Chapter Text
Dear Steve Dear Nancy
Dear Steve,
What does it feel like to slow dance in the moonlight with someone you love? Someone who sees you and won’t ever leave you alone, whatever comes?
What do you do when you’re always waiting to find love at first sight? If I’m naive, why does all the poetry say that I might? Is it right there in front of me, however you choose to name it? Love, wherever you are, you just have to claim it.
I needed someone to die for (it was you), write poems and cry for (it’s you, it’s you), and I won’t be ashamed to say…
I’d give anything for someone to say that they can’t live without me and they’ll be there forever. I’d give anything for someone to say to me that no matter how bad it gets, they won’t turn away from me.
***
“Freak!”
Eddie Munson looked up from where he sat at the misfit lunch table, grazing on a meal of pretzels, dry cereal, and… carrot sticks. Steve had insisted — eat a vegetable, Munson, for the love of god. It was some of Carver’s thugs, of course; not even the official clearing of his name would convince them of Eddie’s innocence in all that had gone down. Usually he could let it slide, ignore them, turn the other cheek, but it was hot in there that day, unnatural to be in school in the summertime, and, well, he had a certain reputation to keep.
“I know that look,” Jeff warned under his breath, watching Eddie closely. “Don’t you dare.”
“You’re gonna fall on your ass,” goaded Gareth, smirking.
“Like that would stop him,” Max said, stealing a pretzel right out of his pile, popping it in her mouth to hide her mischievous grin.
“Right you are, Mayfield,” Eddie crowed loudly, having decided. He shoved back from the table, and looked pointedly at the friends seated around him. “Now who’s gonna help me up?”
After the world had nearly ended for apparently the third — fourth? — time, after the earthquake had split the town of Hawkins in two, after the wounds had healed to scars and reconstruction had begun and the dust fully began to settle, it had been a startling reality to discover that things like finishing high school still seemed to matter to anyone. With two months left to go when all hell had broken loose, the schools had opened their doors back up to finish out the year over the summer — two months condensed into one hellish July — which meant, as it would seem, that despite natural disasters, unnatural disasters, and wounds spanning half his body, ‘86 might still be his year after all.
So, Eddie was sweating his balls off every day in the tepid, overworked air conditioning of Hawkins High, doing his best to put literal hell monsters out of his mind and focus on his classes. The only thing scarier than what he had seen in the Upside Down was the thought of failing high school for a record third time.
That, or maybe he was just afraid to see the disappointment in a pair of hazel eyes that he had grown a little too fond of in all the days and months since they had come into his life.
Pushing himself to stand, Eddie wobbled on his feet for a moment, quickly flanked by both Jeff and Dustin, making sure he didn't fall. Using their shoulders, he managed to heft himself up onto the bench and from there it was just a short step up to standing on the top of the lunch table, just like old times. Dustin handed his cane up and off Eddie went, walking across the graffitied plastic surface towards the other end where Andy and Tommy T. were standing, sneering up at him.
“Freak, huh?” Eddie asked, squinting down at the bullies, scratching his chin. “Is that really the best you’ve got?”
“Get him, Andy,” Tommy T. egged on, laughing and nudging his teammate forward to the edge of the table where Eddie stood towering over them.
“Ugly fucking freak,” Andy spat up at him. “Chrissy would have rather died than touch the likes of you.”
Eddie closed his eyes, swayed perilously for a moment as his equilibrium shifted with the critical hit. He knew what he looked like now, that wasn’t the insult they thought it was, but Chrissy … he still didn’t have armor in defense of hearing her name in conjunction with the likes of him. They could have been friends, he thought, what a waste. His heart ached, but now wasn’t the time for a spiral.
“That all you got?” Eddie sneered down at the other boy, rallying. “That’s not even in the top five best insults I’ve heard this week. Please, if you wanna try and hurt me, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
With a flourish, he spun on his heels and began to walk the table, voice rising with each word as he pontificated on the art of insulting Eddie the Freak Munson.
“For instance, you could call me a dungeon dweller,” he began theatrically as he paced. “That’s low-hanging fruit, given the name of the game I play that you are all so offended by, but it effectively conjures up a certain image.” HIs friends laughed, which only encouraged Eddie to go on. “You could say that being the king of the nerds still makes me a nerd, though I would perhaps say that I am more their jester.” At that, he bowed low before Gareth, making a kissy face until his friend pushed him back. Andy was sneering at him, shocked stupid, so Eddie continued on.
He began to saunter back to the far end of the table, planting his cane with a decisive thud as he rolled out each new insult. “You could go with the obvious, and say that your grandpa needs his cane back, though that’s not very original even for you. How about instead, you could say that I can barely walk straight — hell, it’s a miracle I can walk at all, as off-balance as I am!” At that, Eddie gestured toward his chest, indented a little on one side where the bats had taken a bite out of him. “Since, thanks to Higgins insisting that I still attend PE, broken as I am, everyone already knows the parts of me that I lost.”
“Nipple-less freak,” one of Andy’s goons shouted, and Eddie tsked at that, thoroughly unimpressed.
“Really, you still can’t do any better than that? Even with all the fodder I’m giving you? Ok, well let’s see… why not hit me where it will really hurt? You could say, why don’t I sacrifice a virgin to bring my nipple back — hell, I could just sacrifice myself, couldn’t I?” A twinge at that, but he wasn’t about to back down now. “Or go for the throat, Andy, since that’s what you’d like to do to me anyway, isn’t it?”
It hurt, of course it did. Eddie knew what he looked like, damaged goods, scarred from head to toe, ugly, pathetic and weak. No one had wanted him before, and who would want him now? But if anyone was going to hurt him, let it be himself. He wasn’t about to stop now.
“You could say that not even a deal with the devil could help this face.”
Wielding his own insults like a shield, Eddie continued to pick up steam, felt almost like his old self for a moment as he paced to and fro on his stage, dodging stray french fries and milk cartons, mouth working faster and faster, spitting out self-deprecating jokes for everyone else’s amusement. Never mind that each was a direct hit to his heart, leaving him bleeding within; he was well used to pain by now.
“You think you’re some big guy,” Andy seethed, his cheeks flaming red with embarrassment as everyone stared at the two of them. “But that’s not what I heard.”
“Care to think again, little boy?” Eddie purred, tilting his cane up in a crude mockery of a phallus.
The lunchroom lit up with laughter as all eyes were on Eddie, and then, there they were. A new pair, rich hazel, bursts of gold and green framed in thick lashes on downturned eyes. Miles away from where they stood, caught up in a dreamy haze, Eddie’s mind supplied:
I hold my breath each time I see him; I try to look away, but I can’t resist
Steve was there, right on time to drive him to his early physical therapy appointment that he had every Wednesday after lunch, learning to walk again on muscles that weren’t there. He was standing in the lunchroom, as casually as anything, former king of the school leaned up against a pillar talking to Robin and Nancy, but Steve’s eyes were only on Eddie. Across the expanse of the room, their gazes met, and Eddie could see the way Steve’s lips pulled up with amusement at Eddie’s antics, and he felt his heart stutter in his chest because, against all odds, Steve Harrington was looking at him, at him, his friend, his—
Eddie took a step without looking, the foot of his bad leg coming down perilously close to the edge. He wobbled unsteadily, but caught himself, grinning at Steve who had looked like he was one second away from rushing over to catch him. Relief was clear in those wide eyes of his, and Eddie again felt his heart stutter as he smiled back shakily at his friend, the only two people in any given room, and for that one moment, Eddie forgot where he was and what he had been doing.
Taking advantage of Eddie’s split focus, Andy roughly nudged the table with his hip. Eddie teetered, reached to plant his cane down for support but was standing too close to the edge. He fell, toppling ass over teakettle, several feet to the dirty, cracked linoleum beneath him, landing hard on his good shoulder, fuck. Tears sprang up in Eddie’s eyes, and he felt a rush of humiliation and pain and frustration that he was so weak now, so pathetic, that he only had himself to blame. What else was new?
He wouldn’t let himself cry, he wouldn’t. Across the room, Steve was getting into the faces of a couple of Andy’s friends, as Robin and the others were reaching to help Eddie up. Steve looked at him, wordlessly seeking permission to start something, take it outside, fight Eddie’s battles once again. Eddie forced a smile, shook his head imperceptibly. He wouldn’t drag anyone else in his life into danger, not again.
Above his prone form, Andy was braying with laughter, elbowing his friends to play it up all the more. With a swift kick to Eddie’s side, the boy said cruelly, “Not such a big man now, are you?” and turned to walk away.
Before he could think better of it, Eddie reached up with his cane, looping the curved handle around Andy’s ankle. He tripped, staggering as he tried to catch himself, before knocking into a girl carrying a blue plastic tray and sprawling out on the floor along with her lunch. It was sloppy joe day, nice, Eddie thought as Andy peeled himself up and all of his friends guffawed with laughter at the greasy smears of tomato and meat that now decorated the front of his name brand Polo. He lunged for Eddie, but Steve was already there, pulling Eddie to his feet and putting himself between them.
“You’re dead, freak,” Andy bellowed, voice breaking in the middle in a high-pitched squeal, eliciting more giddy laughter amongst the gathered teens. “Dead!”
It felt good, felt like he had won the battle, and Eddie let himself bask in the glow of it as Steve ushered him out of the lunchroom doors and down the hall. His shoulder hurt, and for a moment he felt light-headed, missed a step and staggered lightly into Steve; reality began to dawn again, and Eddie realized he hadn’t eaten enough, had left his lunch behind in favor of putting on a show. And while he had managed to come out ahead, he was going to pay for it later.
But then, Steve was there beside him, wrapping a supporting arm around Eddie’s waist and guiding him effortlessly out to the car. “Come on man, we’re late,” the babysitter huffed, faux annoyed. “We’ll stop by Burger King on the way, you haven’t eaten enough. You look pale.”
And just like that, he felt lighter than air, drifting along on a cloud of Steve Harrington’s attentive, gentle care. He held his breath, trying to hold it all inside, but when Steve’s head was turned, Eddie couldn’t help but pull out the notebook that he kept with him constantly to jot down a thought.
Have you ever wanted something so badly you cannot breathe?
They drove together to the physical therapist that Owens had found, someone trustworthy enough to know almost all of the truth as to what had happened to him. Eddie didn’t love the idea that he was so deeply at the mercy of various government agencies, but they had kept him alive and got him walking again, so he couldn’t complain too much. He suffered through all of the agonizing and somewhat humiliating exercises his therapist had him doing three days a week, mortifyingly out of breath and sweaty as Steve stood behind him ready to catch if Eddie lost his footing, or to lend a hand to help stretch stiff limbs. For as much as he hated it, physical therapy days were some of Eddie’s happiest days each week, because Steve was, without fail, right there with him for all of it.
After one all too brief hour, they were back in the car again and they were shooting the shit like two old friends — like Steve’s hands hadn’t just been all over him. Eddie wished he could tattoo where Steve’s fingertips rested on his hips, helping him balance as he practiced walking without the cane, never letting go even when Eddie didn’t need him. Another thought flitted through his mind, have you ever loved someone… He hoped he could keep a grasp on the words long enough to get back home again, where he could attempt to tame all of his wayward thoughts into submission and write them into something that made sense.
They pulled up in front of the patchy lawn of Eddie and Wayne’s small house — another parting gift care of the US Government — and Steve waited on the curb until he was sure that Eddie had made it inside safely, waggling his fingers in goodbye as he drove away. Eddie waited until the maroon BMW was safely out of sight before limping back onto the front porch, plunking himself down on the old concrete steps with a pack of cigarettes and his notebook.
He flipped the little book open to where he had left off, furiously scribbling out his thoughts before placing it down on his lap with a sigh. Eddie tapped a cigarette from his pack and lit it, allowing the smoke to curl and warm his lungs and he relaxed for the first time that day, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. Steve didn’t like it when he smoked, and he was probably right — after all that work they did keeping him alive in the face of gushing wounds and broken ribs and a punctured lung, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing, but then again, neither was letting himself believe that he could ever have a chance with someone like Steve. Eddie took another drag, held it, and began to scribble anew.
Have you ever wanted something
so badly you cannot breathe?
Have you ever loved someone madly?
I hold my breath each time I see him
I try to look away, but I can’t resist
He’s gonna laugh at the one that brings him love
Like this
The pencil fell from his trembling fingers, and Eddie sighed, hating his weak body, hating the scars and the stiffness and the awkwardness that comprised Eddie Munson 2.0. Even if he weren’t dreaming the impossible dream, even if Steve weren’t straight, even if, even if … who could love Eddie, like this?
Footsteps interrupted his wallowing, and Eddie looked up to meet the slightly cloudy eyes of his neighbor, Max Mayfield. She was holding out his pencil to him with a smirk, and Eddie took it, stubbing out the cigarette quickly in the ashtray he and Wayne kept on the porch. Her healing body was too precious to destroy with smoke, and besides, the kid would rat him out to Steve anyway. He scooted over, making space for her to sit beside him on the stoop, and they both stared out at the quiet neighborhood street, lost in their own thoughts.
After a while, he felt her small elbow prodding into his side, and Eddie turned to give her his full attention.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’ve got no secrets from you, Red,” Eddie replied confidently. “Shoot.”
“Are you in love with Steve?”
Eddie felt his stomach simultaneously drop and swoop; heat was crawling up his neck and a cold sweat had begun to roll down his spine all at the same time.
“W-what gives you that idea?”
“Oh please. I might have been almost blinded, but even I can see the way you blush as you furtively scribble in that notebook of yours. What does that say? ‘Love someone madly’?” Eddie squawked in protest, holding the thing protectively against his chest and away from her prying eyes. Max laughed. “Don’t get huffy, I thought we didn’t have any secrets?” she teased.
“Am I huffy?” he squeaked and immediately cringed internally. He had got to get his voice under control.
“No, but you’re definitely acting weird, even for you.”
“Not a secret, Mayfield, it’s just… some things are private.”
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, hoping she’d buy it. She looked wildly unimpressed.
“I’m not asking for any disgusting details, Munson, just trying to be a good friend,” Max stated matter-of-factly. “If you want someone to talk to about it, that’s cool. If you want to keep sitting over here writing love poems that no one will see and blasting slow jams when you think no one can hear, that’s cool too.”
Fuck. Brutal.
“Have you ever wanted something so badly you could not breathe, Red?” Eddie asked, suddenly longing for understanding.
“No,” Max quipped back, a smile pulling at her lips. “The only person I wanted was Lucas, and I got him, so I can’t say that I have.” She shot him a wicked smirk, but it didn’t meet her eyes. There in the slightly murky depths of her blue, Eddie could see a flicker of doubt, of hurt pride, and he knew better than anyone how it felt to fear being a burden to the one you loved the most.
“Fine,” he acquiesced, pushing himself to standing and stretching his legs, pacing a short distance away from her as he lit another cigarette, hoping it would hide the shaking of his hands. “Fine, no secrets, Mayfield, not between us. I admit it, here before god and the inhabitants of Regal Drive, and the entire squirrel population of Buckingham Estates. I, Edward Alan Munson, am in love with Steve Big Boy Harrington. Are you happy now?”
Max clapped her hands gleefully as she cackled, and Eddie flicked the cigarette away, collapsing back down onto the steps to bury his face in his hands. “It’s James. Steven James Harrington. Are you happy now?” she asked.
Was he? Did putting it out there make him feel any better? He didn’t think so, not when it was impossible.
“He’s perfect,” Eddie bemoaned.
“Eh, he’s a little bitchy,” Max countered.
“But perfectly so!”
“He’s also really full of himself,” she argued. “Have you seen how long he takes getting ready?”
“Have you seen how he looks when he’s done?” Eddie asked incredulously. She swatted him, pretending to gag.
“That hair!”
“That hair,” Eddie agreed dreamily, ignoring her entirely dubious look. “Even his imperfections are perfect, Red — shit, I need to write that down.” He snatched up his notepad to add a new scribble to the page. Max hummed thoughtfully in consideration.
“Does he know?” she asked.
“What, that he’s perfect? How could he not?”
“No,” Max laughed. “Does he know that you’re in love with him?”
Eddie fell silent for a moment, buying time as he carefully formulated his answer. A car was making its way down their street, the same color as Max’s mother’s car. He watched for a moment as she perked up seeing it approach, then hid her disappointment when it continued past. Another night when Susan wouldn’t be home, Eddie thought to himself grimly, making a mental note to make extra for dinner to feed three mouths instead of two. When he looked back, Max was sitting there watching him expectantly. Eddie sighed.
“No,” he confessed, looking down at his feet. “Could you imagine? If I told him how I felt, he’d go running for the hills. No, Red, it’s better this way.”
“Better for who? I’m legally blind and even I can see the way you two look at each other!” She said loudly, throwing her hands in the air with exasperation. “You clearly don’t think very highly of Steve.”
“What?” Eddie gasped, appalled. “Not think highly… Steve is like the sunshine! The giver of warmth, the bringer of life! And I’m the moon — small and cold, cratered, misshapen. I only glow because of his light.”
“You wanna write that down?” Max said dryly.
“Actually, I do,” Eddie confessed, jotting the words if I’m the moon, then he’s my star into his notebook. She was still frowning at him when he looked up again.
“Steve saved your life, you’re best friends,” she argued. “You don’t think he can see past your scars to love you for who you are? You’ve fought demons, Eddie, you stood up to those bullies today, you’re braver than you give yourself credit for. I just want you to be happy.”
His heart ached for her, his fierce friend, the little sister he never had. Eddie wrapped an arm around her and drew her close as they sat huddled there on the porch, watching the sun go down. “It’s not that simple, Red,” Eddie sighed. “For lots of reasons, and to confess is to shatter the beautiful dream. It’s not worth losing him over. I’ll move on in time, but for now… I can continue to love him here,” he patted his notepad, and she made a tiny, mournful noise. “It’s honestly more than I could have hoped for.”
Before she could protest, a phone rang inside, and they both startled hard where they sat — never having quite gotten past their hypervigilance after everything. Ruffling her hair, Eddie stood on wobbly legs and made his way carefully inside to the kitchen phone, watching through the screen door as Max picked up his notebook and began flipping through it. Little snoop; god he hoped there wasn’t anything weird in there.
“Y’llo,” Eddie greeted through a yawn. It was getting late, and he needed to start dinner.
“Eds?” came a voice that he would recognize anywhere. His heart skipped a beat, and Eddie stood at full alertness, mind scanning for anything wrong in the tone of Steve’s voice. Hadn’t they just been together not even an hour earlier? Why was Steve calling him now?
“What is it, what’s wrong?” he rushed out. On the other end, Steve laughed, the sound low and rich. It warmed him through, comforted him, hot chocolate in his veins.
“Stand down, nothing’s wrong,” Steve said; he was smiling, Eddie could hear it in his voice. “I, uh. I was hoping we could talk.”
“We… are talking, Steve,” Eddie said cautiously. Another laugh on the other end of the line, another warm shiver rolling through Eddie’s body. Max was watching him through the doorway now, and Eddie scowled at her, turning toward the wall for a little more privacy.
“Yeah, I know, I just thought that maybe we could, like… hang out. Say, tomorrow, after school.”
What?
“But tomorrow’s Thursday,” Eddie stated dumbly. That laugh again.
“You turn into a pumpkin on Thursdays?” Steve quipped.
“That’s midnights, not Thurs—you know what, never mind,” he was rambling, needed to get back on track. “We just never hang out on Thursdays, Steve. I have physical therapy on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You’re usually with Robin on the other days, or the kids.”
“I know,” Steve huffed, and did he sound nervous? “I just had something I wanted to ask you. Something special. Thought it might be nice if we got something to eat, maybe grabbed some shakes, went out to the quarry. Just you and me? What do you say?”
Shit, that sounded like…
That sounded like a date. Like the motherfucking Harrington special. Eddie could feel his heartbeat pick up and his palms begin to sweat where he was holding onto the phone receiver so tightly.
“Well, it’s pretty last minute, I’ll have to check my busy schedule,” he answered, hoping he sounded cool. “I had big plans to get high and try for the third time to memorize the periodic table, but I suppose I can squeeze you in.”
“Great,” Steve said, sounding pleased, and Eddie could picture it, that smile pulled even wider across his perfect, golden face. “Pick you up after class?”
“I’ll be there,” Eddie breathed, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth, but there he was, daring to hope. “It’s a date.”
“Later, Eds,” Steve whispered, followed by a soft click and the dial tone. Moving on autopilot, Eddie hung the phone back up in its cradle and turned slowly to where Max was now standing in front of him, watching him closely.
“Eddie?” She asked, eyes wide. “Did you say?”
“He—he wants to take me to dinner tomorrow night,” Eddie began, hardly believing the words coming out of his own mouth. “He said he has something he wants to ask me.”
She stumbled forward, grasping at Eddie’s arms at first, he thought, to steady herself, but then he realized it was because, against her more bristly instincts, she wanted to hug him, but wasn't quite sure what to do with her arms. He moved to link their hands instead and they stood staring at each other for a moment, twin smiles growing wide across their faces.
“Eddie,” she began.
“Don’t say it,” he warned, but joy was rising up inside of him, unable to stay buried.
“That sounds like a date, Eddie,” she squealed, and he whooped loudly, bubbly as, well. As a 15 year old girl.
“A date!” he echoed, and the two of them began to shriek, hands still clasped between them, jumping in a circle as jubilantly as their two broken bodies could do. After several moments of this, they broke apart and stared at each other for a moment, before she impulsively lunged forward again, throwing her gangly arms around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his shoulder.
“You deserve good things, Eddie,” Max whispered. He would be damned if he cried.
“Celebratory BLTs?” Eddie asked, voice gruff. He cleared his throat when she pulled back, and turned toward the kitchen to start dinner.
“Only if I get to pick what we watch,” Max agreed, moving toward the plush, new-to-them couch where she slept more nights than not. Eddie’s heart, already full, grew yet another size, grateful that for once she wouldn’t put up a fight.
They ate together merrily, laughing like two excited children as they discussed at length Steve’s best features (Eddie), and what he should wear to really make the most of his date (Max). After the plates were clear, the dishes done, and Wayne’s plate left in the oven to keep warm, Max pulled out the soft, old quilt and the pillows kept just for her in the hallway closet and settled in for the night, the TV on low providing the light and the background noise she needed to sleep.
Ruffling her hair once more as she swatted him sleepily away, Eddie headed back towards his bedroom with his notepad, knowing that he himself wouldn’t be able to sleep at all that night. His body hurt, muscles sore and shoulder screaming from where he had landed hard on it in the lunchroom. Eddie tossed back a few ibuprofen, chasing it with a stale glass of water left on his nightstand; he was well used to pain by now. He cracked the window, smoking a cigarette out of it as he studied the moon, made beautiful in its reflection of the sun’s glow. With a small sigh, he settled back for yet another restless night, and wrote yet another poem to Steve.