Dad, but that world… it’s not real anymore.

‘I’ve got plans,’ he says, wishes it didn’t sound so fucking petulant. He’s twenty one, for god’s sake.

Eddie sighs and Steve turns.

‘Do you—?’ Eddie shakes his head. ‘I can, y’know, move out if you want?’

He must see it in Steve when he lifts his gaze, must see at least a little bit of what that does to Steve. How it feels like metal in his chest, like death come calling after a generous delay. Eddie startles forward quickly, concern rumpling his brow, all his beautiful features marred with alarm.

‘Steve—fuck, no, th-that’s not what I’m saying, I—please just wait.’

And Steve, he feels like a stupid little kid again. He feels like he’s standing before Nancy Wheeler and she’s just saying the truth, that he’s bullshit. He feels so small it makes him want to curl up and die, but instead he smiles.

He smiles through it and shakes his head, belied by how he backs away. Eddie pursues him, of course he does, he’s such a good friend, amazing person.

 Steve was lucky to have had the time with him that he did. Every single moment with him was a gift.

‘Yeah, I mean, you’re gonna do what you gotta do, right?’ he hears himself say and Eddie ignores it, pursues him through the empty house filled with lovely, inanimate things that they’d chosen together. ‘Whatever you want, man.’

‘Steve, stop, please.’

‘You’re gonna be late for work,’ Steve tells him and he just makes it into the bathroom before Eddie, slamming the door and locking it. Not a moment too soon as Steve collapses against it, back hitting the wood softly, face in his hands as he slides to the floor.

‘Steve, please open the door.’

‘I gotta shower.’

‘You’re not in the shower.’

He knows he should get up, at least turn the water on and let it run, but he can’t move.

Alone. He’s not ready to be alone. He can’t survive, not again. Please, please, please.

‘Baby,’ Eddie says and it’s that word, tying Steve’s heart in fucking knots. It doesn’t mean what Steve wants it to, does it? It’s like him and Robin calling each other babe.

That word from Eddie’s lips hurts and it makes him want to scream with distorted injustice, with pain he’s never processed and trauma buried beneath brave smiles and scars. ‘Please open the door. I’m not gonna… I’d die before I hurt you, don’t you know that?’

Face buried in his arms, Steve whispers, ‘Please just go.’

And after a while, Eddie does.

*

Steve is an absolute mess when Will comes by. He hears the bike dropped in the porch so he has a few seconds to like, gather himself.

‘Hey,’ he greets Will, the pair hugging.

Will is getting tall, he’s getting more tanned and one of the first things Steve did months ago when they moved here was take him to a good barber’s shop. Now his hair looks great, it suits him. Doesn’t look like an upturned bowl.

Steve is so proud and happy, always comes to life a little more whenever the kids visit. His six, as he’d once thought of them with a certainty that did not waver.

Will’s expression creases with concern. ‘Hey, Steve. You… OK?’

Steve laughs, waves a dismissive hand. ‘Of course. You staying for dinner? Wanna get pizza, or we could go out.’

‘Going out,’ Will says, but not all his concern diminishes. ‘Sounds good yeah.’

‘OK, awesome. Where do you wanna go?’ Steve will literally take the kid to Disneyland if he wants, he’s so fucking lonely.

Will sits at the dining area, high seats like in a diner. ‘Actually, I wanted to ask if maybe we could go somewhere uh… different?’

Steve picks up on the tone, the hopeful look in Will’s eyes. San Francisco has been exactly what he hoped for Will in terms of self-acceptance and he thinks he still has his old instincts when he reads the kid.

‘You wanna go to a bar?’

The small hopeful smile has already done Steve in, it really has. Will Byers has been through so fucking much.

‘Yeah, if-if that’s cool.’

Steve smiles, leans on the counter. ‘What kind of bar?’

*

Will is freshly sixteen and the Mom part of Steve knows this is perhaps not the best idea in the world, but he also knows that denying someone experience eventually backfires. He leaves a note on the fridge for Robin in case of emergencies, telling her where they’ll be. They get dressed up for their night out and in Steve’s bedroom, Will shyly tries on a few different shirts, settles on something that really suits him.

‘Fantastic.’

‘What are you gonna wear?’

Steve takes a worrying degree of vindictive pleasure in dressing as slutty as is humanly possible. He doesn’t get why, tells himself it’s to cut loose, to blow off steam, but deep down there’s a little voice that worries for him, that says this tendency to self-destruct is bad.

‘Are you wearing eyeliner?’ Will asks, half curious, half laughing.

‘Robin left it, now it’s mine. Wanna try?’

They hail a cab and they go to one of the most friendly Gay Bars in the city, the place Robin has told Steve all about. He hasn’t been yet, but it sounds good, so.

At the door, Steve bluffs their way inside. Will is tall and in that shirt, he looks older. The bouncer has clearly just had enough of Steve’s shit when he waves them in. Steve takes hold of Will’s hand and leads him victoriously inside.

The look on the kid’s face, oh yeah. This was worth it.

The lights, the music, the people. Everything is so vibrant and vivid. It’s filled with wild energy, breakneck dancing and everyone seems so happy, even Steve’s bad mood lifts a few meagre inches.

He and Will dance together to Cyndi Lauper and then Steve needs a drink.

‘One lemonade and one double vodka tonic,’ he says a lot of times that night. The first one burns going down. It’s been ages since he’s had a drink, but the second goes down like fine fucking wine, like that one time someone offered him ecstasy and he’d just taken it, no questions asked.

They dance a lot.

The music is loud, rhythm absolutely pounding. Steve wonders why they never had places like this in fucking dead-beat Hawkins and then he remembers why, thinks of what exactly would happen to a club like this after the lights went out.

Steve is absolutely fucking smashed when he loses track of Will. He empties his bladder and then comes out to find Will, but he isn’t where he’d said he’d be. Steve turns in a circle, standing on tiptoes to find him.

Nowhere.

It takes all of three seconds for Steve to catastrophise the fuck out of the situation. He shoves through the sea of bodies, and in his mind, he’s viciously running through the checklist of worse case scenarios, all of which involve Will dead or taken or hurt.

And then he sees him; leaning on the bar having what seems like a very polite, distanced conversation with a guy who has the audacity to be taller than Steve.

‘Hey,’ Steve says to Will, attempting to be subtle. He gently threads his hand through Will’s upper arm. ‘I think we’d better go.’

Tall Guy objects. ‘Hey, what are you, his boyfriend? He can stay if he wants.’

Thing is, he’s not even being a dick about it. Steve isn’t quite drunk enough not to hear that Tall Guy is being nice, is offering Will, who does indeed look older than his years, the chance to exert his god given choice in the matter.

But Steve is still pretty drunk, so he pokes Tall Guy in his very glittery, muscle-bound chest and sneers.

‘You are in no way good enough for him,’ he tells the guy very clearly. ‘And we’re leaving.’

‘Yeah, sorry, it was nice to meet you,’ Will says, following Steve when lightly tugged.

But maybe it’s the tugging that does it, because Tall Guy pursues them. He reaches out and takes hold of Will’s hand and carefully turns him around, dislodging Steve’s hold.

‘Hey, look, if this guy is your brother or whatever, you don’t have to listen to—’

‘GET YOUR FUCKING HAND OFF MY CHILD!’

It’s ringing in Steve’s ears, some primal need to protect Will, to keep him safe, keep him there in this bright, beautiful world that breaks Steve’s heart to pieces, but nourishes everyone else.

Tall Guy is astonished and Will’s eyes are a little wider than usual, but he doesn’t seem shocked, only worried.

Then he just looks over Steve’s shoulder and sighs with mild relief.

‘Hey man, sorry about that,’ someone says, wrapping a firm arm around Steve’s waist and kind of wrangling him in the opposite direction. ‘C’mon, Will.’

It’s fucking Eddie.

*

Steve sobers up a tiny bit in the car, sat in the back seat with Will because Will is what matters.

‘I’m so sorry I let you down,’ he says for the tenth time, but the misery is fresh with each new rendition. ‘I fucked up, I’m so sorry.’

And Will, god bless the kid, but he’s so sweet. Tells Steve it’s fine, he had a great time, that he’s happy Steve was, ‘a little overprotective,’ and Steve hugs him tight, feels like a failure anyway.

Eddie walks Will to his house, likely covers for him with Joyce and Hopper. Steve goes inside his own place and feels dread curling tight in his guts, right alongside the vodka.

He tries to make coffee, but it’s just… not happening, so he stumbles to the sofa and collapses. The ceiling spins above him.

‘Hey,’ Eddie calls out softly. ‘Steve?’

Steve doesn’t answer, childishly doesn’t want to be found, but then he’s hardly hiding on the sofa, is he?

Eddie kneels in front of him and starts unlacing his shoes.

‘I’ll get you changed, then get you some water,’ he simply says. Steve throws his arm across his eyes, but not in time to stopper the tears. It’s silent between them for less than a minute, but that minute is agony all the same.

His breath hitches when he speaks, voice barely above a whisper.

‘Sometimes,’ he tells Eddie, shame wrapping around him from the inside. ‘I wish the world was still ending.’

Eddie works his socks off. ‘I know you do.’

‘Not because—not because of the bad stuff.’

‘Because we had the No One Goes Alone rule.’

Steve shakes his head. ‘Not even that. You didn’t have… anyone else to turn to, so it was just me and the others. Isn’t that fucking gross?’

‘Can I take these off?’ Eddie just asks, voice soft and kind. ‘Steve, can I touch you to take your pants off?’

‘You never need to ask if you can touch me. I love it when you touch me,’ Steve slurs, throat painfully thick, heart scribbling over all the important things in his life, lashing out like a wild animal. ‘I miss it so much. I miss being in that camper van with you. I miss washing your hair.’ Steve’s back arches like he’s possessed and he sobs. ‘Fuck, I love your hair, Eddie. You’ve no idea.’

Eddie says, ‘You need to get changed, baby, OK?’

Another sob.

‘Why’d you call me that? Do you know how much that hurts? You-you call me that and it makes me burn inside, it makes me feel like I’m falling right out of the sky.’ Steve brings his forearms together and covers his face with his hands, breathless and ashamed. ‘Loving you hurts so much when everything is fine.’

He feels Eddie leaning slightly on the sofa from where he’s sitting and then he feels warm, strong hands carefully prying his hiding place away from his face.

‘I know how it feels to be torn up inside and then go get shit-faced, all right? You don’t wanna be saying these things. Let’s get you to bed, get some water in you and then tomorrow—’

Steve tries to sit up too fast and the world spins in vicious retaliation. Eddie’s hands steady his shoulders.

‘Tomorrow what?’ he croaks, wretched with despair. ‘Tomorrow you’ll go to work and probably move out and then move away and I’ll just…I’ll be here, doing nothing, paying people to come and see me, using money to keep people here. Just like before!’

He knows his eyes are streaming tears, he knows he’s an absolute fucking wreck at this point and all he’ll do now is push Eddie further away, but he can’t stop.

‘That’s never going to happen,’ Eddie tells him and he sounds so confident, he sounds like he knows these things, but Steve doesn’t. He doesn’t know anything, except that he’s bullshit. Worthless. ‘Do you have any idea how much people love you? Do you?’

Steve shakes his head, trying to roll off the sofa, but gravity isn’t playing fair and he can’t get free.

‘Go away.’

‘I live here.’

‘Then don’t! Go live with your new friends, with-with Robin or whoever, run away and live somewhere else already because that’s what you’re obviously going to do!’

He screams the last part, he screams it.

And then the silence becomes something else, it becomes a barrier, a borderland. Steve has finally fucked up, he’s fucked up so bad but he can’t… he can’t live like this anymore, waiting for it to happen.

Waiting to be left alone again.

Eddie shakes his head. He’s… angry.

Steve knows he deserves this, he’s fucking earned whatever the man he loves is about to say to him. He waits, agonising seconds ticking by.

‘You know, uh,’ Eddie says, voice trembling. ‘I never really think about hurting people.’ Good, this is good, he deserves to hurt Steve, break his stupid jealous heart, do it fast. ‘But if I meet your parents, I’m probably gonna smack ‘em.’

Steve blinks. The words don’t register at first. He’s expecting… other words, he expects cruelty. At the very least he expects disgust and anger.

‘What?’

Eddie wipes his eyes and smiles, huffs a weak laugh.

‘I know, they’re gonna love me, right? Hi there Mr and Mrs Harrington, lovely to meet you both, bam!’ Eddie makes the gesture like he’s backhanding someone. He exhales shakily and looks back at Steve, resolve settling in his expression. ‘Do you know how much it hurts to hear that you think I’ll run?’

That brings Steve up short, unexpectedly so. He’s having trouble following Eddie’s words, the meanings, but he knows they’ve reached the part where Steve has fucked it all up.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, could never pretend otherwise. ‘I’m sorry, Eddie.’

‘No, I think,’ Eddie says slowly. ‘I think I need to say sorry. I’ve not been what you need the last few weeks.’

Steve snorts, gives it all the derisive scorn he can, but that’s not much and it comes off as pitiful. ‘I don’t need anything.’

Eddie holds his gaze, laden with meaning.

‘I let you take care of me. You let me take care of you. We promised, didn’t we?’

Steve thought he’d forgotten.

‘Yeah, well, shit changes.’

‘Not us. Not you and me, Steve. Do you think I’ve forgotten what we said to each other that night on patrol? Do you think I ever could? I’ve fucked up. We both have.’ Eddie brings Steve’s hand to his lips and pressed a warm, dry kiss to the back. ‘I’m so sorry, Stevie.’

And Steve wants to kiss him so much that it feels like he can’t breathe until he does. It grips like possession, like something unholy and yet earthly taking hold of his body, unrelenting until he kisses Eddie, until they’re kissing.

He leans in, can’t help it. Steve wants this, he wants to kiss and lick and taste, he wants it all and more.

But this time, it’s Eddie who moves back, who stops it.

‘No, Steve, you’re drunk.’

On the back of a weak sob, Steve tries again, caught in an airless, lightless purgatory without the surety and verve of kissing the man he loves.

‘Please?’

Eddie stops him again, this time by holding his face. Steve feels Eddie’s thumb moving over his cheek, he feels the cool metal of his rings. He feels everything except what he needs.

‘I’ve never loved anything the way I love you, Steve Harrington,’ Eddie says, dark brown eyes moving between Steve’s own. ‘This isn’t the moment, sweetheart.’

It’s not a rejection, but it’s not a kiss. Steve quietly cries, insides cut up on the broken shards of his stupid little heart and Eddie holds him, he holds him all night until they fall asleep together.

*

Eddie lets Steve wash his hair.

It’s easy in their bathroom because the tub is big and the shower extends a long way. A far cry from the bowl and plain, unscented soaps, but it feels like landing in their home country when Steve wets all that long, wavy brown hair and runs his fingers through it. Soft and lovely, he wants to bury his face in it, find the scent of his skin, the base notes.

They don’t talk at all.

He sits behind Eddie in the tub, up on the ledge with his legs in the water either side of Eddie, jeans rolled up to the knee. Eddie is bare in the water, he’s naked but there’s like bubbles and shit and besides, Steve thinks, blushing faintly, it’s nothing he’s never seen before. They’ve changed in front of each other a million times by now.

They don’t talk at all until Eddie looks up at Steve and says, ‘How’d you get so good at this?’

And it takes Steve a moment, but the smile is already there, already tugging because this silly little ritual in that place where the end of the world was their reality, he had almost forgotten all about it.

He laughs softly, shaking his head, pushing his fingers through Eddie’s long hair and tries to think of a good lie, a funny one, finds nothing.

‘I’m not good at this,’ he admits eventually, focusing on Eddie’s hair, the suds, whatever skin he can massage. ‘I’m just good at making you feel good, I think.’

They stare at each other. Eddie is upside down to Steve and Steve must be to him too. There’s water and soapy suds everywhere. Steve can feel Eddie’s bare hips against his ankles. Eddie doesn’t look away and he doesn’t say anything. Instead he lifts his hands from the water, steam curling off his skin and he reaches for Steve’s face.

Gently pulls him down, cups his chin. Steve’s heart is pounding, he can feel his pulse in his wrists and his hands are still lathered up with expensive shampoo, but he’s ready for it, he knows he is.

Please, please, please, he thinks, ignoring the deep dark fear that… that maybe this will ruin everything. Please kiss me, kiss me so hard I forget my name.

Upside down, their noses touch. They are bending and stretching in awkward ways to make their faces meet. Steve’s hair is too long now, his bangs tickle Eddie’s chin.

Kiss me, he thinks, prays, maybe whispers, he doesn’t know. All he knows is this man’s hands on his face, the scent of his skin when clean, the look of him. His eyes, his face, the person inside the vessel that wears ink and scars.

He has fallen, no longer falling.

He’s so in love with Eddie that it scares him.

There is conflict playing about the features of the man he loves. Steve sees it there, still knows Eddie too well to mistake it.

The moment holds and then… breaks.

But not the way Steve wants.

Instead, Eddie brings their foreheads together, touching like they did that night while Will cried between them. The contact centres Steve all the same and in some ways it’s better, safer, stronger.

He still aches for the kiss. He aches.

‘My turn,’ Eddie says and Steve lets him.

*

Hair clean, they lay on the sofa together watching old movies. It’s a warm, cloudy day and they don’t say much. They haven’t spoken about the night before yet. They need to, Steve knows, but not yet. Just a little while longer like this. They lay half resting atop each other, Steve’s back to Eddie’s chest with Eddie’s arm around him. Eddie lays on the armrest and they just watch together, exist in the same space.

Steve relishes the quiet for once. The absence of noise and clatter. His insides settle and the frantic pitch of his worries lower to manageable levels.

It’s nice and it’s a little generic. Steve yawns after the second movie, Escape From New York and he watches as Eddie goes to the kitchen, starts making things.

Steve follows him out there after a while, watches him make toast and coffee.

‘Remember when we met?’

Eddie looks over and half grins. ‘Don’t think I could forget that,’ he says. He is shirtless and comfortable in a pair of shorts, his hair long and wavy like always. Maybe later Steve can braid it, make it a complex one. ‘Why?’

Leaning on the counter, pretty marble swirls, Steve shrugs. ‘You were a wild thing, Eddie Munson. You held glass to my throat.’

Eddie licks butter off his thumb. Steve loves seeing him bare, he likes all his marks, all but one.

‘Yeah, so?’ He squints at Steve. ‘What you getting at, huh? Are you trying to say I’ve gone domestic, Harrington?’

Steve grins, it’s a little bit wicked.

‘I’m just sayin’, don’t you ever wanna go somewhere and let loose?’

Eddie stared ahead. He’s thinking, contemplating what Steve is driving at.

‘You want that?’

‘You don’t?’

‘I like the stability,’ Eddie said, inclining his head. ‘But yeah, I see what you’re saying.’ His expression softens and he passes Steve his coffee, sliding it across the counter-top with both hands. ‘I wanted to give you what you needed.’

Stability. Surety. Family. A home. Steve parses the words, the meaning behind it. He tries to lift his ego out of the situation, his panic, and see it clearly.

‘You did,’ he says at length. They stand face to face, all that expensive marble between them. ‘I needed it, you’re right. But now maybe… maybe I need something more.’

Eddie nods, palms flat on the surface. His bare chest is covered in scars from that terrible fucking night, but every single one of them healed. Steve knows how long each one took to heal, which was the bitch of the lot, he remembers it crystal clear.

‘Will you tell me what you need?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Only maybe? Don’t string me along, Stevie.’ The nickname is sweet and lightweight like a butterfly that Steve wants to catch in good faith, but if he does, he might crush it. ‘C’mon, tell me what you want.’

Worrying his bottom lip, Steve looks up at Eddie through lowered lashes.

‘I wanna get in trouble.’

*

They don’t need to steal a car.

There is absolutely no need whatsoever in the world for them to steal a fucking car, but that’s what they do.

Eddie takes Steve by the hand, dresses him himself, chooses the clothes. Forgettable, non-descript. Then they go for a walk down the most expensive street in San Fran, casually scanning the streets where cars are parked outside the hottest places to lunch on a Saturday.

And Eddie… he looks fucking ridiculously gorgeous. He’s wearing all black, tight ripped jeans and sunglasses, hair tied back. There’s something about him when he’s shopping for a car. Serious, sharp, clever. He guides Steve easily, but firmly.

‘That one,’ he says, nodding to a gleaming white beauty across the street.

‘The BMW?’

‘733i,’ Eddie confirms. ‘Worth a mint, not too hard to snatch and it drives,’ he says, grinning at Steve with almost predatory excitement. ‘Like a dream. You game?’

Steve’s sunglasses have a purple tint to them. His blood runs warm and swift with anticipation. He really wants to steal this fucking car.

‘Hell yeah.’

*

Eddie makes everything so easy. He always does, but even this. In, start her up, shut the door and drive. The car whirls out of the street, heads right for the highway. Steve rolls the windows down, leans out and throws his arm wide, letting the wind smack it all to hell.

He cheers while Eddie laughs, relaxed and happy despite driving the stolen car. They blast across the roads and oh yeah, Eddie’s a great fucking driver. He weaves in and out like he’s made for it. Steve laughs and then he throws back his head and screams.

They crank the music, whatever Eddie wants, and they drive till the car runs out of gas.

*

It’s a pretty stretch of river and the car dies right on the small bridge. There’s no one around for miles. Eddie wipes the car down for prints, then they leave it there.

‘Where are we?’ Steve asks as they walk. It’s warm, but not hot. Maybe it’ll rain later. He feels like he never gets to be in the rain with Eddie.

‘Near Golden Gate Park, I think.’ He pulls Steve in close, arm around his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, big boy, I’ve gotcha.’

Steve huffs, but he doesn’t actually doubt it for a second.

*

They walk until they come across a little creek where they strip off and go swimming for a while. The water is icy cold, it steals all Steve’s breath away but he dives under, hands feeling over the rounded stones of the river bed. Eddie chases him, they chase each other. Grappling and playfully drowning until it gentles and then they’re just hugging.

They’re just holding each other in the water, chests rising and falling, skin cold and wet, hair all askew. Nose to nose, Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he sighs.

‘I love you,’ he says over the rush of water.

Eddie’s hand is in his hair, strong grip around his lower back too and they’re bare, there is nothing between them but it just feels like… it feels like home. Steve has missed his skin, he’s missed the rhythm of his heart.

 Eddie is actually holding Steve up when he nuzzles the side of Steve’s throat and then slowly trails the outline of his lips up to Steve’s jaw. It’s so light and gentle, it feels like dragging a feather over flesh but the smallest of touches in this way, unusual touch for them, makes Steve’s eyes cross and his head falls back, desperate to give Eddie more ground to cover, to give him permission, to give him everything.

‘I love you,’ Eddie whispers and Steve feels his warm breath over his wet lips, that’s how close they are. Kissing would be the easiest thing in the world. It would require no movement at all, only the pursing of Steve’s lips, that’s it.

The hand in his hair feels so fucking good it shouldn’t be legal and Steve absolutely would be rock hard by now if the water wasn’t sub zero degrees, but Eddie doesn’t kiss him. He feels it almost happen, feels when Eddie’s hand clenches slightly in Steve’s hair. The small bite of pain skitters down his spine like a tickle response, makes him yearn for more.

But it doesn’t happen.

What does happen, is that it fucking pours rain.

*

Soaked to the bone, Eddie pulls Steve into the phone box with him, the pair laughing and shivering in equal measure, all their clothes dripping and cold.

They call Robin, who only sighs theatrically when they peer to make out the closest motel down the road. It’s getting dark little by little, twilight creeping in.

When she picks them up, Nancy is up front, so the boys sit in the back. Neither girl asks what happened, but Steve detects a lot of silent communication between the girlfriends. They make small talk for a while, but the car is warm and when Eddie pulls off his damp tee and opens his arms to Steve, the offer is too good to resist. Steve burrows into the warmth offered by the man he’s utterly gone for and falls asleep that way.

*

They order Chinese food and then they do talk about it, about last night. Steve will go talk to Will tomorrow too, but Eddie doesn’t seem to think he did any harm.

Mostly they talk about what led up to it.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Eddie tells him, offering Steve noodles from his own chopsticks, even though they’re sharing everything, it’s just for them. ‘You’ve been alone a long time.’

Steve takes the food, thinks it tastes just that much better coming from Eddie.

‘No excuse to lash out.’

‘We all lash out.’

‘You don’t.’

‘No,’ Eddie chuckles without humour. ‘I just fuck up and then fuck off.’ Steve finds a really good prawn in his box, decides that it’s for Eddie, who bites it from Steve’s chopsticks without a second thought. ‘Not with you, though. Well, not the second part.’

Guilt burns on a low flame in Steve’s gut. ‘I don’t wanna hold you to me out of like, obligation or whatever.’

‘That’s wildly inaccurate.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I do, which is why I know for a fact it’s not gonna happen.’

Steve watches Eddie find all the best bits from the box to give Steve, all the things he likes best and then he says, ‘Will you tattoo me?’

*

It’s a highly charged thing.

Steve is equal measures nervous and excited, he’s almost shaking. Eddie wants to do it, he can tell, but he’s nervous too.

‘Your first is a big deal,’ he tells Steve. ‘You sure you don’t wanna get it done professionally?’

‘Just you.’ It’s the most obvious answer in the world.

Eddie has the needles, proper ink, alcohol wipes, antibacterial shit, cling film. He adds to his own sometimes, but never with an electric needle. Old school, he likes to call it.

Steve wants that. He wants Eddie Munson to put ink in his fucking skin, see it there forever and ever.

The older man is meticulous about making the space clean and sanitary. There’s a process he assures Steve.

‘So, do you know what you want yet?’

Steve still doesn’t really have a clear idea, he just wants Eddie to draw on him, play with him, mark him.

‘Want you to choose.’

Eddie wipes down the underside of Steve’s forearm, it’s the place he likes to trace his fingers the most and that is where Steve wants it, whatever it is.

‘All right. We can stop whenever you like, OK? No break limit. Here, drink some water first, there’s a good boy.’

Steve experiences a minor mishap when he hears those two words. His core of gravity goes slightly sideways, but he styles it out (not really) by grabbing the counter with his other hand.

His face, however, has flooded with heat. Eddie must see it because the tip of his tongue comes out to trace his upper lip. It’s a long tongue, pretty. He sort of smirks but then he’s all business again.

Steve can’t look away. Eddie dips the needle into the ink and then poises it over Steve’s skin.

‘Ready?’

‘Yeah.’

The first prick doesn’t feel bad at all, it feels… oh god, it feels so good. Shit. Shit, Steve didn’t… he wasn’t expecting it to feel this way. He’d gone with Robin to get her fox tattoo on her wrist and she’d been shrieking and laughing while the machine buzzed.

This was so fucking different. It started with one long press, pushing the needle under his skin, painting his insides with black, beautiful ink and because it’s so controlled, it… it…

Fuck.

Eddie’s expression is entirely non-judgemental, but Steve knows there is no way on earth he doesn’t see what it’s doing to him. At least his dick is hidden under the fucking counter.

‘Doing real good,’ Eddie says, voice like silk. ‘OK, first one’s in. Let’s go.’

He dabs pain into Steve’s body, more and more and up to a point, Steve thinks he’s going to come in his pants. He doesn’t exactly care, but it’s not ideal is it? Each sharp press from Eddie makes his body ripple with a kind of sensory pleasure he’s never once felt before. It’s raw and real and it fucks him up. Fucks him up so good that he can’t stop the tiny little noises he’s making, the breathy moans that crack and break in his throat, refusing to be contained.

But then it plateaus. It hits a point where his body adjusts just enough that Steve doesn’t think he’s going to tip over the edge of untouched orgasm. It’s still insanely pleasurable and Steve remains fascinated watching his blood mix with black, loves when Eddie wipes it away clean to see how that layer came out.

‘It’s an eight?’

Eddie rolls his eyes. ‘Be patient for me.’

The last two words make Steve’s mouth go dry as fuck, so he just nods and watches it come together, blossoms of pain from the kiss of a needle, one every second. His mind is blissfully blank, he’s immersed in this moment, this experience.

The tattoo is sort of like two figure eights on top of each other, but the ends of the exterior swirls are made of three dots each, six in total. Right in the centre, there’s a little star. It’s contained, small, artful. Eddie draws the outline first and then takes a short break, feeding Steve water like he doesn’t have a spare arm.

‘You’re doing so good,’ Eddie says, gaze riveted to Steve’s face that time like he knows exactly what it’ll do to him. Heat rushes through his cheeks, neck hot, breath tight. ‘So good for me.’

‘Fuck,’ Steve mutters, fighting for control.

‘Ready for more?’

‘Please.’

Now he fills in what he’s drawn, he shades it. The six dots, the gorgeous swirls. Steve realises that in the central curves of the smaller eight, there are four little curls, like tiny variations in the design.

The central star is small, but Eddie draws that differently. Sort of free-hands it, sketches it more than the two eights. It looks more personal, beautiful. The tattoo overall is rough, the edges look like they’re buzzing with static, the outline fuzzy from hand application, making it seem even more real, all the more Eddie.

A few more passes and then Eddie wipes away all the black, studies it.

‘What do you think?’

Steve is shaking. He can’t help it, there are too many things clashing in his body, his heart, his soul. His cock is still determinedly hard, his arm aches and the newly inked skin is raw and delicate.

‘I love it,’ he tells Eddie, so heartfelt he almost slurs. ‘What did you give me?’

Carefully, Eddie applies a light layer of antiseptic ointment and then covers it with the clingfilm.

‘It’s the double infinity,’ he says. ‘But I added a few things to make it really yours. This design means, love is infinite and ever-lasting. It means,’ he tells Steve, lowering his voice, but holding his gaze. ‘That you’ll never, ever be alone because you have people in your life who love you forever, no matter what.’

Steve isn’t sure he’s breathing.

‘And see here? The dots are the kids. The little swirls here, they’re your friends. You can always add more, too.’

‘What about the star?’

Eddie cocks his head, smiles in a way that Steve thinks is dangerous for what it does to his heart.

‘That’s you, baby. Shining bright, right in the centre of all that love. You’re the light in the dark of eternity. You’re the star we all look to, Stevie. You’re the star.’

And now Steve definitely cannot breathe because… because they never talk about that night, about the things they said to each other in the woods after Will came out, but Eddie has… he’s tattooed a little piece of it into Steve’s skin. He’s given him that reminder of what he said… forever.

It’s overwhelming.

It’s too much in a way that makes Steve want to cry, but he’s still spaced out, he’s so lightweight from the controlled pain of that needle, of Eddie putting ink in him for the first time, so what actually happens is that he opens his mouth and says, ‘You love me.’

That’s what it means to him, this tattoo. That’s what he’ll feel every single time he looks at it. He’ll think Eddie loves me, whenever he sees it.

And even though it sounds dumb, it’s so worth it when Eddie smiles like that; slow, gorgeous, he lights up with it.

He is achingly, unbearably beautiful.

‘Yeah,’ he says, touch of sarcasm that can’t dampen the smile. ‘No shit, sweetheart.’

Steve laughs and then presses his middle finger over the clingfilm. It’s sore but in the best possible way. Steve will see it every day for the rest of his life.

‘Thank you.’

Eddie cleans up. ‘You’re welcome.’

*

A week before the end of the world comes calling again, a week before their relative normality is shattered apart, Eddie takes Steve away for the weekend. His friend has a little summer house on Mile Rock Beach. Eddie drives, they pack light and it’s just for the weekend, but Steve can’t remember the last time he felt this excited to go to the beach.

The first thing Eddie said when they pull up, smell of salt in the air, sun melting the clouds above, is, ‘You wanna call the kids and check in?’

Steve loves him so fucking much.

After they call and check in, after Steve speaks seriously to Robin about calling him for the smallest of things going wrong, after Nancy finally takes over the call and tells Steve to stop being stupid and go and have fun, they unpack and then they go explore.

‘You been here before?’ Steve asks, navigating the large, rounded rocks of the beach. It’s nothing like any beach he’s been to before, where his parents would usually dump him with the other kids of parents they were hanging out with.

Those beaches were all sugary sand, golden brown and gleaming neon blue waters. The beach was always smothered with chairs and beds, it had waiters coming out with iced Evian and ice cream for the kids and, that one time, fluffy white towels for all the blood while the locals screamed ‘Hiu! Hiu!’

This beach is nothing like that.

It’s rough and maybe a little dangerous, Steve thinks, grinning as he holds his arms out for balance. His feet hurt. The waters are choppy, they’re dark in places and blindingly bright in others. The wind whips around his face and his hair, but it’s warm enough not to feel bad.

‘Nah, never,’ Eddie replies, looking back. He holds out his hand to help Steve, who’d insisted on going barefoot. Eddie was smarter, wore a pair of beat up old sandals. ‘C’mon, I gotcha, Harrington.’

Steve takes his hand, holds it tight and let’s Eddie guide him to this little cove nearby. It’s half in the shade, half in the sun and the salty water crashes over the rounded rocks. Harsh pounding of nature, uncaring of what visitors expect.

They sit on the rocks, side by side and look out at the water.

‘This is fucking awesome,’ Steve says, staring out across the horizon. It feels private, hidden, theirs. He wants to move there, hide away and never go back, just in the moment.

‘I knew you’d love it.’

Eddie’s hand is still in his, it so often is now Steve hardly notices anymore. He looks down at his tattoo, smiles and then he exhales, closes his eyes.

*

The beach house is small and messily decorated. There’s sandy grit on the floorboards, it’s rough wood walls and old sofas with splits and scratches from dog claws. Fishing nets on the wall, shells and stones everywhere, but the shower runs hot and the kitchen has a pizza oven.

It somehow reminds him of the RV. He loves that.

‘Wanna make pizza?’ Steve asks, the arches of his feet still sore from the stones. He checks the fridge, finds it full. ‘There’s even dough.’

They make an extraordinary amount of mess with the pizza.

‘No, look, you cannot have mushrooms on pizza,’ Eddie argues, back of his hand over his mouth as he laughs. Steve is unrepentant about the mushrooms. He knows he sliced too many, but he loves the fuckers.

‘I’ll only put them on one side,’ he says, eyes wide, jokingly placating Eddie, who refuses to let them on the base at all and it becomes a war of the mushrooms, becomes throwing mushrooms at one another, becomes red sauce on faces and fingers spreading the mess everywhere they can reach.

Eddie picks Steve up from behind like he used to, but for the purpose of carrying him away this time. Steve is struggling and cackling, still trying to stuff mushrooms down Eddie’s Iron Maiden t-shirt. Eddie takes them both outside, he carries Steve over the stones and then dunks him in the water, letting Steve drag him down too.

The ocean is freezing and the salt goes right up Steve’s nose, lungs clenching against the unfamiliar sensation of water this cold, but then his hands find Eddie’s shoulders and he wraps around him, playfully drowning again, as wild boys are wont to do.

Eddie’s nose bumps against Steve’s own, his hair is a fucking riot and Steve tangles his fingers in it. Cold and wet, he wants to own it, live in it, fucking chew it.

‘I love your hair.’

‘I love yours,’ Eddie pants, getting the upper hand. His skin glistens as droplets roll, as the waves add new ones. Beneath Steve’s knees, he feels sandy rocks, seaweed and unknown things. He doesn’t mind, likes being a sea monster with Eddie. ‘It’s so long now.’

‘Think I should—ahh, fucker!’ Steve giggles as Eddie gets hold of his wrists, holding them pressed between their chests. ‘Think I should get it cut?’

Eddie catches his breath, smiling as he shakes his head. His dimples are so fucking cute. Steve has wound up in Eddie’s lap. They kneel in the rocky shallows as cold, wild waters wash around their waists and this close, Steve can count his eyelashes. He can see each little bead of salt water that clings to them. The dark brown shade he loves most in the world.

And it’s not the first time he’s gotten hard from this kind of game. Proximity and friction and an abundance of love, it’s natural, he knows, but here in the water, with Eddie holding him this way, it feels, for the first time, like something else.

They are pressed against one another in a way that’s new. The angle, the way Steve is sat in his lap, the freedom of swimming trunks, it brings them together in this new way and when the waves knock into them, the movement causes friction.

Steve isn’t quick enough to stop the little moan that escapes his lips. Eddie’s grip is always careful, his strength measured, but it tightens around Steve’s wrists then too, perhaps the cost of hiding his own reaction.

‘Fuck,’ Steve utters breathlessly, still staring into Eddie’s eyes because where else would he look? His is the face he seeks out above all in any room, Steve would know the shape of him blind, the smell of his skin anywhere. ‘Sorry.’

Eddie’s smile seems far away, seems slightly dazed and his voice… it’s rough and low, a rumble from the base of his chest that Steve can feel, because there’s barely any space between them. ‘For what?’

Steve swallows. His hair is in his eyes, salt on his lips, heart in his throat.

They both know what for, Steve is certain. There’s no way to not feel it, twin sources of heat in icy, unforgiving waters, hardness to hardness.

But maybe Eddie means he doesn’t have to be sorry, maybe that’s what he’s saying.

Steve’s eyes flick down to Eddie’s lips, wanting to know how they taste. He wants too much in the moment, is gripped by inertia in the wake of how much he wants to give Eddie Munson, wants from him.

Just do it, kiss him, let him kiss you, please.

A wave comes out of nowhere and knocks them over.

*

‘This is the ugliest pizza I have ever seen.’

‘Bthithtathesthogoo!’

‘Oh my god, you animal Harrington! Chew your food!’ Eddie flings a napkin at Steve who catches it and throws it back, unrepentantly stuffing another slice of what could generously be called home made pizza into his already full mouth, but really it’s just melted cheese, barely cooked dough, warm sauce and floppy mushrooms.

They sit by the fireplace in the beach house, on a little rug, sharing one huge plate of messy goodness. Steve thinks this might be the best feeling in the world. His skin has dried salt on it where they didn’t shower the ocean off, his hair is thick with it, but he feels clean.

He feels clean of Hawkins for the first time.

‘OK, whuh,’ he swallows a huge chunk and frees his mouth enough to speak. ‘Sorry, what’s something you miss from your childhood?’

Eddie is laid back on his elbows, occasionally twisting off a little piece of cheesy bread without mushrooms on it. He sips a beer that he opened with a knife, impressively rogue, and thinks. Steve loves the way his hair falls back as he considers.

‘Running,’ he says after a beat. ‘You remember just running for no God damned reason at all? I miss that.’

Steve grins. ‘Grown-ups still do that. They run, jog, power walk, it’s a whole thing.’

‘Not the way we did as kids. Not just because. Running because…’ Eddie sits up, his eyes bright and brimming with a little of that chaos he channels into DnD. ‘You want to see if you could run faster than the monster you’re imagining. Running because you were stuck in school all day and you’re full of energy. Running over grass barefoot, yelling to the sky. Running and then tripping over, falling hard and grazing your knee because,’ he shrugs. ‘You were just a dumb kid who needed to run. Grown-ups run, but they suck all the fun out of it. They make it acceptable. So yeah, I miss running.’ He hands Steve the beer, everything shared like always, but he doesn’t ask what Steve misses, he already knows. They’ve talked about this before.

‘I like running,’ Steve says, washing down his pizza with the beer. ‘I’ll run with you.’

‘Not in a boring grown-up way though, right?’

A wide, mischievous grin spreads across Steve’s face and he crawls over Eddie, palms braced on either side of his middle. ‘How about you chase me?’

Oh god.

It’s instant, the way Eddie’s gaze darkens with some unknown weight brought about by Steve’s suggestion. Steve feels it in his bones, how much Eddie wants that. Wants to give Steve a head start, let him run and then chase him, hunt him down, catch him.

‘Think you could?’ Steve nudges, bumping their noses, just to tease. ‘Catch me?’

The firelight throws long shadows that slide up and down as Eddie swallows heavily, lips parting to permit a controlled exhale. His eyes flutter only slightly and he’s not moving, he’s just lounging there while Steve hovers above him, space between them like a dare.

Eddie says, ‘There’s nowhere you could run that I wouldn’t catch you.’

A shudder runs down Steve’s spine, warmth pooling in his middle, blood racing. He pines for that, wants Eddie to chase him, to feel his strong arms wrap victoriously around him and lift him from his destination, claiming him easily, fuck.

Throw him down in the dirt and leaves, hold him there and whisper did you really think I wouldn’t find you, baby?

He’s ready for it, he knows he is.

Steve Harrington is just aching for Eddie Munson to lean up a single inch and press his lips on his, to make that first real kiss. He’s ready for it, but…

But it doesn’t happen. Eddie just stares, Steve stares. They share breath and they don’t touch, don’t kiss.

What does happen, is that Eddie swiftly knocks Steve over, reverses their positions easily, playfully. Steve yelps, slightly winded. Eddie pins him, though he doesn’t straddle.

‘Gotcha, Harrington.’

 He presses a rough kiss to Steve’s hair and then clambers up to his feet, headed for the kitchen.

‘You want ice cream? Stupid question.’

Steve doesn’t follow, he lays by the fire, right where Eddie left him and stares at the ceiling. While Eddie puts two spoons in a tub of ice cream, Steve waits for his heart to slow, for the world to right itself enough to carry on.

‘Yeah, stupid question, Munson.’

*

It’s the blood that finally does it.

Sometime after midnight, nine beers between them, ice cream tub empty, they explore the little beach house together like they’re kids creeping around, trying not to wake the grown-ups. Steve is, to his thinking, tipsy. He’s happy and relaxed, a light buzz in his blood, but not drunk. Not like when he took Will out, a memory that still stings with shame.

Eddie doesn’t drink that much, not really, but Steve can tell he’s a little more relaxed than usual and so they explore.

The place is small and mysterious. Each room is like a treasure trove of worthless junk that Steve is just fascinated by. He plays with the shells and the rough edged sea glass in a netted jar. They don’t turn the lights on, just use candles. It’s more fun that way.

There are two bedrooms, one that’s clearly for guests with a small comfy single bed overlooking the ocean and one master bedroom with a massive squashy mattress and a beat up old headboard that Eddie takes one look at and shakes his head wryly, says nothing.

They paw through the bedside drawers, shamelessly nosy and Steve cackles wildly when Eddie declares a pair of pink, fluffy handcuffs, that they find two drawers down, to be flimsy.

‘Flimsy? You don’t even know, you haven’t even—I mean, how can you tell?’

Eddie grins, says, ‘Hold out your hands.’

Steve laughs to try and cover how red his cheeks burn, how his blood runs molten, searing every nerve ending. He does what Eddie says, though. Offers both hands, wrists facing up.

‘Take me in, Sir,’ he says, voice soft and submissive. He does not miss the way Eddie’s throat works as he clicks the cuffs all the way around and then locks them into place one at a time. Eddie puts his own finger between the cuffs and Steve’s wrist, guaranteeing a certain degree of comfort. ‘I’ve been bad.’

Dark brown eyes snap up to meet Steve’s own. It’s an intense stare, a thing that grips and traps Steve more than the metal around his wrists. Steve doesn’t know if he’s assessing him, if he’s checking to see if Steve is only fucking around or if Eddie is restraining himself from… well, Steve doesn’t know.

‘Try them,’ Eddie says, recovering enough to move away. They are cross legged on an old, ratty bedspread and Steve is handcuffed. He chuckles and tries to prise his wrists apart. The metal holds.

‘They don’t seem flimsy,’ he declares, cocking a brow, teasing Eddie. ‘Maybe you don’t know as much as you—’

It happens fast. Steve is crowing loudly one minute and the next, Eddie grips the inner parts of the cuffs and then…

Then he yanks them apart.

It’s swift, brutal, knowing. He breaks the metal link in the centre on his very first try. Just snaps them.

Steve’s words die in his throat, his jaw goes lax. His hands are free to move, though still encased in ridiculous pink fur and apparently flimsy metal. He stares down, blinks rapidly and then looks up at Eddie who is… oh, the fucker, he’s so smug. Tongue in cheek, he shrugs lightly and grins.

Steve’s heart is thudding heavily against his rib bones, desire thickening in a weird way. He doesn’t think he’s ever been quite so turned on before, not from a single move.

‘That was so hot,’ he says before he can stop himself. It comes out hoarse and honest, raw and nasal as most honesty sounds in the moment. ‘Fuck.’

Eddie fishes the key from the drawer and frees Steve from them entirely. ‘Told you.’

Steve is painfully hard in his shorts. The same shorts he wore in the cold, salty sea earlier. It’s dark in the room, candles nearby, but he knows it’s not exactly discreet either.

‘You ever try things like that?’ Eddie asked, deceptively casual. Steve wonders if he’s going to replace the cuffs before they leave.

‘Handcuffs and shit?’

Eddie snorts. ‘And shit, yeah.’

A brief moment where he licks his lips, feels younger than he really is and then Steve shrugs, says, ‘Girls were never really into it, so I didn’t get to try it.’

The way Eddie slides his gaze back to Steve, oh it’s a dense, heavy thing. It feels like a hand on the back of his neck, like Eddie’s holding his face and saying look at me, baby, eyes on me and answer the question.

He nods, giving Steve’s attempt to delay the customary amount of respect before he cocks his head and says what they’ve never once said before. ‘And boys?’

It’s one of very few things they don’t discuss. No rules, no boundary, it’s simply never come up. No one has ever asked Steve Harrington this question, not even Steve.

But now it’s come due, now those two words have been spoken, it’s like a little light switch goes off in his head. He feels stupid for never really thinking about it before, about the prospect of boys or men, when it’s only ever been this one person, this one man who just snapped a pair of handcuffs to prove a point.

This man he’s completely fucking gone for.

‘Never had the chance,’ Steve says, is actually quite proud of that response. One of his best, for sure.

‘You ever wish you did?’

They’re veering dangerously close to new places, to unknown lands that Eddie has traversed and Steve has not. His experience with sex is plentiful, but it’s all very samey. It’s vanilla. Normal.

Boring.

Entirely straight.

Steve’s voice wavers a tiny bit. ‘Yeah, yeah maybe.’

‘Well then,’ Eddie utters and he too sounds a bit fucked up around the edges, certainly not unaffected. ‘Maybe I’ll get you some good ones.’

‘Ones you can’t break?’

‘Ones that don’t break, no matter how much you pull on ‘em. Those are the good ones.’

‘You like that,’ Steve ventures bravely. He knows as much already; Eddie has spoken of past lovers before and what little he’s shared of his proclivities with his best friend, said best friend has stored away like tiny puzzle pieces, slotting them together. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Eddie answers, no hint of shame. He’s comfortable talking about these things.

‘Why?’

‘Why? Hmm, OK.’ He looks around the small, dark bedroom, sounds of the ocean radiant and continuous outside the open window. ‘It’s just how I express what I feel, it’s my… dynamic, yeah. That’s the word.’

‘Like what?’

‘You want an example?’

Steve really, really fucking wants an example.

But his cock is now being an absolute traitor to the cause, steadily bleeding precome from the throbbing tip, no doubt making a very obvious wet patch. There’s always the outside chance that Eddie just talking about this shit could actually make him come in his pants like a horny twelve year old.

So Steve rallies, claps his thighs (hard) and says, ‘Yeah, but tell me while we go get another beer.’

They trail downstairs into the kitchen, leaning on opposite sides, counter-top behind them. Eddie opens two beers with a knife again, clever trick that makes Steve want to swallow. He takes the beer, lukewarm to the touch, but he doesn’t care.

Steve feels more confident with space between them, a whole kitchen almost. ‘So, c’mon. Example.’

Eddie sips. ‘Well, handcuffs obviously.’

‘Yeah, but, like why? What is it? What does that do, how does that feel for you?’

It’s an intimate question that Eddie would probably be well within his rights to not answer, to make a joke and swerve elsewhere, but he doesn’t do that. Steve never thought for a second that he would. Three thick candles sit on the side. The mess from the pizza is everywhere; grated cheese, mozzarella in thick, juicy slices, the knives they used to chop and red sauce smeared all over.

‘I like it,’ Eddie tells Steve. ‘Because I like the control. I like being in control. In bringing release born of extremes.’

‘Extremes like what?’ God, he sounds like one of the kids.

‘Like restraints, but also pain.’

Steve’s mouth has gone extremely dry despite the beer.

‘Pain?’

‘Yeah, absolutely.’

‘Some people like pain during sex?’

Eddie knows.

He just knows, Steve can tell, but he’s a good friend (the fucking greatest) so he doesn’t give Steve a wry look, he doesn’t even quirk his brow, he just answers.

‘Some people do, yeah.’

‘You enjoy it.’

‘I like administering the pain in a controlled way, breaking down defences to bring about the most raw form of pleasure.’

‘And that turns you on?’

No hiding the smile that time. ‘It’s part of it, yeah.’

Steve rolls his bottle between his hands, stares at the floor.

‘I’ve never tried anything like that.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘Maybe I’d like to, though.’ He pushes the words out, makes them real. ‘The uh, r-receiving—y’know, the one who gets their hair pulled or-or whatever, literally whatever.’

God, smooth, Harrington.

Eddie puts his bottle on the counter-top. ‘Just make sure it’s with someone you trust.’

Someone. Like there is anyone else in the world.

‘Yeah.’

‘You want another?’

‘Sure.’

For all the knickknacks and treasures in this place, there’s no bottle opener, so Eddie once again uses the flat side of a big knife and the downward force of his hand to pop the lid free. Steve watches him do it, thinking of when he’d snapped the cuffs.

But the second time Eddie does it, the bottle skids sideways. Eddie hisses and the knife clatters to the floor.

‘Fuck, ow!’

‘You OK?’ Steve hurries over, all concern which then triples when he sees a splash of bright red across Eddie’s palm. ‘Oh shit, you’re hurt! Christ, that’s—stay there, I’ll get paper towels!’

‘Nah, it’s OK,’ Eddie says calmly, lifting his bleeding hand high over his head while Steve ignores him, yanks a whole-ass reel of paper towels and bunches them up. ‘Steve,’ he says, running the cold tap. ‘It’s fine.’

But Steve’s chest is compressing, heart twisting in dread recognition of that red. He remembers it too well, he remembers how Eddie’s blood had dried on his hands and wrists. He’d lost so much.

He doesn’t even realise he’s pulled the whole reel clean off the holder until his arms are literally full of the stuff.

Eddie runs his hand under the cold tap and with his free hand, he reaches for Steve.

‘C’mere,’ he calls out softly. ‘Come see.’

Eyes stinging, Steve goes to the sink, holding a massive pillow of paper towels against his chest. Feels like he’s holding his insides in, plugging a hole in his chest with pulp.

Eddie’s red runs down the sink, revealing a sly, paper thin cut across the flesh of his palm.

‘It’s nothing.’

Steve stares hard. ‘It’s not nothing.’

Your blood isn’t nothing, that’s what he wants to say.

‘Hey.’ Eddie’s voice is so gentle. ‘You’re shaking.’

‘L-let me see it.’

With effort, Steve sets aside his soft paper mountain and reaches for Eddie’s left hand. It’s wet and cold, dripping down his wrists and maybe he didn’t let it run long enough under the tap, because it starts bleeding again, but only a little this time. Thin rivulets instead of rivers.

‘Does it hurt?’ Steve is cradling his hand, holding it so carefully, strangely fascinated.

‘No. I’m fine. Right here, healthy, alive. Steve?’ The tone brings Steve’s eyes up with a snap. ‘I’m fine.’

Steve knows it’s true, he’s not an idiot, but there was also a time when he wasn’t fine. When that great big wound on Eddie’s lower back threatened to make him not fine forever.

‘Touch it,’ Eddie suggests quietly. ‘Go on.’

Lightly, hesitantly, Steve trails his middle finger over the cut. He gets a little blood on the pad, but it’s not running thick like before.

The spike of adrenaline, the temporary but nonetheless dizzying confusion about when and where they are has brought about a strange disconnect in the moment. Steve feels small, he feels like a child when he looks up at Eddie and says, ‘Can I taste it?’

And this… yeah, this is crossing a line. Steve thinks that with anyone else, anyone else on the planet, they’d give an awkward laugh, call him crazy and then swerve hard back towards safer territory.

Eddie’s eyes move between Steve’s, holding the intensity between them like it’s a bed-sheet tent, like they’re hiding from the world entire, playing house in a make-believe hideaway.

‘Yeah.’

Steve brings his stained finger to his lips, feels tears run down his cheeks. Something grotesquely painful shudders inside of him, a behemoth of grief and impacted trauma, the awful understanding that their vessels are unfairly fragile; blood and skin and bones. Eddie’s blood is so precious, it has to stay inside him, and if it can’t, then it can live inside Steve, he’ll take care of it.

He licks his finger. Salty iron with a distinct metallic smack, like sucking on a dirty penny he found on the ground.

On the back of a small, broken sob, he brings Eddie’s hand to his mouth and kisses it. Gets blood on his lips, brings the split to where he thinks he can heal it with just sheer force of will, kiss it better, keep him safe, keep the red inside where it belongs, in either one of them.

Either, because they’re the same.

And whatever part of Steve lucid enough to worry that he’s kind of standing there in a candle-lit kitchen essentially drinking Eddie Munson’s blood is too far away to have any impact.

It feels warm and nice. It feels like the best kind of intimacy and care and he loves Eddie all the more for letting him.

Eddie is so close when he pulls the hand gently back, away just enough that Eddie can lift his uninjured hand to trace around Steve’s lips.

‘You look like an animal,’ he tells Steve, hoarse and reverent. ‘Wild.’

Steve has never known himself less and more. Authentic desires born of all the broken pieces inside him, he’s so sick of denying, of self-deception.

‘Am I gross?’

Eddie’s fingers slip around his jaw, thread into the hair at the back of his neck. It makes Steve’s eyes flutter, makes him sway.

‘You’re beautiful.’

Steve laughs, can feel that red wetness on his lips, wonders if it looks like lipstick. He wonders if the tears streaming down his face are cutting little tracks through it. He wonders why Eddie loves him at all, he’s such a fucking wreck, but he trusts, he dares to trust that Eddie does.

It’s bubbling up inside him, words forming in his throat, unstoppable truths that he’s hidden deep down ever since he ran from the Creel house that night in the Upside Down.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he tells Eddie like it’s a horrible secret. Eddie nods and brings their foreheads together, holding Steve securely. ‘I-I saw you and it—you weren’t m-moving, you were… I thought…’

‘I’m here. I’ll never not be here. It’s just blood. Blood’s not bad.’

Steve sniffles, tries to pull himself together. He is adrift again, seeking a tether.

‘Will you…?’ He doesn’t finish it, doesn’t know how to ask for this. It’s too much, too weird, even for Eddie. He’ll say no, Steve is almost certain. Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, he takes a shuddering, serrated breath. ‘Sorry.’

‘What do you want?’ Eddie asks like he already knows, but there’s no chance of that because this… not even Eddie Munson will be down for this. ‘Say it for me.’

The soft-spoken command is like a hook, dropped neatly into Steve’s middle, snagging the truth and pulling it from him.

‘Make it even,’ he hears himself say, the best possible way he can phrase it nicely, abstractly.

They’re close enough to kiss, but that’s nothing new. What is new, though, is that Eddie’s free hand grips the back of Steve’s neck and the look… the fucking look of him, Jesus Christ. Steve’s never seen someone look so fucking wrecked all while holding themselves together with such artful control, like it’s second nature.

Eddie rubs their noses together, proximity gifting Steve all the intimate sounds of his throat as he swallows.

‘Say it, baby.’

Steve is helpless but to obey.

‘Cut me, too.’ This time there’s no resistance. Eddie wanted the truth, he can have it. He can have whatever he wants, it’s all for him already. Steve cannot feel any part of his body that isn’t touching Eddie. He can’t conceive of distance or tomorrow. ‘Make it match, s-so we’re the same. Please.’

The darkening of Eddie’s expression runs in vivid contrast to the flash of desire Steve sees in him.

‘You want me to cut your hand?’

‘Just… just to match yours.’ Please don’t make me explain it, please don’t make me justify it. Just do it, give me this, please.

‘I don’t wanna hurt you.’ There’s such conflict in Eddie’s voice that it rumbles and grates.

Steve’s head tips back, eyes falling shut because Eddie’s injured hand is moving up over his collarbone, light press and damp drag of blood against skin.

‘Yeah, you do.’

‘You drive me fucking crazy, that’s what, Steve. You fuck me up.’

Steve feels like he might pass out, like he might actually leave his body. Eddie’s split palm presses ever so lightly against the apple in his throat, fingers settling as if to wrap, but not quite. Treating him like fine china, like he might shatter at the first sign of pressure.

‘Want the scar,’ Steve pants shallow and breathy. ‘Wanna see it like the—like the tattoo, please, Eddie.’

It’s utter fucking madness. Steve can feel Eddie’s lips trailing lightly up over the side of his neck, he feels his nose where it brushes against his skin, his warm breath ghosting over all the places where he’s coldest, making him shiver.

Eddie’s voice is barely there when he confesses, ‘I’d die before I hurt you.’

Steve remembers him saying that before. Door between them, a wall of distance, wilful misunderstandings and second-hand fears making a mess of their relationship.

There is no door now. Nothing but awful, aching honesty.

Steve rights himself, takes hold of Eddie’s face with his hands. He’s breathless, centred, terrified.

‘You can’t hurt me,’ he tells him with bone deep certainty. ‘Because you love me.’

Eddie wants to argue that logic, Steve can tell. He wants to say, actually, quite the opposite, Harrington, wants to confront him with a few harsh truths, but he just slams his eyes shut instead.

‘I do love you.’

They’re nose to nose. ‘How much?’

Eddie opens his eyes, looks at Steve like he’s loved him for far too long, like it’s been a thousand years of learning to carry this weight, but he’ll never set it down.

‘You know how much.’

Steve wants them to crash, he wants to collide, but they don’t. He thinks maybe they’re not made to collide the first time. Like Eddie won’t cut him, maybe he won’t kiss him either, especially not if it could hurt.

So he whispers, ‘Cut me or kiss me.’

And then, then everything changes for real.

*