Work Text:
sunflower in the evening
standing in the garden
taking up that space
- vampire weekend, steve lacy
Look – Eddie always knew that Steve was a sweet-talker.
He’d spent years watching Steve get himself into all kinds of shit – encounters with teachers and coaches and hall monitors and librarians and the secretary and so on and so forth – just to get himself out of said shit like it’d never even happened.
It drove Eddie sort of insane, actually, because if he tried pulling any of that stuff, he’d be totally screwed. Not Steve though. All Steve had to do was flash a sheepish grin and run a hand through his hair once or twice and say, all baleful, “I really didn’t mean any trouble,” and he’s home free.
And then Eddie and Steve started hooking up.
Yeah, that’s right.
Eddie is hooking up – regularly – with Steve Harrington, and now? God, it’s even worse because it’s like he unlocked a whole new level of sweet-talking from Steve.
Like when Steve had said, “I know your number, don’t worry”.
And the time he’d told Eddie, “I bet you could make paint drying the most interesting thing in the world if you wanted.”
And when he’d looked at him all sweet and said, “God, you’re too pretty for your own good, Munson.”
It’s like Steve figured out how that kind of flattery renders Eddie totally speechless and now he’s making it happen again and again and again purely for his own amusement.
The worst of it, Eddie’s pretty sure, was the time they were at his place, in his bed. Eddie had been on his back, dick out, arms bent above him pillowing his head, and with Steve between his legs. Steve’s arms were hooked under Eddie’s thighs so he could grasp at his waist, and then his eyes had fallen on the bat tattoos at Eddie’s collarbone.
“Tell me about that one?” he asked, and he was sweet-as-pie about it, so how could Eddie refuse?
Then Steve, the bastard that he is, waited for Eddie to start retelling the tattoo’s origin story to start sucking him off, and when Eddie’s story was done – which was not an easy feat considering the circumstances – Steve would pull off of him, choose another tattoo to run soft fingertips over and ask him all sweet and nice, “This one?”
Goddamn torment, it was.
Tonight, they didn’t even make it to Steve’s place before Eddie was throwing in the towel. Frankly, he doesn’t remember what exactly Steve had been saying, the very definition of sweet nothings, but Eddie was totally ruined either way
Steve had parked the Beemer a few hundred yards down a maintenance road, and now they’re in the back seat, both of them a little too tall for what the span of the car affords so Eddie’s got one foot planted on the floor of the car, his other leg bent up against the seat, and Steve has long since made a home for himself in the cradle of Eddie’s hips, and Eddie can feel against his belly how hard Steve is, and Eddie’s also dying over here, thanks. It’s pretty damn evident that they could move onto the main show if they wanted to, but noo, Steve seems totally fine just languidly making out ‘til the cows come home.
After a few moments of nibbling at the lobe of Eddie’s ear, Steve raises his head, his eyes darting between Eddie’s in the near darkness.
“Your eyes are crazy, dude,” Steve says with this cheeky grin on his face like he knows exactly what he’s saying, “They’re all cute and big and brown. I dunno how people get shit done around you.”
And Eddie is totally dumbfounded, because why did he say that – why did he say that?? – so he only manages, “Right back at you, man,” before Steve is kissing him again.
Eddie knows they’re just fooling around – he gets it, he really does – but he also spent ages observing Steve’s past relationship with Nancy (because a pathetic gay can dream, goddammit), and he’d seen how touchy Steve gets when he’s dating someone, how sweet and caring and clingy, and Eddie’s trying not to over-analyze here, but sometimes fooling-around-Steve seems an awful lot like boyfriend-Steve (minus the whole PDA part, obviously).
But maybe he’s just projecting.
Honestly, Eddie is mostly just waiting for the other shoe to drop – as in, Steve finding an actual girlfriend to actually date instead of whatever the hell they’d call their current situation because he’s pretty damn certain that if Eddie was a girl, they’d’ve been going steady for ages already. Eddie isn’t a girl though, and they’re not going steady, but he’ll take what he can get while it’s willfully given.
And for the record, it’s definitely willfully given on Steve’s part.
Steve is kissing a wet path down Eddie’s neck, pausing to nibble at his skin every now and then. Eddie grabs low on Steve’s waist, hand curving around the hinge of his thigh and when he tightens his grip a little, a puff of air hits Eddie’s neck as Steve lets out a quiet moan.
Then, just as Steve is starting to fiddle with the fly on Eddie’s jeans, a police siren gives one short whine from somewhere close behind them, and Eddie’s eyes fly open to see red and blue lights bouncing off the surrounding trees.
“Fuck,” he curses, peering out the rear window to see a cop car pulling up behind the Beemer.
Eddie and Steve are still scrambling away from each other when something solid bangs three times in quick succession against the hood of the car.
“Hey, morons!” someone yells from outside the car, and Eddie immediately recognizes the voice as Chief Hopper’s, “Outta the car – now.”
“Ah, shit,” Steve mutters, immediately straightening the collar of his shirt and running his fingers through his hair. Eddie does the same, because he’s pretty sure they could pass this off as a drug deal if they go about it right – seriously, in this town he’d much rather be caught dealing drugs than what they were actually doing, and it’s not like every cops in Hawkins doesn’t know Eddie’s one of the town’s main supplier anyways.
He’s not all that worried, believe it or not. The perks of hanging around Steve come in multitudes, and Eddie’s got a pretty good amount of faith in Steve’s ability to spin up some story to keep them out of any real trouble. As they sheepishly climb out of the car, Eddie prepares himself for a whole show of, “Yes Chief, sorry Chief, it won’t happen again Chief.”
So imagine Eddie's complete and utter surprise when Hopper barks, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” and Steve only rolls his eyes and says, “What’s it to you?”
Eddie feels his jaw drop.
“Steve,” Eddie mutters through gritted teeth. He tries to elbow Steve into shutting the hell up, but he misses because Steve has already taken several steps forward to meet Hopper, his face turned up in a kind of defiance Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever seen before – not on Steve, anyway.
“What’s it to me?” Hopper repeats, glowering at Steve, “It’s midnight. I’m on patrol. You’ve got one of the most recognizable cars in this entire damn town parked in a restricted-access zone with this idiot–” Hopper jabs a finger in Eddie’s direction (Eddie didn’t think the pointing or the idiot were necessary, but clearly, clearly, he the one missing something here), “–who’s been dragged into my station more times than I can count.”
“The town line, Hop, is over there,” Steve says, pointing at an indiscriminate spot over Hop’s shoulder that may or may not be part of the Hawkins town line, “We’re not in Hawkins anymore. You’re totally out of your jurisdiction.”
“You wanna know something about jurisdiction, smart-ass?” Hopper asks, “If my report says shit happened in my jurisdiction, it happened in my jurisdiction.”
“Wow,” Steve deadpans, “Way to not sound totally corrupt. Nice work, Chief.”
Hopper doesn’t have anything to say to that apparently, though he does give a fairly impressive resigned sigh, his eyes darting across the otherwise empty woods as he shifts his weight from one side to the other.
“What’s my one rule?” Hopper says when he looks back at Steve, his tone serious in a way Eddie isn’t sure matches the gravity of the situation, especially since he’s pretty sure Hopper doesn’t know what exactly they’d been doing when he walked up on the Beemer.
Steve doesn’t respond to that one, but he juts his chin up even more, still looking the chief dead in the eye with a look of obstinance on his face.
“Steve,” Hopper says tiredly, “I’ll ask again – what’s my one rule.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Steve finally spits out, and Eddie can admit that he has no damn clue what the hell is going on here. Hopper wasn’t lying when he said that Eddie has ended up in the police station for one reason or another more than a handful of times, and the only rules Hopper has ever brought up have been more like federal and state legislation than anything else.
“Don’t be stupid,” Hopper affirms, his tone unchanged, “This, Steve,” he continues, gesturing vaguely around them…for some reason, “is beyond stupid.”
“Everything is fine,” Steve argues, “There’s nothing out here. There’s not gonna be anything out here. You need to re- lax.”
It looks like Hopper’s about to say more, but then his eyes shift over to Eddie for a split second, and he seems to change his mind.
He rolls his shoulders back, tips his head to the sky for a moment, and then stalks back to his car.
“If you’re not home by one there’s gonna be hell to pay. You hear me, Harrington?” Hopper bellows as he climbs into the driver’s seat, “One AM. Hell to pay.”
“Oh, sure,” Steve rolls his eyes, “Totally hear you. One AM. Loud and clear or whatever.”
Hopper’s jaw twitches for a second, and he’s clearly debating if he wants to keep arguing with Steve who, to Steve’s credit, looks like he’s got debate in him for days. Ultimately though, Hopper decides against it, slamming the door, and starting up the engine.
Steve flips the cruiser both birds as it peels away, which Hopper only flashes his high beams at a couple times before he’s gone, kicking up dirt and mulch and leaves behind him in his wake, and Steve is wearing an exasperated expression as he turns to face Eddie again.
“God, he’s so annoying. Let’s just go to mine.”
Eddie gapes at him.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Huh?”
“What the fuck was that?” Eddie repeats, gesturing wildly towards where Hopper’s car had just been.
“Wha– you mean with Hop?”
“Uh, yeah?!?”
Steve just brushes him off, “Whatever, just ignore him. He’s basically my dad.”
“What?”
“I dunno, man,” he shrugged, making his way back to the driver’s side of his own car like nothing out of the ordinary had even happened, “He found out, like, a year ago at this point that my parents are, like, never home, and he’s got a weird complex about abandoned kids, I think, so it was either go with him to his place or keep listening to him rant about how he’d call CPS if my asshole-dad wouldn’t just keep paying off lawyers to stall shit until I turned eighteen.”
Eddie found himself in a rare moment of speechlessness as he turned Steve’s words over and over in his head.
“So when he said be home by one…”
“He just means be home before he gets off patrol, which is technically at two.”
Apparently, speechlessness is becoming a natural state for Eddie when he’s around Steve, because here he is: totally speechless. It’s such a goddamn absurd situation, he can barely believe it. Here he is in Hawkins, Indiana, getting caught by the Chief of Police seconds before hooking up with a guy – which, for the record, has only been not a crime for, like, six years or something – and the thing he’s getting up in arms about is basically completely unrelated.
“What the fuck, Steve!” Eddie exclaims, pacing back and forth in the dirt and leaves while Steve watches with amusement over the roof of the car, “You’re telling me I’m hooking up with the cop’s son? Jesus Christ. The only way this could be more of a cliche is if you were the pastor’s daughter.”
Steve made a face.
“Gross. C’mon – let’s go back to mine. You heard Hop – we’ve got, like, an hour before he sends out a fuckin’ search party.”
Eddie pauses.
“And by that you mean…your cop-not-dad’s house?”
“No way, dude. It’s tiny, and my sister is always there watching her dumb soap operas.”
“Your sister?”
“Eh, it’s a long story. Seriously – do you still want to fuck, or have I, like, totally broken your brain?”
Turns out the second option was the winner, not because Eddie didn’t want to, but because Steve had managed to blow his mind in a completely different way, and one way or the other, he was totally out of commission.
They do go back to Steve’s house – the Harrington house, the near-mansion in Loch Nora. It ends up being the first time Eddie and Steve just hang out – no screwing, no weed, just…talking.
Eddie likes talking to Steve, believe it or not. He’s a decent conversationalist or whatever – stays quiet when he needs to, asks good questions, and he never seems phased at all by any of the shit Eddie goes on about, even if he’s rambling about his plans for a new D&D campaign or talking about Tolkein. Steve’s got his own stories too. He talks about things going on in the background of his life, and Eddie is trying to listen because clearly Steve’s got a whole vault’s worth of backstory for Eddie to unlock.
After that night, Eddie spends a fairly sizable amount of time trying to figure out how exactly Hopper had pseudo-adopted Steve because, seriously, the guy never let on for a second that their town’s Chief of Police is “basically his dad”.
Eddie thinks he knows around when it happened too – back in early November when Steve showed up at school the weekend after Halloween, his face beat to shit in a way Eddie had only seen in movies. Seriously – he didn’t think that actually happened to people, and Harrington had clearly not been okay afterwards, but at the time Eddie had just figured something went down at a party or whatever, and word had spread pretty quick that Nancy dumped him and was seen getting pretty cozy with Jonathan Byers shortly after. Steve and Jonathan had gotten into a fight over Nancy not even a year earlier, so Eddie connected some dots about all of it and assumed the same thing happened this time around.
To this day, Eddie still has no idea why Steve was so beat to shit that week after Halloween, but he knows it had nothing to do with Jonathan, nothing to do with Nancy either.
Still, it’s confirmed that Steve had no girlfriend post-Halloween. He also had no friends – period, and Eddie thinks that might be the actual cause of whatever beating Steve had taken, but again, he’s not totally sure. One thing’s clear, at the very least, and it’s that Steve had a god-awful Halloween weekend, that’s for damn sure.
Steve had started seeking Eddie out not too long after that – a little before Thanksgiving break, he’s pretty sure – and only for weed at first, obviously. His face was totally healed up by then (and just as pretty as ever), but Steve had said he needed help relaxing.
Steve had seemed sort of…haunted, maybe, though Eddie’s not sure if that’s the best word for it, and he’s not sure why on earth that would be, considering they live in Hawkins, Indiana, where literally nothing happens except a kid going missing a few years back, which had been a total fiasco at the time but they’d recovered him fine enough.
The first couple times Steve sought him out, he just bought his weed and left, but after that he started sort of lingering, making conversation out of nothing, and Eddie would be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit intrigued or whatever, so Eddie leaned into it, and light conversation eventually turned into some deeper shit, and eventually Steve admitted that he doesn’t really sleep all that much, and did Eddie just want to drive around for a while?
The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, months and months later, Eddie sort of has the sense that he’s the only one who knows how Hawkins’ Chief of Police has sort of picked up Steve like a stray puppy. Again, Steve doesn’t let on at all – doesn’t bring Hopper up by name or anything like that, but Eddie has started to pick up on things. Like, he’s learned over time that if Steve is telling a story that involves his dad and the story is good – funny or light-hearted or nice or whatever – it’s probably about Hopper, and he never brings up his “sister” (another probably-abandoned kid Chief Hopper adopted at some point in time – and Eddie only knows probably) with anyone except Eddie.
Eddie’s only a bit embarrassed to admit that he swells with pride just a little whenever he thinks about this, because he knows it’s not exactly like Steve had decided to trust him with this weird-ass information – more like Eddie had stumbled upon it – but…still. Steve could easily not bring it up ever again, but he does.
With Eddie, he does.
Eddie also has a feeling Steve likes having Hopper around as a father figure.
It’s not like it wasn’t well-known that Steve’s actual parents, the Harringtons, are basically never around. They’re still in the picture, though not as much as they should be – not that Eddie always saw it that way. Most people think it’s pretty fuckin’ sweet, actually, that Steve’s parents “trust him” enough leave him home alone for such a long time, and Eddie can admit that he was part of that particular camp for a while. Now, Eddie thinks Steve might not actually like having that kind of independence, that he actually wants parents who are around, for better and for worse.
“Why are you never hosting any ragers?” Eddie had once asked (he doesn’t remember how it came up).
“I did once,” Steve said, “Didn’t like it.”
“What, everyone trashed the place?”
“Well, yeah,” he shrugged like it was obvious, “But, y’know, that’s, like, a given. I just…” he paused, “I dunno. I started to feel sorta trapped, I guess. Like, I hit a point where I was done with the party for the night and I just wanted to, like, leave, but I was already at home, and…” he paused again, his eyes fixed on a point off in the distance like he’s replaying memories in his head, “I dunno. I ended up just sitting by the pool playing lifeguard the entire night because I was all freaked out someone was gonna drown…which is…ironic.”
“Ironic why?”
But Steve only shrugged.
“Anyways, the stupid neighbors ratted on me to my dad afterwards and he went ballistic, which…I mean, that’s fair, I guess.”
The conversation had turned into something else after that, not that Eddie remembers what exactly that something else was, and maybe Eddie should be a little more worried about exactly how much space in his brain Steve Harrington is occupying. Eddie even stopped making trips to Indy after a while because, well, it’s getting less and less safe these days to rely on hook-ups with strangers to get his rocks off, and even though there’s precautions to take and all that, why would he bother risking it when Steve is offering himself up right in the safety of their hometown?
They don’t just hook up either. They hang out now – sometimes it leads to sex, which is great, obviously, but sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay too.
Steve has become a real friend to him, believe it or not.
(And it really is kind of unbelievable – in Eddie’s opinion, anyway).
The end of the school year came and went.
Steve graduated.
Eddie didn’t.
It’s whatever.
Eddie didn’t go to the graduation, obviously, and he’d been feeling a whole mess of emotions that day about the whole situation, but somehow, despite it all, he still found himself wondering once or twice if Chief Hopper had attended the graduation for Steve, wondered if Steve’s actual parents had pulled through like they should have this entire time.
Steve isn’t going to college – not now, anyway, not immediately like basically the entire rest of the graduating class. His grades were shit, or so Steve claims, barely enough to graduate and he’s worse at writing compared to everything else so his essay didn’t help at all.
Basically, Steve has no idea what the rest of his life is gonna look like, and neither does Eddie so there’s a kind of camaraderie there.
Steve’s dad – his actual dad – had made Steve get a job at the new mall that opened up on what had previously been a whole bunch of woods (Steve had very patiently listened to Eddie’s many tirades about deforestation and destroying animal habitats and all that environmental shit), so now he’s the newest employee at Scoops Ahoy, with a cartoon-y (and mandatory) sailor uniform to boot.
Steve is mortified, obviously, but Eddie is absolutely not complaining because seeing Steve’s thighs in those stupid shorts is well worth all the trips he’s made to a mall he had sworn he’d be boycotting.
(Plus, if Eddie sticks around the mall long enough, Steve might give him a lift home, which usually leads to its own, more illicit, kind of entertainment).
That’s what’s happening today, anyway, and now Eddie is in the passenger seat of the Beemer, idly wondering whether or not Wayne would be home and where his room currently hits on a scale of presentability while Steve recounts an itemized list of the day’s god-awful customers.
Eddie is fiddling with the radio listening to Steve rant about the fourth-graders who come in and demand free samples of every single goddamn flavor when a series of staticky buzzes sound from somewhere in the back of the car.
Steve reaches behind his seat and suddenly he’s holding –
“Is that a walkie-talkie?” Eddie blurts out, totally perplexed.
Steve just shushes him as he responds with his own series of call signals and then turns to face Eddie again.
“Okay, so, change of plans,” he says, “I have to go home and make sure my sister’s stupid boyfriend doesn’t show up.”
Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Your sister has a boyfriend? I thought she was, like, ten.”
“She’s fourteen, we’re pretty sure.”
Pretty sure? What the fuck does that mean? He can’t ask Steve about it because he’s already barreled onto the next thing.
“Her boyfriend is a total shithead – oh, that reminds me. He’s probably gonna join your D&D club when he starts high school next year and I’m gonna need you to give him all kinds of hell because he totally deserves it. Anyway – Hop hates him, and he’s being a little shit about it, and El is also being kind of a menace too. Hop has this three-inch minimum rule with her door being open when they’re hanging out together and so they’ve basically been driving each other insane all summer. It’s pretty funny – and the whole thing is definitely gonna blow up one of these days, I swear. I just hope I’m there to see it.”
“What does this have to do with you?”
“He’s not allowed to be there when Hop’s not home and he’s on patrol tonight so I have to be there to make sure he doesn’t try to sneak in.”
“And your sister won’t sneak out?”
“Probably not.”
“Why?”
“Long story.”
Eddie slumps down further in his seat, because he knows by now that long story translates to a story Eddie’s never gonna even hear the short version of when Steve’s the one saying it.
“You wanna come hang out for a bit?”
Eddie ignores the little jump in his chest at the notion of Steve actually wanting to invite him to his house because he pretty much immediately remembers who that particular house belongs to, and if the notion of Steve’s actual dad coming home unannounced was frightening…
“At your cop dad’s house?” Eddie clarifies skeptically.
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs.
“And if your cop dad shows up?” Eddie continues, because contrary to popular belief he does have some sense of self-preservation.
“He won’t care,” Steve replies, “I’m telling you – he’ll just be relieved that you aren’t Mike, but if you’re so freaked out about it, you can just climb out the window if he comes back early. I’ve done it enough times at your place – it’s high tide you return the favor.”
Eddie opens his mouth to argue, but then –
“High tide?” he repeats, “Do you mean high time?”
“What the hell is high time?”
Eddie pauses, because he has no idea what high time means, but now that he’s weighing it against high tide – fuck, if he hasn’t got a damn clue anymore which one is right.
“I…have no idea.”
“Okay, so will you come over?” Steve asks again, “C’mon, man, there’s this problem I’m having at work that I wanted to run by you. You’re, like, the smartest guy I know.”
Flattery works on Eddie, as Steve is well aware by now, and Eddie’s reaching a point in this weird situation of theirs where he will be taking any single thing that Steve happens to offer him, so Eddie finds himself obliging, and then they’re on their way into the woods.
Literally.
Into the woods – off the road and into the trees and up a barely discernible path that surely leads to nowhere.
It doesn’t though. It leads to a small, run-down cabin with lights on in about half the windows. As Steve leads him up to the porch (he has to point out tripwire multiple times), it occurs to Eddie that he’s about to meet Steve’s “sister”.
Sure enough, the second Steve gets the front door open, his eyes fall on a young girl sitting on a weathered couch, her eyes following a soap opera on an ancient TV set. She’s definitely not ten, more like fourteen, just like Steve said, and she’s wearing a very old t-shirt – older than she is, by the looks of it – and her brown hair brushes just past her shoulders.
“You’re late,” she says steadily, eyes not leaving the TV.
“Am not,” Steve immediately replies.
Eddie’s foot hits a creaky part of the floor, and Steve’s sister looks his way, her face vaguely expressionless in a way that makes Eddie feel like he’s being X-ray-ed.
“Eddie, this is Jane,” Steve says drily, “Jane – Eddie. We’re just gonna be hanging out in my room.”
“He’s not allowed to be here,” Jane tells Steve, (though she’s still looking at Eddie).
“Not true,” Steve replies, “Friends can come over. You just don’t have any.”
Jane’s eyebrows furrow as her eyes finally leave Eddie and lock onto Steve.
“I have friends,” she insists.
“Uh, who?”
“Mike,” she replies.
“Doesn’t count,” Steve immediately fires back.
“Does too,” she argues.
“No way,” he shakes his head, “He stopped counting as a friend the second he became your boyfriend. Case in point – he’s not allowed to come here if Hop’s not here.”
Jane scowls at him.
“Dustin.”
“Summer camp,” Steve replies, and then he turns to Eddie, “That’s another one I’m gonna need you to give all kinds of shit when he joins your club.”
“Lucas,” Jane tries.
“Hey, I’ll give you that one. Why don’t you see if he wants to come over?”
Jane turns her back on Steve as she sits further into the couch cushions.
Steve groans. “Oh c’mon, El. Is this because of Max? I don't know what your deal is with Max. El – we talked about this. She’s actually super awesome and you’d see it too if you just gave her a chance.”
But, for whatever reason, Jane – or El, apparently – is resolutely facing the opposite direction now, her eyes glued to the TV again.
“Whatever,” Steve rolls his eyes. He turns and heads for one of the two doors behind them, and Eddie has a choice to make – A) follow him, or B) stay and see what else the mysterious sister – or Jane-slash-El, as he now knows – has to say. He’s unlocking new lore either way, but Option A lends itself to the potential for all kinds of illicit activity with Steve, so it’s the option Eddie will be taking, thanks.
He turns to follow close on Steve’s heels as Steve pushes the door open, and all of a sudden Eddie understands why Steve’s bedroom at the Harrington’s house looks the way it does.
– As in empty, barren, a plaid-walled wasteland with a matching coverlet that clearly wasn’t chosen by Steve himself.
The first time Eddie stepped foot in Steve’s bedroom was a few months before their encounter with Hopper – not their first ever hook-up, but one-of probably – and Eddie had needed to fight the urge to roast the ever-loving shit out of him for goddamn sad it was.
The dresser top and nightstand were bare, no books, no baseball cards, no mug repurposed as a pen cup. There were no photos or posters or anything on the walls aside from a framed photo of a car that had to be at least ten years old. The closet (because, sure, Eddie snooped in Steve’s closet) wasn’t empty but it certainly wasn’t full.
Eddie totally gets that not everyone will jive with the state of disarray he chooses to live in, but Christ even the neatest home has at least some signs of life.
Steve’s room…not so much.
Eddie had decided against making fun of him at the time, because, seriously, he’s hooking up with Steve Harrington. Why the fuck would he look a gift horse in the mouth like that?
Then they’d had their run-in with Chief Hopper, and everything Eddie thought about Steve Harrington toppled over, and as it was rebuilding itself Eddie found himself asking questions, wondering if maybe that house wasn’t his home, and that room wasn’t really even his room anymore.
Walking into this one, this small room off the living room in a tiny, nondescript cabin in the middle of the woods, Eddie immediately knows he was right.
The room is Steve’s.
The dresser is covered in all kinds of clutter – a baseball and glove, a deck of cards, loose change, some matchbox cars, a few one-off magazines, a can of hairspray, a Walkman and a headset, cord tangled despite being plugged in. There’s a shelf on the wall with all kinds of trophies lined up, a Hawkins Community Pool Lifeguard lanyard slung over the doorknob, a yellow and blue and green and brown braided rug on the floor filling the empty space of floor between his bed and the dresser. A light army green quilt is on the bed and he’s got a couple posters on the walls – for bands Eddie would normally scoff at, but fuck is it nice to see a space that so unabashedly screams Steve.
There’s even a pile of X-Men comics stacked somewhat unceremoniously on a stool pushed into the corner of the room.
“Hey, I didn’t know you liked the X-Men,” Eddie comments, gesturing at the comics.
“Eh, not really,” Steve shrugs as he kicks off his sneakers, “Dustin’s making me safeguard this shit while he’s at his sleepaway camp. He thinks his friends are gonna, like, sneak into his house and steal it.”
“Would they?”
“I didn’t think so at first but Will’s been asking some suspicious questions, so maybe.”
Steve graciously lets Eddie look around his room for a little while, lounging on the bed with a Sports Illustrated. When Eddie is tired of snooping, he picks one of the X-Men comics and splays out on his back flicking through it while Steve starts lamenting to him about his aforementioned work problem.
Apparently Steve’s coworker, Robin, “doesn’t like him”, and Steve is trying to get to the bottom of how that could possibly be.
His new theory – she’s gay (and Eddie knows Robin – kind of – so he knows that Steve’s probably on the right track, not that he’ll be giving him the satisfaction of telling him that, obviously). Eddie can’t decide if it’s worth mentioning that he knows Robin because they run in some overlapping circles, so to speak, and those circles tend to be targets of other circles, circles that Steve happened to proudly run in until his fall from grace. It’s not like anyone could blame her if she was still harboring some old grudges.
“So you think it wouldn’t be cool to just, like, come out and ask her about it, then?” Steve asks.
“Depends on what you mean by come out.”
Steve stares blankly at him for a moment before recognition dawns on his face.
“Oh. Shit – yeah, I mean…if you think it’d work, I guess. Or would it be too, like, force-y? Like, would she feel obligated to tell me one way or the other just because I told her first.”
Eddie feels his eyebrows fly up, because for whatever reason, he’d really pegged Steve as the type of guy who saw what they were doing as straight out of, like, internalized homophobia, or whatever.
“Wait, so you’re actually, like–”
“A queer?” Steve finishes, “I mean, yeah, right? It’d be pretty weird to say that I wasn’t at this point ‘cause I’m still into girls or whatever, but I’m also clearly, like, super into the whole dudes thing.” He looked at Eddie curiously, “Aren’t you?”
“Uh…yeah, same,” Eddie manages, and it’s a little hard to get out, actually, because he’s never been asked so freely before, “I mean – not same. I’m not into chicks, like, at all, but, yeah, definitely gay.”
Steve nods, but doesn’t say anything more.
“So…” Eddie says slowly, “Why do you think Robin might be gay?”
“She’s so fuckin’ mean, man,” Steve says, “Like, she’s funny, and clearly crazy smart, but she gives me shit for literally everything, and she does no-ot pull her punches. A girl who was at least a little into dudes wouldn’t be like that.”
“Oh, because anyone who’s into dudes is into you? A little cocky, are we, Harrington?” Eddie grins.
Steve grins even wider, “I dunno, Eddie, you tell me.”
The smile on his face and the way his eyes keep darting to Eddie’s lips tell a pretty overt story of exactly how Steve would like for him to do that, but –
“Your sister’s in the next room, man, I don’t–”
Steve makes a face.
“Obviously we’re not gonna, like, do anything. That’d be so fuckin’ weird, but we can just, like, make out a little, I dunno. That’s just as good to me.”
And Eddie has to fight the urge to gape at Steve like an idiot because what does he mean making out is as good as sex? Eddie had known Steve was a romantic at heart but Christ alive was Eddie not at all prepared for exactly how revealing this night would be.
“C’mon,” Steve continues, “Why’d you even come over then?”
Again, Eddie has to fight the urge to argue that point of his, because why did he agree to come over if he really thought nothing was gonna happen? How can he explain that there’d been a voice in his head urging him to take Steve up on the offer purely for an excuse to spend time – any kind of time – with the guy he’d sworn up and down would only ever be a hook-up.
He can’t, obviously.
“Fine,” Eddie sighs as he lets Steve pull him up onto the bed. He acts all resigned about it too, like he’s doing Steve a favor even though Eddie would be lying through his damn teeth if he tried to say he disagreed with Steve’s whole thing about making out.
On the contrary, he’s learning these days that there’s just as much intimacy in kissing as there is in sex – if not much more. Eddie has had his fair share of hook-ups with a partner who refused to kiss him because it’d be taking things too far. Not Steve though. Steve’s got nothing but enthusiasm as he hauls Eddie up onto the bed, one hand slipping under the hem of his t-shirt, the other curving around the back of his neck as he tugs Eddie forward and collides their lips together. No, he’s nothing but alacrity as he licks into Eddie’s mouth, his hands roaming wherever they can reach, and it’s not like Eddie’s not into it, so he has no trouble matching Steve’s enthusiasm, the kiss turning sloppy and wet, and Eddie grabs low on Steve’s waist, basically the hinge of his thigh, because he knows Steve likes when he does that, and he dislodges the hand Steve has beneath his shirt and pins it above his head because he knows Steve likes that too.
Eddie lets himself get lost in the kiss, in the way Steve’s free hand is tangled up in his hair, and his hips are stuttering up against Eddie’s thigh every now and then, and while Eddie’s not grinding against Steve, per se, they’ve definitely got a rhythm of something going on, and so Eddie really has no idea they’re being interrupted until someone is shouting, “Hey!” and suddenly Eddie is being shoved off of Steve – though not really shoved. It’s more like Steve scrambled up so quickly that the force of it sent Eddie all the way to the foot of the bed.
“What the fuck, Hop!” Steve exclaims, and Eddie’s head whips towards the door to see – yep, that’s Chief fucking Hopper standing in the open doorway, “You can’t–”
“Oh, tell me, Steve Harrington. What can I not do?” Hopper asks, pushing the door open even wider so the knob smacks against the wall, “You think you can just turn eighteen and none of the rules apply to you anymore?”
“What rules?” Steve protests.
“Three goddamn inches,” Hopper answers, still sounding furious even if he isn’t exactly yelling anymore.
Steve groans, “Ugh, that’s such a stupid rule, Hop – god, this is so embarrassing.”
Hopper laughs humorlessly, “Oh, you wanna see embarrassing?” He turns to face Eddie, “You. In my car. Now.”
“Oh god , Hop, please,” Steve protests, “I’ll give him a ride back. Please just let me–”
“Oh, no,” Hopper repeated, his tone deathly serious despite the saccharine smile on his face, “I insist I drive him home.”
Eddie freezes, feels the way he blanches as Hopper stalks away, and Steve is no help at all given how he’s face-down in bed smashing his head into a pillow, the very picture of mortification.
“Let’s go!” Hopper bellowed from…somewhere out of sight – the front stoop, maybe, and then something innate within Eddie had him getting to his feet, and his feet were carrying him out of Steve’s room and through the living room towards the door where Hopper is waiting for him.
Eddie can vaguely hear Steve’s muttered, “You’re dead meat, El,” before the front door closes, and then Eddie is mechanically following the chief down the porch steps towards the police cruiser. Hopper opens the passenger side door for Eddie, but there’s nothing convivial on his face as Eddie clambors in, and he barely waits for Eddie to be in his seat before slamming the door shut behind him.
While Chief Hopper is making his way around to the driver’s side door, Eddie debates running. The car isn’t locked and he isn’t buckled into the seat, so his path to freedom could only be clearer if the door was open, and that’s only one pull of the handle away.
Something though, something in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like SteveSteveSteveSteveSteve has him staying rooted in place.
Anyways, before Eddie can really make up his mind, the driver’s side door is opening and then Hopper is sitting behind the wheel, and the decision was made for him.
“Any idea–” Hopper begins as he starts the car, “–why my children only seem interested in losers?”
Though the question was directed at Eddie, Eddie doesn’t think he knows what the hell Hopper is talking about, and it also seemed like the rhetorical kind of question, so he opts to let it go unanswered, and both of them are silent during their drive through the woods.
Once they hit the open road though, Hopper says, “Seems to me like we’re due for a chat if you’re gonna be dating Steve.”
And Eddie can’t help the manic kind of snort he lets out.
“Dating?” he chokes, “No way, man. I’m not – I mean, Christ, there’s no way I’m dating Steve Harrington. I can assure you.”
“Okay then,” Hopper says slowly, and Eddie is starting to sense that he might have made a mistake somewhere, “What would you prefer I call what I walked in on? If it’s not dating, I mean. Just looking for a full picture of what your intentions are with my son.”
Ah.
There it is.
“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, “I mean – no. Dating sounds great. Love it. Definitely dating. Gonna need a chat with Steve to make sure we’re on the same page ‘bout that, but, yup. Dating are we. For sure.”
Hopper only gives a noncommittal grunt, as if he sees right through Eddie’s bullshit (and he totally does).
Again, they drive in silence for a while, and Eddie is feeling like something is broiling beneath the surface of his psyche because, yeah, maybe he does have an actual crush on Steve that he’d been ignoring until now. Maybe the idea of dating Steve is something he’s been pondering over the last several months of hanging around with him and learning how much goddamn depth there is beneath all that hair, beneath all that Eddie had once thought of him.
And, okay, maybe he learned tonight that Steve does in fact know he’s attracted to men. So what? That doesn’t change anything because it doesn’t mean Steve is into Eddie.
Still, it also doesn’t mean that he isn’t, Eddie thinks in a rare moment of optimism.
Eddie would be a good boyfriend – a good boyfriend for Steve, anyway, because he knows how Steve deserves to be loved. He deserves to be loved with all kinds of passion and intensity because he knows that’s how Steve loves back. Steve deserves someone who reflects back onto him the kind of love and care he gives the rest of the world, and for what it’s worth, Eddie doesn’t think there’s a person on the planet who’d disagree if he called himself intense. It’s a primary facet of his being, he’s pretty sure.
Eddie can recognize the importance Hopper holds to Steve. Eddie can see now more than ever that Steve’s ability to sweet-talk his way out of trouble means something – a not-so-good something maybe, a something that implies a damn lot about his actual parents, even if Steve rarely says anything outright negative about them. The way Steve gets to be when he’s around Hopper is a stark contrast to that sweet-talker who used to drive Eddie insane, and for as goddamn weird the whole situation is, Eddie can’t help but kind of love it.
Steve trusts Hopper, and, speaking of something, there’s something brewing between Eddie and Steve – a good something, hopefully – so Eddie’s gotta get back on the right foot Hopper here.
“For the record,” Eddie starts, and he half-expects Hopper to make him shut the hell up. He doesn’t though, so Eddie continues, “I really do like Steve. He’s…” Eddie pauses, “he’s really fuckin’ special, I think.”
Hopper’s responding grunt lands a bit more on the affirmative side this time around, which Eddie thinks is a good sign, so he decides to quit while he’s ahead, and the rest of the drive is spent in that same silence.
Wayne is sitting on the couch in front of their trailer when they pull up. He’s idly smoking a cigarette, but Eddie sees the moment he realizes it’s a cop car, he sees the way Wayne sits up straighter. He doesn’t get out of his seat, Eddie notes, because unfortunately it’s not exactly their first rodeo with this kind of thing, but his eyes are sharp and alert.
“Delivery for you, Munson,” Hopper says once they’re out of the car, a hand tight on Eddie’s shoulder steering him towards the trailer, “He spent the evening with my boy tonight. Thought I’d give him a lift home.”
If Wayne is surprised to hear of a my boy coming from Hopper , he doesn’t let on.
“Awful nice of you,” he responds cautiously.
Hopper claps Eddie’s shoulder once (he’s real firm about it too) before dropping his arm.
“I expect we’ll be seeing more of each other, won’t we,” he says, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Yes sir,” Eddie manages as Hopper heads back to the cruiser.
“You have a good night, now,” Wayne says, slowly standing from his seat on the couch.
Hopper raises a hand at Wayne in response, and then he’s gone a few moments later.
“Well,” Wayne says gruffly, looking at Eddie all appraising, “Seems like you got yourself into a right pickle.”