Archive of Our Own

The ceiling fan clicked with every slow rotation, as if it too were struggling to hold itself together.

Robin lay spread-eagle on her bed like she’d been dropped there from a great height, the back of her wrist resting against her forehead in a pose that might’ve been dramatic if it didn’t look so utterly defeated. Her eyes didn’t move anymore when the fan made that noise. She just blinked at the ceiling, over and over, like it was a task someone had assigned her. Her bedroom was dim despite the afternoon sun. The curtains were drawn. Her desk was a cluttered mess of textbooks, loose papers, cassette cases, and two half-finished cups of what had probably been coffee hours ago.

“I think,” she said finally, voice rough with disuse, “if I have to read one more line of La Peste , I’m going to have an actual, literal stroke. Like—collapse-on-the-floor, foaming-at-the-mouth stroke.”

Steve, seated cross-legged on the floor against her dresser, glanced up from where he was staring into the carpet like it had answers he hadn’t thought to ask. His back ached, but he didn’t shift. Robin hadn’t moved in nearly forty minutes. It felt wrong to move before she did.

“French existentialism really is the cherry on top of a traumatic summer,” he said.

Robin laughed, the kind that started as air but turned into something like a cough halfway out. She scrubbed her palms over her face. “God, Steve, everything sucks. It all just— sucks . I wake up and I think maybe today’ll feel normal, and then I try to go to school and take notes and memorize stupid shit about history and it’s like—” She broke off. “Like I’m watching myself do it from behind glass. Like none of it matters. Because there’s things under this town. Things inside people. And I’m just supposed to pretend they’re not there and turn in my biology worksheet on time?”

Steve didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. She was right.

The air in her room had a stillness to it, like grief or winter. The kind of stillness that made you feel like speaking too loudly would break something delicate and irreparable.

Robin turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were ringed with the gray-purple hue of weeks without sleep. She looked like a ghost of herself. “I can’t do this much longer, Steve.”

He met her gaze, and it felt like looking at himself in a mirror warped just slightly enough to unsettle him. They were both cracked in ways no one could see.

“You’re doing it, though,” he said, softly. “You’re still here.”

“I don’t want to just be here. I want to feel something. I want to breathe without—like—I don’t know, like I’m underwater all the time. You don’t ever feel like that?”

Steve thought about the way the silence in his house stretched out like tar, heavy and suffocating. About the way the Starcourt fire still played behind his eyelids when he blinked too long. About how he couldn’t sleep unless the TV was on.

He looked at her for a moment, then away again.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

They sat in silence again. The fan kept clicking. The coffee kept going cold.

Finally, Steve ran a hand through his hair and said, “I’ve been thinking… maybe you need something to take the edge off.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “What, like vodka?”

“No,” he said. “Not that. Just—something less… Russian interrogation, more… nature’s anxiety blanket.”

Robin stared. “Are you trying to say weed?”

Steve gave a helpless little shrug, like the idea had just fallen into his lap. “I’m just saying. We tried breathing exercises and that weird tea your mom made. Neither helped. Maybe it’s time to try the one thing half the school swears by.”

“Half the school also thinks Mrs. Cartwright is a witch.”

“She probably is ,” Steve muttered.

Robin didn’t laugh. But her mouth twitched, just a little.

“Where are you even going to get it?” she asked, her voice thin and bitter and full of that too-tired-to-fight edge. “The only dealer I know is Jason Carver’s cousin, and he thinks the world’s flat.”

Steve tapped a finger on his knee. “I might… know a guy.”

Robin rolled her head back to the ceiling. “You’re going to get me weed. This is my life now.”

“You said you wanted to breathe,” Steve said. “Maybe this’ll help.”

Neither of them said the word Starcourt, but it echoed in the walls. Neither of them mentioned the blood, or the cold tile of that room below the mall, or the monster in the shape of a man. But all of it sat in the room with them, silent and loud at once.

Robin closed her eyes. “Okay,” she whispered.

Steve nodded, even though she wasn’t looking. He stood, slowly, joints creaking from how long he’d sat still.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “You don’t have to worry.”

And maybe that was all he could do now—be the one who worried, so she didn’t have to. Maybe that was what they did for each other. Carried pieces of the weight. Took turns breathing.

–

The morning sky was a dull sheet of gray, stretching low and flat over Hawkins like a lid on a pot about to boil over. The drive to school was quiet. Robin had barely spoken since she'd climbed into the car, her hair still wet from the shower, her hands twisting the hem of her sleeves in her lap. Steve didn’t push. They were learning when not to talk. That was new for them.

The radio murmured something soft and static-laced, but it felt like background noise to the sound of tires on wet pavement and the occasional sniffle from the passenger seat.

When the school came into view, Robin stirred like she’d been reanimating in stages. She turned to him. Her eyes were still heavy, but there was a flicker of something less brittle in them.

“Thanks for driving.”

Steve just nodded. She knew he’d wait until she got inside. She didn’t say goodbye.

He watched her disappear through the front doors, swallowed by a building that didn’t know what had happened to her three months ago. The world kept moving forward like it hadn't felt the burn of everything coming apart. It made Steve feel like he was floating half a foot above the ground, trying to find a place to land.

He exhaled slowly and pulled the car into gear. Turned the wheel.

Halfway out of the lot, something sparked at the edge of his mind.

Eddie Munson.

The name came out of nowhere, dropping into his skull like a coin down a well. It echoed.

It took a second to place it. Eddie—he was that metalhead senior who never seemed to graduate. Wild hair, leather jacket even in July, chain on his jeans like he thought it made him look dangerous. He was one of those guys Steve had always written off without thinking about it. Not worth the attention. Not his scene.

But now… now things were different. The old maps didn’t work anymore. The terrain had shifted.

Tommy H. had always been his go-to when it came to scoring anything not exactly legal. But Tommy had gone off to college—or at least pretended he had—and Steve didn’t really feel like dialing up that ghost just to beg for weed and small talk. No, this was newer. Closer. Local.

Eddie sold. Or at least, that’s what people said. Loudly. Casually. Steve had never cared enough to verify it.

But then there was Dustin , who had started calling Eddie "The Dungeon Master" like it meant something important, who talked about Hellfire Club meetings like they were battle briefings. Dustin, who had started hanging out with Eddie like it was the most natural thing in the world. Dustin, who had somehow made friends with the outcast of the outcasts.

Steve had tried not to listen when the kid rambled about Eddie’s "sick campaign planning" or the way he did voices or the fact that he once jumped on a cafeteria table to yell about Tolkien.

But he had listened.

He always listened when Dustin talked.

And now, with Robin unraveling thread by thread, and Steve feeling like a man trying to build a parachute after he’d already jumped, this was the thread he was pulling.

He let the wheel straighten out under his palms and turned down the street instead of heading home.

Just to check.

Just to see.

Steve took the corner too fast and the tires hissed against the asphalt like a warning.

He pulled the car back into the Hawkins High parking lot with a tightness in his jaw that hadn’t eased in weeks. He didn’t care how it looked—ex-king of Hawkins High coming back like a ghost who never moved on. He’d been gone just long enough to feel like the walls didn’t recognize him, but not long enough to forget which ones creaked or which stair always groaned on the third step.

He shut the car door and crossed the lot with his head down, not from shame, but from disinterest. Anyone who saw him could ask questions. He just wouldn’t answer.

The main hallway buzzed with low conversation, lockers slamming, the squeak of bad shoes on worse tile. The fluorescent lights above flickered like they were remembering how to stay on. Steve walked through it like he belonged—shoulders back, the ghost of his old strut dragging behind him like a tail. People still glanced. Not like they used to. But enough. There were still whispers.

He followed instinct more than memory, his feet knowing the way like they were sleepwalking. Classroom 102. Biology. Dustin’s first period.

It wasn’t hard to find him. That mop of curly hair bounced when he talked, and Dustin never knew how to not talk. He was leaning over his desk, whispering excitedly to a girl who looked half-interested and half-trapped. His hands moved like he was casting a spell.

Steve knocked his knuckles against the edge of the desk and crouched down beside it in one fluid movement.

“Hey, Henderson.”

Dustin jumped like he’d been caught with contraband. His mouth dropped open.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed. “You graduated. Like—a whole year ago. Are you having a quarter-life crisis already?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Relax. I need a favor.”

“This better be about an actual emergency and not just you needing to borrow hair gel or something.”

Steve didn’t smile. “You said you eat with that Hellfire club at lunch, right?”

“Obviously. Why?”

“You seeing that Munson guy there?”

Dustin blinked, confused. “Eddie? Yeah. Why?”

“I need his number.”

A beat.

Dustin stared like Steve had spoken in tongues. “What?”

Steve leaned in a little closer. His voice dropped.

“I said, I need his number. Just… talk to him at lunch. Get it. Call me tonight.”

Dustin’s eyes narrowed like he was trying to solve a riddle carved into ancient stone. “Why do you need Eddie’s number?”

“No questions,” Steve said flatly. His voice didn’t rise, but it felt like something old was curling beneath it. Like he was tired of people asking him why .

Dustin opened his mouth, then closed it. He fidgeted with his pencil, tapping it against his notebook.

“You’re being super weird,” he mumbled.

Steve stood up, stretching his back. “You tell me that a lot nowadays.”

Dustin looked up at him. The confusion hadn’t gone away, but something gentler had crept in around the edges. Concern, maybe. Or trust. Or both.

“I’ll get it,” he said, quieter now. “But if you end up joining Hellfire, I’m making you play a bard.”

Steve didn’t answer. He was already walking toward the door, boots echoing against the tile.

The hallway swallowed him again, locker by locker.

–

The Harrington house had always been too quiet. Too still. Even when people were home, the walls didn’t echo. They absorbed . Laughter. Anger. Tears. It all sank into the furniture like water in rotted wood.

Now, it was worse.

The click of the hallway clock was louder than it had any right to be. Every second landed like a footstep upstairs. But Steve didn’t move. He sat on the kitchen floor in pajama pants that had never really fit—his dad’s, maybe, from a suitcase never unpacked—and an old sweatshirt with a bleach stain by the collar. His legs were pulled up, arms resting on his knees like a kid at the edge of a swimming pool he wasn’t sure he could handle.

The tile was cold. The kind of cold that made your bones ache a little if you stayed still too long. He stayed still anyway.

It was just past five. The light outside was turning that strange late-autumn color—gray-orange and thin, like skin stretched over bone. He'd dropped Robin off an hour ago, after another aimless drive and some talk that felt more like exhaling than conversation. She was doing better, he told himself. Or at least pretending better. It counted, didn’t it?

The phone hadn’t rung yet. But it would.

Dustin always followed through. That kid was stubborn as hell. A pain. A walking encyclopedia with braces and a god complex. Steve pretended it annoyed him. But in the emptiness of this house, Dustin’s voice—his presence—was one of the only things that made Steve feel like he hadn’t disappeared.

Ring.

It startled him like a shot. He scrambled up too fast and bumped his knee on the counter.

“Shit—”

He picked up the receiver, voice cracking a little from disuse. “Hello?”

“Steve,” Dustin said, already rushing. “Okay, I got it. I gave him your name—like you told me. He was super confused. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Eddie look actually speechless before? So. That was weird. Anyway, he gave me the number, so write this down—”

Steve fumbled for a pen. There was one shoved behind the fruit bowl. No fruit. Just mail. He scrawled the number on the back of a pizza flyer.

Dustin kept talking. “He said it was fine if you call him, but like, dude, what are you doing ? Did you lose a bet?”

“No questions,” Steve said, more out of breath than he meant to be.

“Okay, but like—”

“I mean it, Henderson. Thanks.”

“Yeah. Fine. You're acting strange, man. Just don’t do anything dumb. Or illegal. Or, like, more illegal than normal. See you.”

The line went dead.

Steve held the receiver for a second longer than he needed to, then slowly set it back on the cradle. The flyer with the number in his handwriting—shaky, rushed—trembled slightly in his fingers.

He stood in the silence again. Walked two circles around the kitchen island. Stared at the cordless phone like it might explode. Then he dialed.

One ring. Two. Then—

“Yeah?” A voice like a lit match, crackling with indifference.

“Uh… is this Eddie?”

A pause. Then a shift—almost imperceptible, like the flicker of a curtain.

“Speaking,” Eddie said, but softer now. Less bite. Still curious. “Who’s this?”

“Steve Harrington.”

Another pause.

“...Huh,” Eddie said, but it came out like a laugh trapped in a cough. “Okay. So this is real.”

Steve’s throat was suddenly dry. “I, uh. I heard you… y’know. Sell.”

The line was quiet for a moment. Then: “Sure. Yeah. I can get you something. Depends what you want, but I’ve got stuff. Tomorrow okay?”

Steve nodded before realizing Eddie couldn’t see him. “Yeah. Tomorrow’s good.”

“All right. Where you wanna meet?”

Steve blinked. The first place that came to mind was a parking lot—old, empty—tucked behind the movie rental place on Ashbury Lane. It had its own gravity.

“There’s an alley behind Reel Nights,” he said. “Back lot.”

Eddie chuckled low. “Shady. I like it.”

“Nine work?”

“Perfect,” Eddie said. “I’ll be the guy in the suspicious-looking van. You bring cash, Harrington.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

And then—nothing. Just a breath between them, heavy but not heavy enough to say more.

Steve cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

Click.

He stood there with the phone still pressed to his ear until the dial tone screamed in his ear. He flinched and hung up.

The number on the flyer looked different now. Like a message from someone else’s dream. He crumpled the paper without reading it again and tossed it into the trash under the sink.

For the first time in days, his chest didn’t feel like it was wrapped in wire.

–

The light through the kitchen window was cold.

Not the kind of cold that came from winter, not yet, but the sterile kind—the type that belonged to hospital rooms and empty waiting areas, too white to be real. It spilled across the tiled floor like something that didn’t belong there. Too sharp, too honest. Steve sat in the middle of it, knees bent, arms looped loosely around them, back pressed to the cabinet under the sink. His head rested against the wood.

The kitchen smelled faintly of dust and oranges. He hadn’t cooked anything in days. Maybe longer.

His pajamas were soft flannel, some stupid pair with tiny sailboats on them—his mom’s pick, years ago, back when she still pretended to buy him things he’d like. They didn’t fit right anymore. Nothing really did. The sleeves were a little short, and the pants pooled around his ankles. But they were warm, and they were his, and that was enough.

The house was quiet in the way that only old houses can be. Not silent—never silent—but full of the wrong kinds of sounds. The hum of the fridge. The creak of a floorboard upstairs, even though he was the only one home. The heater kicking on like it was surprised it still worked.

He hated this house. He always had.

It had too many rooms and not enough people in them. His parents were in Massachusetts for some kind of real estate conference—or maybe it was Europe this time. They left notes now, instead of goodbyes. Steve stopped checking the answering machine. He never liked the sound of his mother’s voice through tape.

He was alone. Not just in the house—in himself.

Ever since Starcourt, everything felt thin . Like reality had been worn through in places. He still heard the screaming when the room got too quiet. Still felt the taste of blood in his mouth some mornings, even if he hadn’t been hit in weeks.

He pressed the side of his head harder into the cabinet. Closed his eyes.

It was nearly five. Any minute now.

He wasn’t sure why his hands felt cold. Or why his chest felt too tight. It wasn’t like he was afraid. Not really. Not of Eddie Munson . But there was something about it—about reaching out, about asking —that made his insides crawl.

He didn’t ask for things. Not anymore.

He didn’t want to need anything. That was dangerous.

The phone rang.

Steve’s head jerked up too fast and hit the cabinet. “Shit,” he muttered, already scrambling to his feet. The phone was halfway down the hall, on the wall between the den and the guest bathroom. He almost tripped on his own pajama pants as he grabbed it off the hook.

“Henderson?” he said, breathless.

“Whoa, yeah, hey. Jesus, you answer phones like a serial killer.”

Steve leaned against the wall. “You got it?”

A dramatic sigh crackled through the line. “Yeah, I got it. Eddie was—okay, first of all, he was super confused. Like, genuinely thrown off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him not ready with some weird joke or a Tolkien quote, but when I said it was for you? He just kinda… stared at me.”

Steve closed his eyes. He could picture it—Eddie looking up from wherever he’d been, rings flashing, eyebrows drawn together. That deep, cynical theatricality he always seemed to carry probably paused for once. That made Steve’s stomach twist, but not in a bad way. Just in a way .

“And?” Steve prompted.

“And then he gave me the number. Wrote it on the back of a Hellfire Club handout. Told me to tell you it ‘ain’t laced with venom or anything.’ I don’t know what that means, but he seemed serious.”

Steve laughed—one short breath, barely a sound. “Thanks.”

“Are you gonna tell me why you want to talk to Eddie Munson?”

“No.”

Dustin groaned. “This is shady, Steve. Even for you.”

Steve didn’t answer. He was already reaching across the kitchen counter for a pen. He didn’t use the notepad near the phone—too clean, too tidy. No. He grabbed something else from the side drawer.

A flyer.

Black-and-white, rough edges, crumpled and smoothed out again. It advertised some metal show from the summer, a band he’d never heard of with a logo that looked like it had been carved by a knife. His mom had brought it home from the grocery store two months ago, waving it in his face with a disgusted frown.

“These freaks ,” she’d said. “Can you believe this filth gets posted next to the PTA board? You better not end up like them , Steve.”

He hadn’t thrown it out.

Maybe he liked the ugliness of it. The honesty. Maybe it reminded him of how much worse things than guitars and long hair could exist in the world. Things with teeth.

He flipped it over. Found the blank space on the back. Jotted the number down with the kind of precision he hadn’t used in a long time.

Dustin was still on the line. “You gonna call him now?”

Steve looked at the numbers.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I am.”

He hung up without waiting for a goodbye.

The house was too quiet again.

He stared at the numbers for a long moment.

His fingers hovered above the keypad like it might bite him. The flyer with Eddie’s number scrawled on the back lay flat on the counter now, smoothed out again even though he’d crumpled it once already in the tension of waiting. The ink had smeared in the corner where his thumb kept pressing against it. He’d read the number enough times to memorize it, but still, he didn’t move.

The house was too quiet. He could hear the whisper of air through the vents. Could hear his own breathing, too loud in the empty space. He could hear the fridge humming behind him like a distant warning bell.

What the hell am I doing?

He started pacing—barefoot against cold tile, arms crossed, one hand dragging down his face like he could erase it. He kept thinking about Robin. How she’d looked two nights ago, trembling on the edge of sleep, clutching a pillow like it might keep her tethered to the earth. He thought about her voice—tight and too fast—spiraling in that dark room like smoke from a fire that hadn’t gone out yet.

And he thought about Dustin.

Dustin and his relentless talking, and his loyalty, and his stupid big heart. Steve had pretended it annoyed him, but it never did. It made him feel like a person. Like something mattered .

He stopped pacing. Picked up the phone.

His finger hovered over the last digit.

Just call. Get the weed. Help Robin. That’s it.

He dialed.

Each tone sounded like it echoed through the house, too loud for the silence. He pressed the receiver tighter to his ear. The dialtone clicked once. Then a beat. Then another.

Then:

“Yeah?” The voice on the other end was sharp. Casual in that specific kind of dismissive way. “You lookin’ to buy or somethin’?”

Steve froze.

He hadn’t expected to feel embarrassed . Or maybe he had. But it still hit him like a cold bucket of water. The voice—rough, a little scratchy, clearly annoyed—jarred him. He swallowed.

“Uh… is this… Eddie?”

There was a pause.

Steve wanted to crawl inside the wall and die.

But then the silence changed shape. Softened.

The voice came back, quieter now. Still Eddie, but less steel, more smoke.

“Yeah. It is.”

Steve closed his eyes. Something about the shift in tone sent a strange relief down his spine. Like Eddie had recognized him somehow. Like the name meant something.

“What’s up?” Eddie asked again, and this time, it didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a question with room in it.

Steve hesitated. “I, uh… was just… wondering if you sell, like… weed. Because I… I heard that you might. And I need some.”

There was a pause.

Then, easy—warm, almost amused, but not mocking: “Yeah, I do. I can get you some by tomorrow. That work?”

Steve nodded before realizing Eddie couldn’t see him. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.”

A soft rustle on the other end, maybe Eddie shifting the phone to his other shoulder.

“All right. Tomorrow night. Nine. Meet me behind the old movie house—y’know, the one on Lincoln, across from the pawn shop? Looks like it should’ve been condemned ten years ago?”

Steve blinked. He knew it.

He remembered that alley, sharp and angry in the back of his mind—Jonathan Byers had cornered him there once, high on grief and shaking with rage. It wasn’t a place with good memories. But maybe that was the point.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I know it.”

“My van’ll be there. Don’t knock too loud. Cops like to swing by sometimes. Guess the flashing lights look nice on the old theater sign.”

Steve huffed something like a laugh. “Got it.”

“Cool. I’ll see you then, Harrington.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something else, but the line clicked dead before he could.

The silence came back fast.

He lowered the phone, cradled it against his chest for a moment, then returned it to the cradle. The dial tone buzzed in his head long after it had disappeared.

He looked at the flyer again.

Then, without thinking, he crumpled it in one swift motion—tight, final—and dropped it into the trash can beneath the sink. The paper landed with a hollow thump against the empty plastic liner. He didn’t even bother to watch it settle.

He stood there in the kitchen for a long moment. Just breathing. Just… existing . The quiet felt a little less heavy.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he’d get the weed.

Tomorrow, he’d see Eddie Munson.

-

The day dragged.

No, dragged wasn’t the right word. It twitched , like an insect stuck under a glass—jerky and repetitive and impossible to escape. Steve paced. He wandered the upstairs hallway like a ghost in his own house, fingers trailing along the banister until the wood felt slick. His shoulders ached from tension. His jaw throbbed from grinding his teeth.

He wished— God , how he wished—he still had school. Homework. Anything structured. Anything that could swallow time whole. But there was nothing. Just open hours and silence and the same two local stations cycling through late-afternoon reruns.

So, he cleaned.

He always cleaned.

The mirror over the bathroom sink had no smudges. The towels were refolded in neat thirds. He vacuumed under the couch cushions and wiped down the baseboards. But it didn’t help. It never helped. The same thoughts came anyway, crowding in like fog. He kept seeing Robin’s hands shake. Kept hearing Billy screaming. Kept tasting that cold, sharp bite of Russian metal on the back of his tongue.

By the time 8:45 rolled around, his house looked pristine, but Steve felt like someone had scrubbed the inside of his skull raw.

He left five minutes early.

The drive was short, the roads dark. Hawkins after sunset always looked a little abandoned—like the town knew how to hold its breath. There were too many streetlights that didn’t work. Too many cracks in the sidewalk, too many alleys that led nowhere.

The movie house loomed up like a memory he’d forgotten how to place.

Faded marquee. Broken neon. Shuttered front doors, poster frames long empty. It was the kind of place kids dared each other to break into, the kind of place older men died alone behind.

The alley wrapped around the side like a secret.

Steve turned into it slow, headlights catching on damp concrete and rusted trash bins. The van was there. Parked against the back wall. Matte black, with a window covered in taped-up flyers and stickers peeling at the edges.

He parked. Cut the engine.

And for a long time, he just… sat.

His heart was beating too fast.

His palms were sweaty, which was ridiculous. He wasn’t doing anything. He was buying weed. People did that. Regular people. He wasn’t scoring heroin or smuggling arms or breaking into a Cold War bunker again. But still—still—his chest felt too tight.

You look good, a voice said somewhere in his head, half-mocking.

He did.

His jeans were his best pair. Slim through the thigh, flared just enough at the ankle to look casual without trying too hard. They clung to his hips in that way that used to make girls at school whisper when he walked by. His sweater was soft, pale green, snug in the shoulders. He didn’t know why he wore it. Maybe because it made his eyes look less tired. Maybe because something about tonight felt like more than it should.

He didn’t know why he gave a damn what Eddie Munson thought of him.

Trailer trash hick. Junkie dropout. Local satanist. That’s what his mother would’ve called him. That’s what Steve would’ve called him once, too, back when his hair was still flat-ironed and his ego hadn’t been carved down to the bone by monsters and guilt.

But none of that mattered when he stepped out of the car and felt the alley breathe around him.

He walked up to the van.

The air was thick with oil and distant smoke, the back of the movie house humming with old electricity. The cold bit through his sweater. He raised a fist. Knocked—soft, quick, like someone who wasn’t sure they belonged there.

The doors creaked open.

“Look who it is.”

Eddie’s voice, warm with amusement, spilled out before his face did. Then: there he was.

Silhouette framed in flickering red light from somewhere inside the van. Loose flannel half-buttoned over a faded Metallica shirt, jeans ripped at the knee. Hair wild as ever. He looked like something out of a different world, and maybe he was.

Steve swallowed. “Hey.”

Eddie’s grin was crooked. “You, uh—" he gave a mock-hushed tone, “—come alone, or you bring backup?”

Steve stared at him, blank.

“Y’know. The rest of the popular crowd . I just figured you’d roll deep. Or, I dunno—have your lawyer here or something.”

Steve snorted despite himself. “Funny.”

Eddie opened the doors wider. “C’mon. Don’t stand out there like a narc.”

Steve climbed in, ducking his head, unsure of what to expect.

The interior of the van was... warm. Not literally—the air was cold, and the insulation was probably shit—but cozy , somehow. Lived-in. Worn pillows scattered across the backseat. A blanket, tossed like it had actually been used. A camping lantern glowing low beside a milk crate stacked with cassette tapes and a half-filled ashtray.

It was—against all odds—a place someone might actually choose to be.

Eddie moved with ease, flopping down onto a pillow and fishing something from behind a beat-up guitar case. “Still can’t believe this, man,” he said. “Steve Harrington. King Steve.” He didn’t say it cruelly, just with that teasing kind of awe. “Never thought I’d have the honor of selling premium-grade herbal relief to Hawkins High royalty.”

Steve sat stiffly, legs folded, hands in his lap. “I’m not royalty anymore.”

Eddie looked up.

Something about Steve’s voice must’ve landed strange, because the smirk faded a little. Not entirely, but enough. He handed over a baggie—carefully weighed, tightly sealed—and didn’t make a joke about it.

“You look good,” Eddie said after a moment, like it was just an observation. Not a compliment. Not a trap. Just the truth, said out loud.

Steve felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. “I—uh. Thanks.”

“Didn’t think you’d actually call.”

Steve met his eyes. “Didn’t think you’d give me your number.”

Eddie smiled.

And for a moment, the van was quiet—filled only with the hush of distant tires on pavement, and the low hum of a forgotten song playing from a boombox in the corner, barely loud enough to hear.

It was strange, sitting here. Stranger still, how not strange it felt.

Like maybe this was always going to happen.

Like maybe—just maybe—there was more here than either of them expected.

The van had a weight to it now.

Not from noise—no, the world outside was still quiet, still blurred and sleep-heavy with the cloak of night. The weight came from presence , from the way Eddie lounged across a patchwork of threadbare blankets and cassette-littered carpet like this was his kingdom. Like he was comfortable in spaces that rattled and creaked and didn’t belong to anyone else. It made Steve feel overdressed, underfed, and too clean.

Eddie was watching him. Not in a harsh way. Just… watching.

“So,” Eddie said, drawing the word out like smoke. “How often you tokin’ these days, Harrington?”

Steve hesitated.

His fingers twitched in his lap, his back suddenly too straight against the van wall. There were answers he could give. Shrugs, jokes. Lies.

But Eddie had that look—tilted, curious, not prying but... open. Like he wasn’t going to judge. Like he didn’t need to be impressed.

Steve looked down at his hands. At the faint crescent mark near the base of his right thumb—scar from the Starcourt tile, still pink.

“I haven’t,” he said, low. “Not since—” He exhaled, forced the word out. “Not since senior year.”

Eddie’s eyebrows lifted. “Senior year, huh.”

“The first one,” Steve added quickly, mouth twitching. “The, uh. Original attempt.”

Eddie gave a short, surprised laugh. “Shit. Didn’t know you were a repeat offender.”

“Yeah. Well.” Steve scratched the back of his neck. “It wasn’t, like... on purpose.”

“Sure,” Eddie grinned. “Flunked for the vibes. I get it.”

Steve gave him a faint smirk but didn’t speak.

He didn’t want to say the rest. Didn’t want to say why . It felt stupid. Weak. Something about admitting it aloud would turn it into a confession.

But still—still—it slipped out, softer than he meant it to.

“Nancy didn’t like it.”

Eddie’s expression stilled.

Steve stared at the cluttered floor. “So I quit. For her.”

There was silence. Not heavy. Not mocking. Just quiet.

Eddie nodded, slowly. “Huh,” he said at last. “You know, I figured Wheeler for the buzzkill type, but... damn. That’s real dedication.”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know if it was. It just... felt easier. At the time.”

“Easier than being yourself?”

The question stung more than it should have. Steve looked up, eyes narrowing just slightly. But Eddie’s face wasn’t cruel. Just thoughtful. Brow furrowed, head tilted the way a painter might study a half-finished canvas.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Eddie added quickly. “Just—" he tapped the side of the van wall, “—some people don’t bother changing. You did. That’s... rare.”

Steve didn’t know what to say to that.

So he said something else.

“I’m not here for me.”

Eddie blinked. “No?”

Steve shook his head. “I’ve got this—friend. She’s... it’s been a rough year. I thought maybe it’d help her. Just to, y’know. Shut it off for a while.”

He didn’t say Robin’s name.

He wouldn’t.

The halls of Hawkins High still heard whispers. Steve wasn’t about to paint a target on her back, especially not from his lips.

Eddie didn’t press. Just nodded, more serious now. “You want something mild, then. Starter kit stuff. I got this strain— Mellow Yellow . It’s soft. Calming. Not too heady.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. That sounds... right.”

Eddie turned, rummaging behind a battered toolbox and pulling out another small baggie, the buds inside paler, dusted in yellowish crystals. He handed it over with care, like passing off a gift, not a transaction.

Steve looked at it. Then glanced at the other bag—the one he was originally given. The darker green, denser one. It smelled stronger, deeper. Richer. Like something that would bite.

“What was the first one?” he asked, handing it back.

Eddie grinned. “ Gravedigger’s Mist. Heavy stuff. Hits fast. Kinda like diving into a pool without checking the temperature.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

“That good ,” Eddie corrected, already reaching for a rolling tray and a stack of papers. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”

And before Steve could ask, Eddie was already prepping—grinding, tapping, rolling with practiced hands, the scent of the flower rising around them like incense. It filled the air slow, syrupy, resin-thick.

“You, uh... wanna try it?” Eddie asked, almost offhandedly. “First hit’s free. For Hawkins royalty.”

Steve opened his mouth to say no.

But then—he remembered the weight of his thoughts all day. The hours lost to vacuuming and pretending the air wasn’t thin in every room of the house. The way his fingers shook sometimes without reason.

So instead, he said: “Yeah. Sure.”

While Eddie rolled, Steve dug into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. “Didn’t know how much it’d cost,” he murmured, unfolding two crisp fives and a twenty. “I’ve got more if—”

Eddie held up a hand.

“Nah. That’s plenty.”

Steve froze, the bills still pinched between his fingers.

“You sure?”

Eddie chuckled. “You think I’m gonna stiff Steve Harrington on a dime bag? Shit, man. I’d have paid you just to hear you say ‘Gravedigger’s Mist’ out loud.”

Steve laughed, short and surprised.

Eddie lit the blunt.

The flame flared, then dulled, casting shadows across the soft lines of his face. He looked older in the flicker. Or maybe just realer . Not a caricature. Not a rumor.

Just a guy with quick fingers and tired eyes and a strange kind of gentleness Steve hadn’t expected.

He took a long drag, then held the blunt out, offering it across the space between them.

Steve hesitated.

Then reached.

Their fingers didn’t touch.

But it felt like they had.

The smoke clung to the van walls like secrets. Thick. Sweet. Slow-moving.

It unfurled from Steve’s mouth in a trembling exhale, curling through the cramped air like something alive . His lungs burned in protest—sharp, insistent, unfamiliar—and he coughed once, then again, pressing the back of his hand against his lips like that could somehow hide it.

His vision blurred at the edges. Not in panic—just in warmth. In saturation. Everything suddenly felt too much , too close. The fairy lights strung along the roof flickered like dying stars. The scent of pine resin and burning paper ghosted through his hair.

“Shit,” Steve murmured under his breath, voice gravel-soft.

“First hit’s always a little violent,” Eddie said with a half-smile, watching him with eyes that glittered in the dim. “She’s a cruel mistress, Gravedigger’s Mist .”

Steve forced a huff of laughter—part air, part shame. “Yeah, well. I didn’t think I’d forget how to breathe .”

Eddie grinned. “You’ll remember. Muscle memory. Kinda like riding a bike… but the bike is on fire.”

Steve shook his head, his blush deepening without his consent. It bloomed slow across his cheekbones, a soft dusk-rose color, and he hated how obvious it must be.

He didn't dare meet Eddie’s eyes.

Not yet.

Not when his chest still fluttered with the memory of that look—when he'd glanced up through the fog of his coughing fit and found not judgment, not mockery, but something else in Eddie's face. Something quietly captivated . Admiring, almost. Like Eddie was painting a portrait in his head and Steve had accidentally stepped into the frame.

It made his throat go tight.

Not from the smoke this time.

Steve’s fingers trembled slightly as he brought the blunt to his lips again. He could still feel the phantom pressure of Eddie’s hand where it had passed it over. Not touching. But nearly .

Too nearly.

He inhaled slower this time. Deeper.

Let it sit.

Let it move through him like tidewater, rushing into corners he didn’t know were empty. He held it, eyes shut. Held it until the burn softened into glow, and then—finally—exhaled.

No cough.

Just breath. Lingering.

The world didn’t shift, exactly. It just... sighed.

Eddie was looking at him again.

Not hard . Not like a man trying to read something. But soft. Like he already knew the words.

Steve passed the blunt back, his fingers brushing Eddie’s this time, faint but electric.

Eddie took it without pause, flicking the tip with a well-trained motion and inhaling deep, his shoulders rising with it. The tattoos across his forearm flexed faintly, some in full display under the pushed-back sleeves of his jacket—inked symbols, black stars, some sort of jagged blade curling in permanent violence against his skin. They didn’t scare Steve. They fascinated him.

“How’s it feel?” Eddie asked, voice low, half-shaded by smoke.

Steve leaned his head back against the van wall. The metal was cold. It anchored him.

“Warm,” he said. “And... weird.”

“Weird’s good,” Eddie said. “Normal’s overrated.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never had to pretend to be normal for seven years.”

Eddie snorted. “Fair. You win.”

Steve cracked a small smile. “Wasn’t trying to.”

Silence stretched between them again, comfortable and loud with unsaid things.

Steve stared at the roof of the van—at the cut-out magazine clippings taped there, faded photos of guitar gods and horror icons. Faces half-torn, half-glorious. Fragments of identity built into a ceiling. Into a sky.

“Do you live in here?” he asked suddenly.

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Only when I’m lucky.”

Steve blinked.

Eddie took another drag. Didn’t explain. Just held the smoke like it meant something. Like it was a story in itself.

Then he passed the blunt back with a small gesture.

Steve took it again. He wasn’t sure why.

Maybe because this felt like the only place in the world right now that didn’t ask him to perform . No hair gel. No tight grins. No king-of-Hawkins High mask.

Just fog.

And Eddie.

“Dustin told me you were weird,” Steve said after a beat, his voice barely above a whisper.

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Did he now?”

“Yeah.”

“And you came anyway?”

Steve looked at him. Really looked. At the half-shadowed smirk. At the curls that gleamed under the fairy lights like coiled wires. At the softness tucked under the bones of his cheeks. The way he existed like a thing slightly out of step with the rest of the world.

He took a drag.

Exhaled.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I guess I did.”

Steve blinked, hard, like he could unsay what had already slipped out—casual and doomed—from his mouth. His face twisted in something close to panic, the corners of his lips tightening, his eyes suddenly too wide.

“I—shit, wait, that sounded—” He shook his head, one hand coming up to rake through the messy mop of his hair, tousled from leaning against the van wall. “That’s not what I meant. Not like... not in a bad way.”

Eddie didn’t speak. Just tilted his head a little, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like the idea of bad was amusing to him.

Steve’s throat tightened, smoke still clinging to the back of his tongue like confession.

“Dustin’s just—he’s like, I dunno, obsessed with you or something,” Steve continued, his words picking up speed like a car rolling downhill without brakes. “Talks about your campaigns, your characters, your monologues—hell, he even did your voice once. Said you make death saving throws sound like a religious experience.”

Eddie laughed, low and breath-warmed, the sound curling into the air like incense.

Steve pressed on, as if filling the space between them with noise might save him from it.

“He thinks you’re cool. Like... insanely cool. Just, y’know—maybe not in the conventional way. But he talks about you like you’re some kinda leader-slash-superhero. I mean, he’s weird, obviously. Nerd weird.”

“Clearly,” Eddie said, smiling around his next inhale.

Steve frowned, but there wasn’t real anger behind it—just a burn of embarrassment in his chest that the weed couldn’t quite smother.

“I just meant—you’re not what I expected, alright? That’s all.”

Eddie’s eyes glinted in the hazy light, sharp beneath the soft drag of his lashes. “And what did you expect?”

Steve paused. Caught.

He shrugged one shoulder, gaze flickering to the dented metal floor. “Honestly? Some loud, obnoxious burnout with a Satanic panic starter pack.”

Eddie barked a laugh at that—loud, unfiltered, genuine.

“Well, shit. Now I’m disappointed. I should’ve greeted you with a blood goblet and a hymn to the dark lord.”

Steve smiled despite himself, leaning his head back again, warmth creeping up his neck in invisible vines. He passed the blunt back, fingertips brushing Eddie’s knuckles this time, slower than before.

“You just—you’re calmer than I thought,” Steve said quietly. “Not what Dustin said. Not what anyone said.”

Eddie took a hit and exhaled through his nose like a dragon dreaming.

“I’m not always like this,” he admitted after a beat. “Just... sometimes. Depends who’s around.”

Steve didn’t answer right away.

He didn’t need to.

The van was a quiet cathedral now, lit by electric stars, sanctified by ash and breath and the low thrum of something neither of them had words for yet.

And Eddie just watched him—watched the awkward way Steve’s mouth twisted when he didn’t know how to explain himself, watched the softness of his hands, the way they trembled just slightly now that the weed had started to seep into the marrow.

He smiled again—smaller this time. Not mocking.

Almost tender.

“You always talk this much when you’re high?” he asked.

Steve looked at him, startled, and then gave a breathless, rueful laugh. “Only when I’m trying to make sure someone doesn’t think I’m a total asshole.”

Eddie leaned back on one arm, the joints in his leather jacket creaking faintly.

“Too late,” he said, grinning. “You already bought drugs from me in a back alley van. That screams asshole behavior.”

Steve snorted, covering his face with one hand.

“Christ,” he muttered into his palm.

Eddie took another hit, let it bloom behind his eyes like a storm, then passed the blunt back again—an invitation more than a transaction.

Steve accepted.

Silence settled over them once more, thick as velvet, and somewhere under it all, something else began to move.

Not words.

Not thoughts.

Just weightless gravity, pulling two bodies closer without a single push.

The van had grown warmer with the passage of time, not by the heat of its engine, long since gone still, but by breath, by proximity, by the soft chemical burn curling in their lungs and wrapping itself like ivy around their bones. Smoke laced the air in low, spectral swirls, silver ghosts against the dim orange haze leaking through the narrow alley windows.

Steve didn’t notice the quiet pressing in closer—didn’t notice the way the gaps between them had eroded like cliffs under soft sea. He didn’t notice how the edge of his shoulder had begun to brush Eddie’s coat with every shift, how his leg had, at some point, begun to rest a hair's breadth from Eddie’s thigh.

He just spoke.

Words poured from his lips like wind through old shutters—restless, inconsistent, mostly about nothing at all. Fragments of stories half-told, names dropped like crumbs, complaints murmured as if afraid of being overheard by the dark itself. He didn’t even seem to register his own voice anymore, like it was a separate thing now, animated by some need not to be alone with silence.

Eddie listened.

He sat there, cross-legged and loose, looking like some long-limbed devil drawn in charcoal, smoke drifting from his lips like incense from a cathedral burner. His eyes—those sunken, sepulchral things—were half-lidded but sharp, keen in the way wolves are keen beneath frost. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t mock.

He watched .

He watched the way Steve’s hands moved, fluttering like caged birds before settling again, watched the occasional hitch in his breath when he lost his place and had to find his way back with a flustered laugh. He watched the curve of Steve’s mouth as he wrapped around vowels and consonants like he was trying them out for the first time. Eddie realized, somewhere between inhalations, that Steve Harrington filled silences—not out of arrogance or a love of his own voice, but because he was afraid of what might emerge from the quiet if he didn’t.

Steve, he concluded, feared empty rooms.

Or worse—empty minds.

“And then—God, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” Steve said suddenly, running a hand through his hair again, the strands catching light like threads of old gold. He laughed under his breath, shaky, ashamed.

Eddie tilted his head.

“You always talk this much when you’re high?” he asked again, this time softer. Not a tease—more like a question one might ask a ghost when it lingers too long at the foot of the bed.

Steve shrugged, eyes glassy but earnest. “Maybe. Or maybe I just don’t shut up when I’m nervous.”

A beat passed.

“You nervous now?” Eddie asked, smoke still curling from the end of the blunt between his fingers like a question mark dissolving.

Steve hesitated.

His silence was louder than any spoken yes.

Eddie offered him the blunt again, and Steve took it, their fingers brushing—closer this time, lingering longer. Electricity, yes, but slow —not a strike, but a simmer. A low boil beneath skin and flannel and breath.

Steve inhaled. Held it. Released it like a secret.

The fog thickened.

They were sitting closer now—Steve’s knee against Eddie’s, their shoulders tipping inward like moths pulled to the same slow flame.

And Eddie thought, as he watched the faint red flush crawl up the column of Steve’s throat, this boy doesn’t even realize he’s leaning in.

The silence, when it fell, was not sudden. It dripped in slowly, like molasses through a cracked ceiling, pooling around their ankles and rising with every shared breath. Steve didn’t seem to notice that he’d stopped speaking—his voice giving way to the smoke and the hush of night pressing against the walls of the van.

Outside, the world had blurred. The alley, the town, the stars—forgotten. There was only this hushed interior, this copper-scented air, this flickering warmth that pulsed low in the belly like the hush before a storm.

The blunt had burned down to its dying breath, a slender ember that Eddie flicked gently into an ashtray shaped like a skull. Plastic, chipped at the eye socket. Steve watched the way the ash curled like parchment, eyes heavy-lidded, head swaying slightly with the weight of stillness.

And then, it happened—soft as dust settling on old wood.

Eddie shifted, one knee falling open a fraction wider. His thigh pressed against Steve’s.

Not hard. Not deliberate.

Just contact.

Just presence .

Steve didn’t move.

At first, perhaps, he didn’t even notice. His breath continued, measured, like he was on the edge of sleep. Then his eyes dipped down—slow—and traced the line of their knees, the warm press of denim on denim.

A beat passed. A heartbeat. A year.

He didn’t draw back.

Eddie saw it. Felt it.

He didn’t move either.

And maybe—just maybe—it was because he didn’t want to. Maybe it was because he’d seen too many people flinch away from him in their lives—seen the way they recoiled when his presence became too much , too strange, too loud, too him .

But Steve didn’t flinch.

He leaned.

Only slightly. Just enough for their shoulders to brush, slow and tentative like moth wings grazing in the dark. His sweater, that pale green thing that clung to his arms like ivy, caught against the cracked leather of Eddie’s jacket.

Eddie turned his head, just a little. His curls brushed Steve’s temple, and Steve—God help him—closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. Just to feel it.

That was all it took.

That sliver of darkness behind the lids.

That hush of breath as their heat mingled.

“Sorry,” Steve muttered, voice dry, just above a whisper. “Didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t,” Eddie said.

Steve’s eyes opened.

Eddie didn’t pull away. Didn’t smile, didn’t laugh, didn’t make a joke to cut the moment in two.

He simply looked at Steve like he was a thing that shouldn’t be real—a ghost that had dared to linger. And Steve, God bless his soul, looked back like he was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid the whole thing might collapse under the weight of reality.

It didn’t.

Eddie’s hand, ring-heavy and calloused, drifted a few inches along the floor between them. He didn’t touch—no. Just rested it there, near Steve’s own, close enough that their pinkies might graze if one of them shifted even slightly.

It was not a touch.

But it was a question.

And for now, that was enough.

The van held its breath, thick with smoke and unspoken words, the fragile tether between them taut and trembling. Time itself seemed to slow, drawn out into a measured pulse that filled the small space with weight and wonder. Neither moved. Neither dared.

But the air grew heavy—not with fear, but with something raw and waiting.

Steve’s gaze flickered down again, caught on the slow drift of Eddie’s hand—steady, deliberate in its stillness, a silent dare. It was as if the air between them had crystallized, sharp and fragile, waiting for a single breath to shatter it.

His own hand twitched, fingers curling slightly as if seeking permission from the shadows. The green of his sweater contrasted starkly against the dark leather beneath Eddie’s wrist, a vivid thread in the muted tapestry of their quiet universe.

And then—slow as a sigh—Steve’s fingers moved.

Not all at once. Not with sudden confidence.

Just one, then two, inching forward like a hesitant moth drawn to light.

His pinky brushed Eddie’s.

A feather’s touch.

A spark.

It was electric and terrifying, a tremor that rippled through the stillness and pooled warm and urgent in the hollow of his chest.

Eddie’s eyes caught the movement out of the corner of his gaze, low and sharp, the way a hawk watches the flutter of a fragile wing.

His hand shifted a fraction, welcoming the small, trembling contact without force or hurry. Their fingers twined—no, tentacles —delicate, exploring, hesitant, as if learning a new language written on skin.

The van grew smaller, the walls closer, the night beyond a distant memory.

Steve’s breath hitched, uneven now—no longer the steady rhythm of nerves, but something deeper. Something that caught like flame in his throat.

Eddie’s lips twitched—not a smile, but the ghost of one—and his voice came low, quiet, as if speaking into the hush itself.

“You good?”

Steve swallowed, nodding though the word caught somewhere between his teeth.

He was good.

Because this—this fragile, trembling connection—was real.

And it was his .

For now.

The van had become a sanctuary of shadows, a world apart from the cracked pavement and distant streetlights beyond its doors. The haze of smoke wrapped them in a veil, muting everything but the quiet thrum of breath and the soft susurrus of fingers entwined like fragile vines.

Steve’s heart hammered in his ribs—not loud, but steady, a slow drumbeat echoing through the stillness. He could feel the warmth radiating from Eddie’s hand, a pulse that seemed to sync with his own, threading between them like invisible fire.

Their eyes met again, and in that gaze was something unspoken—something raw and trembling, like the first flicker of flame that doesn’t yet dare to roar.

Steve’s other hand shifted, hesitating just at the edge of Eddie’s thigh. The leather jacket was cool beneath his fingertips, worn and cracked like some relic pulled from another time, and yet the warmth beneath it beckoned. He moved closer, drawn by a gravity older than words.

Eddie’s breath hitched—barely—but Steve caught it, a tremor that sent a shiver up his spine.

Their faces inched nearer, the space between narrowing like the final frame of a slow-motion fall. Steve could feel the rough brush of Eddie’s curls against his cheek, wild and untamed like the storm that had settled inside him these past months.

The air grew thick, heavy with anticipation and the faint musk of smoke and leather. Steve’s pulse quickened as he reached out, fingertips brushing the line of Eddie’s jaw—light, tentative, as if afraid to break something fragile.

Eddie didn’t pull away.

Instead, his eyes fluttered closed for a moment, lips parting just enough to catch the faintest breath.

Steve leaned in, slow, deliberate, the weight of the moment pressing against his chest like a tide.

Their lips met—soft, searching, a whisper of touch that spoke louder than any words could.

It was hesitant, unhurried—an exploration, a question, a confession.

Steve’s hand moved with more certainty now, fingers curling slightly as he traced the edge of Eddie’s jaw, feeling the stubble beneath his skin like the rough edges of a secret waiting to be told.

Eddie responded in kind, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he deepened the kiss just enough to steal Steve’s breath away.

The world outside the van slipped away, leaving only the press of heat and the slow dance of lips and breath.

Steve’s eyes fluttered closed, his body relaxing into the moment, the tension melting like wax beneath a flame.

They broke apart slowly, foreheads resting together, breaths mingling in the tight space between.

“Fuck,” Steve murmured again, voice rough, husky.

Eddie chuckled softly, a sound low and warm, vibrating through the stillness like a promise.

The air inside the van thickened, heavy with the scent of smoke and something far more elusive—something fragile and urgent, like the last breath of twilight before night swallows the sky whole. Time seemed to stretch and fold in on itself, every second lingering like a drop of ink sinking slowly through water.

Steve’s breath came shallow, his chest rising and falling beneath the soft fabric of his sweater, the gentle warmth radiating from Eddie so close that the faint tremor of his pulse was almost audible, a quiet echo beneath the roar of his own thoughts.

Their lips hovered, hesitant at first—an almost imperceptible brush that sent a ripple through the silence. Steve’s fingers trembled as they traced the sharp line of Eddie’s jaw again, this time more certain, a slow caress that spoke of questions too tangled for words. The roughness of stubble beneath his touch was a stark contrast to the softness of Eddie’s parted lips, inviting, unguarded.

The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate—an exploration painted in shadows and quiet desperation. Steve tasted the faint tang of smoke and something raw, like wild earth after rain, grounding and untamed. There was no rush, no fevered urgency—just the steady pull of two worlds slowly collapsing into one another.

Eddie’s hand found its way to Steve’s neck, fingers curling lightly, anchoring him as if afraid he might slip away. Steve leaned in, surrendering to the warmth, the quiet heat of the moment folding around them like a whispered secret. His other hand slipped to rest against Eddie’s chest, feeling the steady beat of a heart that somehow echoed his own.

The van shrank until there was nothing but the press of bodies and the muted cadence of breaths mingling in the small, dim space. Every touch was a promise, every sigh a confession left unsaid.

Steve’s eyes fluttered closed, the world narrowing to the taste of Eddie’s lips, the softness of his skin, the electric charge that hummed beneath their skin like a secret waiting to be spoken aloud.

They broke apart slowly—just enough to breathe, to drink in the raw closeness—and Steve’s forehead rested against Eddie’s, breaths tangled in the fragile space between them. Neither spoke; words would shatter what they had found here.

The night pressed against the van’s thin walls, a silent witness to the fragile bloom of something dark and beautiful, something neither of them was quite ready to name but both feared to lose.

And in that lingering, fragile moment, Steve felt something fierce and quiet settle deep inside him—a truth whispered not in words, but in the soft, steady pulse of Eddie’s hand against his skin.

No promises. No declarations.

Just the slow, steady burn of being found.

Steve’s mind flickered—fragile and fractured—like a candle struggling against a sudden draft. The taste of Eddie’s lips still lingered, warm and sharp against his tongue, but a creeping weight began to settle in his chest. The quiet hum of the van, the lingering smoke, the steady beat of Eddie’s pulse beneath his fingertips—it all started to feel too close, too real.

His cheeks flamed—a sudden, fierce burn that betrayed him. The steady rhythm of his breath faltered and sped, panic prickling down his spine like ice water.

Without thinking, without a word, Steve pulled back sharply, breaking the fragile thread that had bound them together. His eyes darted away, cheeks still glowing beneath the pale streetlight filtering through the van’s windows.

“I—uh, I gotta go,” he stammered, voice rough, breath uneven.

Eddie’s brow furrowed, a flicker of concern flashing across his features. “You good, man?”

Steve forced a nod, already fumbling with the door handle. “Yeah, yeah... just—yeah.”

Before Eddie could say more, Steve was out of the van, the cool night air hitting his face like a sudden shock, grounding and alien all at once. He didn’t look back as he hurried down the alley, the echo of his footsteps swallowed by the dark.

–

Inside his too-big, too-empty house, Steve closed the door behind him and leaned against it, sliding slowly down until he was sitting on the cold hardwood floor. The room felt cavernous, the silence pressing in around him like a weight he couldn’t shake.

His hands trembled, resting on his knees, as a storm raged quietly beneath the surface of his skin. The memories of the night collided with the reality of who he was—or who he thought he was.

The battle inside him was raw and tangled: the voice of ingrained fear and shame whispering cruel lies, twisting his thoughts into knots. The parts of himself he’d always pushed down, locked away behind a veneer of bravado and old reputations, clawed their way to the surface.

He thought about the way Eddie had looked at him—the slow, soft admiring gaze—and it shook something loose deep in his chest.

But the fight wasn’t over. Not yet.

Because somewhere inside, buried beneath years of conditioning and doubt, Steve Harrington was beginning to see a truth that terrified and thrilled him in equal measure.

And it was only the beginning.

The weight in Steve’s chest refused to ease, pressing down like the relentless tide beneath the calm surface. His fingers itched for something to grasp—anything to tether him back from the whirlpool of confusion.

Slowly, almost mechanically, Steve rose from the floor and moved toward the kitchen trashcan. His hand hovered for a moment, reluctant, then plunged inside.

Fingers brushing against crumpled paper, he fished out the small, worn flyer—the one he’d scribbled Eddie’s number on, a chaotic scrawl of ink beneath his mother’s bitter words about “freaks” and “the world gone mad.”

He smoothed it carefully against his palm, the paper creased and fragile like the raw edges of what was unfolding inside him.

For a long moment, Steve just held it there, the weight of the ink, the paper, and the unspoken promise heavier than anything else in the room.

And then, without knowing why—or maybe knowing all too well—he slipped the flyer into his pocket.

Outside, the night waited, vast and unknowable.

Inside, Steve’s breath hitched, the quiet pulse of possibility stirring beneath the surface, whispering truths he wasn’t yet ready to say aloud.

And somewhere deep inside, beneath the layers of doubt and fear, a slow, fragile hope took root.

The van, the smoke, the stolen kiss—it wasn’t an end.

It was just the beginning.