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nicememerino · 3 months

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He talks, I listen (He's in the shower and his skin glistens)

Rated M. Words 4.8k.

Behold. The sequel to Metal Church, Steve's POV. Read on Ao3 here

Steve lives in a trailer. It’s one of the few that live outside the limits of Forest Hills Trailer Park.

A double wide cream beast with brown trimming whose interior consists of alternating striped floral wallpaper and pine wood panelling. It was perched on the edge of a puddle masquerading as a lake.

Cop Lake, if you wanted to get local about it. It was well known that Hopper lived there, and could be frequently seen on the porch popping pills to cure his ever present hangover.

The tail end of 1983 saw him moving in, body aching and face uncomfortably numb while Hopper's hand anchored him to the ground. He was a little under two months into being eighteen, concussed for the second time in a month. He was freshly away from his parents.

"I own the place outright," Hopper had said as he walked him up the steps and into the bowels of his new home. "I got a cabin a little ways from here and don't need this place anymore so it's yours for however long you want it. The hot water can be touchy and the pressure in the shower is piss poor, but it's your own space and you won't need to watch your back here."

Hopper had dropped the keys into his hand, told him he'd be by in the next couple of days with his stuff.

And that, well. That was that.

Steve had handed Hopper a list of items in the Harrington house that he'd bought and when Hopper returned, he'd had a smirk and items that definitely weren't on the list.

The entire stereo system was a nice touch.

It became a mission of his, transforming his new space from the interior of a grieving apathetic forty something year old to something that reflected his interests. That, okay that sounded harsh towards Hopper but the guy was grieving and he was apathetic to his personal surroundings. He was also the only fucking cop in the county who did anything about his dad, so no matter what he thinks of his decorating choices, he’s officially the only adult in this town he fucking trusts.

Guess it pays to have moved from the city and have no knowledge of the corrupt nature Harrington money breeds. Or. Well, it didn't breed, in Hopper's case.

Slowly, he filled the space with colour and warmth. Floor lamps to replace the mind searing top lights, bright vases from the thrift stores in Bloomington slowly filled with plants, which then slowly multiplied until his porch was screened in by greenery and the living room was more leaf than couch. Music and cinema posters, art prints, photos that were both framed and tacked to walls. New blankets and pillows and rugs.

Soft, bright, inviting things that for so long Steve wasn't allowed to have when he lived in his parents house.

(Never to be mistaken for a home.)

Things scattered around that served their purpose in reminding him that Steve was a three dimensional person, not a cutout of his father's ideologies. It all starred in the most important role possible, to demonstrate his enjoyment of things, of life. He made the trailer into a space that felt more of a home than the house he’d lived in for the first seventeen years of his life.

Sometimes when it's late at night, Steve thinks about the past, who he was, who he was perceived to be. Who his friends were and what could have been.

When the sweat is cooling in the hollow of his throat, and the tips of his fingers are buzzing, breath shuddering from yet another nightmare. When the grey black of his bedroom moves like static, Steve wonders what would have happened if he had gone to Tommy the first time all the Upside Down shit happened.

When he lays in the dark, yearning for a familiarity of years that had been lost because of shitty personalities swayed by public perception.

Would he still be dealing with the Upside Down if after that first time, after having Nancy pull back the safety and hold a gun to his face and fighting a flower headed nightmare, he'd gone to Tommy and looked at him the same way he had for ten years whenever he needed a hug. Told him everything that had happened, knowing that Tommy would scoff in disbelief but still listen to everything.

Going to Tommy, having that single touchstone to someone outside of all that shit, would mean he probably wouldn't have gotten back together with Nancy.

Which means no heartbreak in Tina's bathroom, no going to Nancy's only to be waysided by Dustin. No Dart, no junkyard, no demodogs, no fucking tunnels. No fight with Billy Hargrove because he would never have been at the Byers house.

No new family in Mrs Henderson and Dustin, Max and Robin.

Breathing in slowly, Steve decides that all the shit he's earned from associating with the Upside Down, the nightmares and insomnia, the blurred vision in his left eye and chronic migraines, the paranoia of tight spaces, of hospitals and doctors, of the woods behind his house. It was worth it all to have those fucking kids in his life, to finally feel like a being of considered worth rather than an object for his mother to pick up off the shelf and peddle to coworkers and society when she finally shows her face at home.

Sitting in the middle of his bed, holding his knees, Steve can't lie to himself though, can't say he doesn't wish he had someone familiar he could lean on in the depths of night.

Steve didn't fucking mean it like that though.

And then it kept happening like that.

Healing a torn up body was one of the worst aftermath things Steve has had to live through, worse than growing back his nails and getting fitted for his plate of false teeth. You don't realise how much movement is torso dominant until you're stitched back together all over. His entire body at this point was scarred; road rash and bites, claws and strangulation, fists and plates.

At least he's not still in a hospital bed.

"At least you still got your nipple, man."

Steve snorted and leaned back in the hard and slightly too small chair. "This is true. Would be a shame if I spent the money to get them pierced only to lose one of them."

Eddie nodded, eyes drifting down to look at chest and lingered there as if he enjoyed the view of his Springsteen tour shirt. "A damn shame indeed. Good thing both those pretties are still there."

"You looking at my nipples, Eddie?"

"They were out and about, what did you want me to do look at trees all night? There's a reason I gave you the vest."

"My modesty right? My nipples were too much for your delicate sensibilities huh. I get it. It's hard to look away when they're your first pair."

"Fuck you, they were not."

"It's okay. I won't tell the guys mine were your first set."

"Shut up, I've seen plenty of nipples in my lifetime."

"The mirror doesn't count, rockstar. But I do think it's a shame you don't have a matched set anymore. Even if your scar is going to cool when it's all healed."

Becoming close to Eddie Munson wasn't at all what he expected to happen after a week in hell, but he wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

It doesn't take long for the obsession to start. It's minor, manageable, measly, many more ‘m’ words he couldn't think of but knew existed that explained that this feeling was absolutely normal and not at all getting out of hand. But he couldn't help it. Not when Eddie was incredible and genuine and himself all the time.

There were so many little things he did that Steve couldn't help but fixate on every time he sees, or even thinks about them.

Like.

Okay. Eddie has this terrible habit of hiding his face away.

He does it when he’s happy, when he’s excited, nervous, embarrassed, shy.

He’ll be enthusiastic and vibrant and then suddenly turn to the side as if to hide how wide his smile is, how bright his eyes glow when he’s in the throws of a story. He’ll lean into his hand to hide the sweet curl of a smile, will pull his hair forward and hide behind it whenever anyone even hints about how they remember who he is, acknowledge his existence beyond the D&D metalhead who was targeted by their fucking shithole town.

How anyone could ever forget though, when Eddie Munson commands the attention of a room, heads turning to follow as their benevolent king as he walls and gestures, royal decrees and commentary dripping from his plush lips at every moment. The very idea of someone being able to look upon Eddie, see his elegant hands gesture and wave so expansively you could be forgiven for imagining it was because his hands were weighted down by those thick banded rings, and then forget him as soon as he leaves their sight– it truly didn't compute with Steve.

(God the lengths Steve will go to if just for the possibility that it would make Eddie flush that pretty pink and get all shy behind his hair.)

There's probably a reason behind it, something learned that isn't easily shaken. Something so deeply ingrained that it’s become an unconscious act.

The same way Steve stopped voicing all his questions in ninth grade because he was sick of everyone looking at him like he was totally brain dead and his teachers had started using him as an example of what to not do. He never understood what the issue was, because in middle school Mr Clarke had taught them that every question was worth asking in the journey to knowledge, no matter how simple or out of field.

The bell had rung and everyone else had left, all notions of science forgotten as soon as they'd passed through the doorway towards recess. Which was good, because Steve had asked a lot of questions and Tommy and some of the other boys had grumbled a lot. He'd stayed back, slowly packing away his pencils, to put more distance between him and his friends' memories of his stupid questions.

Mr Clarke had crouched beside his desk, after wiping down the board, his moustache moving up as he smiled. “Steve, your questions are a demonstration that you're engaging with the subject and have your own method of coming to the right conclusion. Everyone works things out in their own unique way. Never be afraid to ask when you don't understand something, for how would you learn if you do not seek the answers? Besides, most of the time, when you ask a question, one of the others might have been wondering the same thing. You were just the one brave enough to ask the question to lead you on in the voyage to knowledge.”

Steve had figured it had to be the same in high school, all questions being valid and showing his honest attempt at grasping what was being discussed in class, only to be met with sighs and questions about why he was never paying attention. As if he didn’t have countless notes. As if he didn’t go home looking at his homework and textbooks and assigning novels that he couldn’t understand, that made him cry from frustration which made the letters swim around more than usual and cry harder because now he had no chance.

It was something he's only now starting to approach, tentatively asking questions and voicing his thoughts, because for once he has people who will answer his questions. Sure, it's a shaky roll of the dice sometimes when Henderson wants to answer him helpfully and give him a run-down of something, or be a little bitch with his answers.

Robin though, Robin is the platonic love of his life, she listens to him - his winding thought trains that bounced around randomly about shit that she wasn’t into, she listens to it all, his thoughts and his questions, responds with rapid sentences answering every question in consecutive order to how he asked them, sometimes it feels like her words tumble over each other in the air with how fast she talks. She watches him as she talks and when he doesn’t understand something, his eyebrows scrunching together and his mouth scrunching with them, she rolls it back and tries to restructure everything for him until he does.

Eddie though.

God.

Eddie looks at him and it's like for the first time someone is paying attention to what he is below the surface. When he talks to Eddie and sees him actively listening, nodding and humming and watching with those eyes, something behind his ribs tightens and drops, radiating a warmth he just doesn't know what to do with.

Eddie just–

He listens.

And while he does, he hides his face. His hand with those long ringed fingers covering his cheek and his mouth and stretching over the tip of his nose. Pulling and holding his hair. He leans on to his palm and looks up at him with those pretty, pretty brown eyes that are always so fucking shiny. Glint at him like they're backlit by stars.

Ringed fingers gripped at the hair Steve ached to touch constantly. Eddie was pacing across the small living room of Steve’s trailer, ranting about his chances of graduating once again being in the shitter. The next pivot past his coffee table saw Eddie dropping down to sit, full weight in the motion. Steve tried real fucking hard to not feel jealous of his own furniture when his (love– sunflower– sweetheart– light of his life– moon–) friend was stressed and covering his face to muffle, badly, a scream.

"I was in class with you man, how did you do it? Because I'm drowning, I barely have my nose out to breathe, and I always thought you were in the same boat as me."

Steve thought back to high school, to the incomprehensible letters and texts that would float in his brain for an hour before leaving behind only chemtrails of interesting sounding words or sentences. The way he'd move through the bottleneck of student crowded halls to lean beside the dumpsters by the back parking lot at lunch and suck down cigarettes to disrupt the buzzing in his hands and chest that always came when he was nervous or overwhelmed. Multiple times a week the side door would open and different teachers would step out already shaking out their own pack of smokes only to look up and freeze at the sight of him.

Steve leaned back into the couch.

"I'd smoke by the dumpsters with my teachers and talk about class."

He'd stand there, finding shapes in the exhaled clouds as a lighter passed back and forth and he asked all the questions he was too nervous to voice during class. Because it wasn't middle school anymore, and the voyage of curiosity had run aground on the jagged rocks of ninth grade.

He wasn't the smartest, answers took longer to meet his aching grasp, connections misfiring often from misread and misunderstood textbooks. And if there was one thing Steve didn't want to hear, it was something being repeated in his classmates that he already heard at home.

"I think they were a little more lenient with me because we'd discuss it during those breaks. I had a chance to ask my questions and they could see I was trying to grasp the shit we'd gone over, I could verbalise my understanding. I just couldn't figure how to put it in writing, which is what they fuckin’ graded."

Eddie pulled away from his hands and blinked at him slowly. "You smoked. With our teachers."

"Yeah." Steve shrugged. "There's only so many times they can say to cut it out before they just give in to the knowledge that I would still be smoking, it'd just be somewhere else."

"Are you telling me I should smoke with Ms O'Donnell and maybe I'll be able to pass this year?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know man, I don't remember her coming out to smoke. But if you see the teachers, just like, start asking questions, I don't know.”

Eddie's too-pretty eyes dug out a piece of his soul with nothing but their weight. "This is seriously how you graduated?"

"I mean, yeah. Mostly. The only classes I understood were the maths ones and biology." Eddie's face smoothed into a smirk and he couldn't help but shiver. "Not like that, dude. I just liked learning about how bodies and lifeforms function. Like the bug thing I went through as a kid."

"You went through–" Eddie blinked. "What is a bug thing?"

"You know, like. Life cycles of wasps from pupae to insect, the different beetles and why some develop long range defence attacks and some don't. Bug thing. You didn't go through that? It like, it ties in perfectly with the dinosaur, dragon and Egypt thing."

Steve had watched Eddie fall back into the couch and was now pinned in place, much like the framed rhinoceros beetle Dustin gifted him last year that hung above his key rack, by his amused smile.

"Full of surprises aren't you, big boy."

God Steve was so screwed. He could feel how hot his cheeks just got.

Redirect, redirect, redirect.

“Anyway. Half the time it was our science teacher Mr Schecter out there, but you know him. He takes over half the subjects when the other teachers can't come in. I swear the guy knows more about the subject matter than they do most of the time. They talk to each other to bitch about us, might as well show them we're trying in our own ways."

Eddie blinked his big, stressed out eyes at him. "Mr Schecter. The guy who for a semester taught Home Ec, Chemistry and for some godforsaken reason, P.E., would help me with this."

Steve shrugged and slid further down into his cushion, absolutely not for the reason that it caused his knees to slide against Eddie's.

"Man likes to teach and he knows a lot. He also stress-smokes like I do, so half the time I was walking outside, he'd either be a minute behind me or already out there."

"I'm trying to wrap my head around you knowing so much about our teachers' scandalous habits."

Steve snorted, opening his eyes to grin at Eddie. "When I couldn't find any of our teachers, after school I'd go down to the middle and hit up Mr Clarke because that man knows a lot and knows how to explain it well. I'd also sometimes find him smelling mighty familiar. If you catch my drift.”

He doesn’t know when his filter for not saying everything that lived inside his mind wore away, when the idea of finally speaking the truth into existence became a thing. Maybe after the fifth conversation with Robin, where she quite hypocritically pushed him towards making that move with Eddie because it was a sure thing.

“Oh so you’re quoting me to me now, are you? That’s rich, Robin. How’s your thing with Vickie going?”

Robin groaned and leaned back, knocking over the fresh stack of tapes with her flailing elbows. “It’s different for me, you know that. But with Eddie? Come on, the guy walks around bowing to ladies and saying flattery works on me. One of his favourite bands is Judas Priest, Steve. You’ve seen the posters. You and I know that lead singer is in the leather scene, we’d be fucking blind to not see that. Eddie walks around flagging, for fuck’s sake.”

“I get that, I know that guy is in the leather scene. Eddie has a magazine with his picture in it where he’s wearing like, seven studded belts. And we can speculate all you want, but I also don’t think Eddie knows he is flagging, or what flagging even is, because I’ve alluded to that shit and he just goes all confused big eyes on me, and then I just get lost because he has pretty eyes.”

Somewhere around the twelfth time they circled around their victorian era longing and sighing over glimpsed ankles, they came to a compromise.

“He was putting on his jacket and as he did, it pulled his shirt up and I– he has little dimples on his back and between those and the way his bullet belt falls across his hips, I couldn’t look away. He turned around and asked me if I was good because I kind of zoned out for a minute thinking about using the belt as a hand hold and yanking him closer.”

“Great, you’re looking at his back and I was looking at her collar bones and thinking they’d look so pretty with hickies.” Robin pushed away from her side of the counter to land at his side, shoulder to shoulder. “God, we’re still pathetic. I think we should just,” she scrunches her face and sighs, “we should just go for it. Fuck it. I have Fast Times 53 minutes, 8 seconds; and you have Judas Priest and flagging. This is the closest we’re going to get to landing our devious queer romances in this tiny town. The worst that can happen is we play it off as a dare.”

“So we go for it, full overt operations with our babes, dazzle them with our combined personality and pray it works? And then move to a city when you graduate on the off chance all this falls through?”

There was never a situation in which Steve would be done spending time with Eddie, and the night everyone had gotten together to celebrate his graduation, he made sure Eddie knew how proud of him Steve was, that he never gave up. Also that he took his, admittedly, weak advice. “Smoking with the teachers helped, huh?”

Robin bumped their shoulders together before she slumped down, her cheek pressing into the uncomfortable seam of his work vest. “Sounds like a plan, if we’ve ever had one.”

Eddie grinned, “I can’t believe it did, man. Mr Schecter is a surprisingly cool dude, he explained so much shit to me.”

“I’m glad.”

“You helped too, you know?” Eddie moved in, the heat he radiated through his open leather jacket, and just in general, was like a warm line down Steve’s side. “You’re the one who explained all that maths in ways I would understand. Gave me those scenarios for english that made sense. Too bad I was already passing biology though huh, big boy. Would have liked to see what demonstration you would have worked out for me there.”

Internally, Steve was crouching down and screaming into his hands. Externally, his fingers reached out to loop through the chain hanging from Eddie’s belt and tugged ever so softly.

“I told you, it’s not that kind of biology. Those demonstrations are saved for a rainy day.”

Eddie swayed impossibly closer. “Oh yeah? What would I have to do to unlock just prestigious lessons from you, sweetheart.”

Shit he didn’t think this far ahead. What have they talked about recently that he could relate this to? Think, think thi– Bingo.

He smiled, “I’m sure you could think of something. I heard your campaign just picked a paladin and you’re giving him and one of your favourite NPCs, how did Dustin describe it? Tension?”

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to watch Eddie flush that pretty pink every day for the rest of his life.

Somehow, that wasn’t the moment that pushed them together. Eddie was remarkably stubborn when it came to his moves.

They would dance together at every moment, Steve setting something up, a little hidden gem for him to find, and Eddie would find it and go with it, but move no further.

Steve would sit on the couch and have his arm on the couch behind Eddie, and Eddie would lean in, press their legs together.

He would use the magnets Max bought him for his birthday to write the filthiest poems he could think of, and come back after dropping Eddie home safe and sound to Wayne, to find more added on. That time, he had to take matters in hand for a while because the fucking imagery Eddie painted behind his eyes with those lines was…exquiste.

His favourite activity to do during the pursuit of (his love– baby– starlight– good boy–) Eddie was to lay back on the tangled mess of covers and pillows, and listen to Eddie talk. There was something about Eddie’s voice that just sunk deep under his skin and curled through his bones in a satisfying way that left him aching for more. When he got deep into a monologue, excited with everything he was saying and the fact that Steve would never bear to look away, Eddie would jump up and move his whole body as he talked. Hands flying about, fingers pulling shapes to suit the topic, hair cutting behind him as he spun around.

Those days, Steve would learn about what Eddie liked about music, who his favourite are and for what reason; he would learn what was going to happen in the next session of both D&D campaigns Eddie was running, one with all of Hellfire and Erica, the second with just his boys, because he liked that he could go harder and a little more raunchy with them. When the stream of consciousness would trickle to an end, and he saw that Steve was comfy and in no rush to leave, Eddie would walk over and crawl onto the bed to lay beside him, would reach out for whatever book they were on and begin to read aloud in that deep, slow voice he no doubt practised.

All these perfect moments, and it wasn’t enough to have Eddie close the distance. Could he have closed it, pushed the moment to that oh so perfect conclusion he was aiming for?

Sure.

But a small part of him had been seeing if Eddie ever would, and came to the conclusion that Eddie would need an explicit, this is happening, no doubts about it, please do me now moment.

So he made the tapes.

He took three hours out his day to make the perfect compilations, and had a little too much fun recording a tasting sample for Eddie, so much fun he’d almost forgotten to hit record.

He took to the pictures, labelled the tape inserts, delivered the instructions, and revelled in that pretty pink flush that rose from calling Eddie a good boy.

And then three hours later, when Eddie ran up the stairs to his trailer, he yanked him inside. He got to explore just how much of that black bandana Eddie knew about and show him those more in depth biology lessons. Eddie’s little back dimples looked beautiful when his back arched, the little whines settled in his chest so perfectly when he would whisper all those names he’d held tight behind his lips for so long, his voice so pretty when he moaned. When he dripped his pleasure, body trembling gently as they both relaxed into the bed, breathing heavy and warm into each other's shoulder.

Seeing Eddie in his space, bathed in the soft warmth of his floor lamps, skin glistening from his shower, Steve knew that it was a view he wanted to have the pleasure of seeing for the rest of his life.

Robin looked at him from across their breakfast, smug. “The tapes worked huh?”

Steve nodded as he swallowed his coffee, taking in the dark pink spots peeking out from the collar of her Stacey Q t-shirt, mostly obscured by her leather jacket. “Kiss of the Spider Woman worked huh?”

She grinned. “It did. I can’t believe the movie you guessed would fit the movie night would do it.”

“It has the silhouette of a naked lady on the front, of course it would do it.”

“I guess we aren’t as pathetic as we thought.”

He bobbed his head, because while they weren't pathetic in the sense that they finally got their person, they undoubtedly were still pretty pathetic and stupid smitten when it came to them because he just couldn't hold it in any more. "Holy shit, he smells like heaven, and oh my god, I like him so much."

Robin snorted into her juice and thunked her glass down, choking on her laughter. "He does not. He smells like cigarettes, leather and whatever cologne he bought on a whim. Vickie is the one who smells like heaven."

"She smells like baby powder and that floral hand cream you bought her."

"Exactly! Heaven!"

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nicememerino · 3 months

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"Valentines Day is a capitalistic scam made to sell chocolate and flowers!" Eddie Munson bellowed, leaping to the top of a cafeteria table not even ten minutes into lunch.

"Do you think he was born like this, or just dropped on his head as a baby?" Heather asked, rolling her eyes as the super senior began waving his arms around, getting way too into his annual “anti-valentines day” rant.

Steve, who'd tuned out the dramatics in favor of trying to figure out how he could ditch school, only heard her because she’d begun running her foot up his leg.

Directly in front of Patrick.

As if half the school didn’t know he planned on asking her out after school.

Long over being a part of these kinds of games, Steve kicked out, forcing Heather’s leg off his.

He did it harder than he intended and immediately winced, as if he hadn’t meant to do it at all. Aimed a sad little look at her, softening his eyes in the way he knew ladies loved while murmuring a quiet "sorry.”

A pudding cup was offered as an additional apology--which Heather, thankfully, accepted.

Crisis averted, Steve used the movement of handing the cup over to get his legs well out of Heather's range. He had other things to think about today, and getting drawn into whatever drama Heather was trying to brew wasn’t on the list.

Particularly given the basketball team as a unit had started snubbing him out.

"Newsflash ladies! Your man isn't taking you to some shitty restaurant because he loves you, he's doing it because he hopes you'll give it to him in your car!" Munson continued, voice growing impossibly louder.

A crude gesture followed, involving hip thrusts and hand jabs.

Several of the cheerleaders shot him disgusted looks as he did it.

"Definitely dropped on his head." Carol said, glaring at Munson as his little group of freaks and geeks cheered him. "More than once."

Steve hummed an agreement, more on automatic than from actually listening. He knew how to look like he was paying attention, even if his head was deep in possible escape plans.

If he dipped at the last minute to the bathroom on the way to fifth period, Tommy wouldn't have time to stop him and he could make a break for his car…

That just left making up a plausible enough excuse as to why thee Steve Harrington, whose single status was the current hot topic of the school, left school early on Valentines Day.

("Candy, sex, the overwhelming affection of all the ladies." Tommy drawled out that morning, practically preening. "Valentine's Day is the best holiday man. Just look at all this!"

He waved a hand at his locker, which was absolutely covered in paper hearts.

"The rally squad put hearts on the lockers of everyone on the basketball team, Tommy." Carol argued, rolling her eyes. "Steve’s is practically buried in them.”

Tommy opened his mouth to respond, no doubt with something else teasing and rude, but Carol’s elbow caught him in the gut first.

“If you keep acting like this you're not getting any sex." She warned.

"Aww baby, don't be like that. You know you're the only one for me." Tommy teased, with a wink that prompted Carol to smack him on the shoulder.

Laughing, he added: "Besides we can't fight or we'll miss our favorite game. Which poor gal thinks this year is the year Steve will take her out on a date!"

Carol allowed Tommy to put an arm over her shoulder, the two of them turning knowing grins on their friend as a singular unit.

Even if Steve hadn’t felt like their friend in a hot minute.

Not in the way he used to.

"I do love watching them stutter through their little confessions.” Carol admitted, like this wasn’t something they’d loved doing since middle school. “I wonder if anyone will ever top Cindy Komer."

Steve almost wasn't fast enough to cover his wince--that particular incident had been painful for him and Cindy.

Steve still had no idea what he'd said to make the then-freshman cry.

He thought he'd been nice about turning her down, but judging by Carol constantly quoting what he'd said, Steve had a feeling he'd accidentally been an asshole again.

Not that anyone ever thought it was accidental.

“Steve? Hel~lo? Are you listening?” Carol said, snapping to get his attention and God did Steve hate that.

Never realized just how much until Nancy but after she’d pointed out that Carol treated him and Tommy both like her dogs, well.

It was hard not to notice--and be a bit resentful.

“God you keep doing this, you’re turning into such a space case.” Carol continued, the edge back in her voice. The same one she’d been using for a while, like Steve was on her last nerve. “Please tell me you’re not still mooning over Nancy fucking Wheeler.”

“No.” He snapped, only to know instantly that was the wrong move, and try to fix it before Carol blew up. “No--I’ve just already had to fend someone off today. Like first thing--I was barely out of my car.”

There, that should keep Carol and Tommy both off his back for being “angry” and it wasn’t even a lie. He really had been asked out earlier, though the girl had been gracious about his rejection.

Of course, this kind of instant redirection came with a price--and in this case, it was being absolutely hounded for more information.

“Oh shit who!? Was it that Buckley girl?” Carol perked up immediately, like a hunting dog scenting prey. “I swear she stares holes in your head, she’s so weird…” )

"This isn't about romance! It's about showing who has the most cash, gets the most sex! It's a pathetic social ritual you're all falling for!” Munson yelled, jolting Steve back into the present. “I bet none of you even enjoy it!”

"Tell that to all the girls Steve’s dated!” One of the younger basketball guys hollered, prompting a wave of laughter from the rest of the cafeteria. “They seem to enjoy it plenty!”

Steve couldn’t see who had said it, and should have felt the normal wave of smug warmth that the team had his back.

Except his team had already proven they didn’t.

Were in fact, siding more and more with Hargrove, just as Tommy was.

They were rapidly approaching a watershed moment. Steve could feel it, the same way he’d always been able to tell when a crowd was about to turn.

He was losing, but was still on top of Hawkins social spaces enough, had caught it early enough, that he could turn everyone’s favor--if he wanted.

Emphasis on ‘if.’

Munson spun to face his table, hair whipping to smack him in the face. The guy had clearly been trying to grow it out, but right now he looked like one of those poodles Carol's mom loved so much.

So said Carol, anyway.

"You sure about that?" Munson challenged, a crazed grin breaking across his face. "Rumor has it King Steve lost his groove ever since Wheeler dumped him!"

Steve grimaced, though he was secretly thankful Munson went with "dumped" instead of "cheated on" (or any of the other vile words Billy had flung around, spreading across the school in the sick, crawling way rumors moved.

Hargrove had been positively brutal about the whole Jonathan and Nancy thing, and the only reason he wasn't here now to spin this whole situation against Steve was because the guy always vanished at lunch.)

Tommy's face morphed into an affronted snarl, hands slapping down on the table. He turned expectantly to Steve, waiting for "The King" to get up and "handle" Munson.

Like Steve even cared about this dumb high school shit anymore.

It took him a moment to realize Steve wasn’t planning on doing anything. Was in fact, going to remain perfectly quiet, other than an eyeroll and half-assed middle finger in Munson’s direction.

Tommy let out a disgusted scoff in his direction and then decided to handle things himself.

(Like that had ever been a good idea.)

“Shut up, Freak. The only game you have is in the prison showers.” He snapped, half rising from the table. “Isn’t that why you keep your hair long? So all the boys will actually fuck you?!”

Whistles and yells lit the air, though Steve didn’t miss how the girls at the table looked taken aback at the sheer vitriol in Tommy’s voice.

Even Carol looked startled, eyes sliding to meet Steve’s as if to confirm she hadn’t just imagined it.

The three of them had always been good at this kind of mindless high school banter, but this over the top, crude shit?

It wasn’t Tommy’s style.

It was Hargrove’s.

(That was its own growing issue.

The way Tommy was gravitating towards Billy.

How Carol kept expecting Steve to act like he used to.

That she blamed his “outbursts” on Nancy, snidely mentioning that Steve had better have learned his lesson about “changing his personality for pussy.”

Even now Steve knew they were only defending him because Munson was the one saying it.)

“I didn’t realize Harrington still had his attack dog!”

Munson put a hand against his heart as though injured, staggering dramatically backwards.

“I thought you were too busy putting your tongue up Hargrove’s ass to bark at people!”

Tommy immediately fired back, letting loose an uninspired string of curse words and something about Eddie being queer again. Steve didn’t hear the specifics--didn’t care to hear it, even as things started to spiral out of control.

All he wanted to do was go home.

Ideally before Billy got back from lunch and decided to make a spectacle himself, because Steve could feel that coming just as he could everything else.

He was running out of time to come up with an excuse to get out of here without making a production out of it, and Munson wasn’t someone he wanted to piss off today, given he’d half hoped to buy weed off the guy before he ditched.

…Which was looking more and more unlikely given Tommy had just screeched some insult that had put Munson’s sights back on Steve.

“You sure? Cause Harrington looks like he’s just gonna sit there and take it, just like he takes everything Hargrove and Wheeler and anyone else throws at him.”

He leered, leaning forward as if to see into Steve’s very soul.

“I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but our beloved King here hasn’t exactly been defending his crown. If anything, he’s abandoned it.”

The world stopped.

This was the first time someone actually called him out on the fact that he often let whatever crap Billy spewed go. That Nancy and him had a few awkward encounters publicly, with at least one of them starting a rumor that she’d told Steve to fuck off.

(She hadn’t of course, but Carol had stopped running damage control, and Steve was feeling the effects of her ire.)

Silence echoed, and Steve realized with a dawning sort of horror, that Munson was waiting for a response from him.

Just as the entire cafeteria was.

The catalyst was here, brought on early by one Edward Munson.

With a startling amount of clarity, Steve realized he was done.

With his so called friends, with the girls who’d tried corning him all morning, with Hargrove and just--everything.

He was over it.

If Billy wanted the crown so bad he could fucking have it.

(If Tommy wanted to pretend he was tougher than he was by mimicking the dick, then he could have that too.)

“This is stupid.” Steve announced, dropping the masks he so carefully wore. The ones he kept having to fix, because the Upside Down and its related demons (human and non) kept taking chunks out of it.

He stood, feeling the weight of the room press down on him as he faced them all down.

“Yeah--!” Tommy started to pile on, seeming to think Steve was about to unleash hell, and got the surprise of a lifetime when Steve turned and jammed a finger in his face.

“Shut up.” He snapped.

Knew instantly he only got away with it by the fact that he’d caught everyone off guard.

King Steve did a lot of things, but he rarely blew up.

“This is stupid.” He reiterated, voice booming across the lunch room, “ You wanna fight? Fine, but leave me out of it.”

“The King doesn’t want to play? Why I never thought we’d see the day!” Munson clucked his tongue, and without missing a beat Steve turned to him.

“For someone who is always screaming about nonconformity, you sure are happy to attack anyone who doesn’t do what you want.”

Steve’s voice was loud, but he wasn’t screaming. Wasn’t yelling or throwing his arms around.

He didn’t need to. Had never needed to.

“I heard you going off on that guy whose lunch you're standing on yesterday, because he wanted to watch the Colts play.” Steve continued, voice cold. “Half of your friends are terrified of you, because you’ll scream at them just like you accuse us of doing--and let’s be real here, Munson, you do it more.”

In a dramatic move that absolutely, 100% came from Dustin and his theatrics, Steve shrugged his letterman jacket off and bunched it into a ball.

“You might as well crown yourself King, because you’re the exact same as the rest of us. Here--you can start with this.”

Cocking back an arm, Steve let the jacket fly. Watched with everyone else as it landed neatly right at Eddie’s feet.

Shell shocked, Munson’s eyes drifted from Steve down to the letterman jacket and back. They were massive, those stupid eyes of his, but at least it meant Steve could see the realization wash over the guy in real time.

Steve should have felt smug about it. His past self would have.

Presently?

He just felt tired.

“You’re welcome to jam it up your ass.” He finished, before giving his own sarcastic half bow to the room.

The cafeteria was dead silent. Not a fork was scraped, or a loud piece of chip chewed. All eyes were on Steve, some waiting to see if Eddie would let him have the last word, others just shocked to see Steve lose his shit in front of them.

Even Tommy, who’d partly stood up, hands pressed against the lunch table looked shocked.

Idiot he was, he tried to rally anyway.

“What the fuck Steve!?” He sputtered, and it wasn’t long before half the basketball team was muttering similar remarks.

They were ignored.

Whispers ripped across the room when Steve turned on his heel, striding towards the exit and making it clear things were over, but Tommy didn’t give up.

“Fuck you Harrington!” He hurled at his back, Carol now standing and placing a restraining hand on his arm. “You’re not fucking better than any of us!”

Steve didn’t even look back.

"That's my point Tommy." Steve said, loud enough to be heard. "No one is better than anyone else. You lot are all just buying into your own bullshit.”

Then he was slamming through the doors, and out into the sunlight.

xXx

He didn’t want to go home.

Not anymore, which was ironic in a way that made Steve’s face screw up in a grimace.

Here he’d been dying to go to his stupid house all day, and now, after losing his shit and undoubtedly, the last of his social standing, he just didn’t feel like being by himself.

All alone, in a house too big for him, full of nothing but dark corners and a phone that never rang.

So instead, he wandered, reminiscing on how Valentine's Day used to be his favorite day of the year.

Steve loved the gesture of it all--the romance, the wooing. The butterflies floating in one's stomach, mixing with fear of rejection and a burning kind of hope towards starting something new.

Of course, Steve also had always had a girl in mind, when he celebrated. Now, after Nancy…

He did not.

It felt weird to go to Skull Rock--the place he himself had made into Hawkins hottest makeout spots. Likewise all the local restaurants were off limits--too many adults knew how much he loved the holiday.

Steve didn’t want to face that. The expectations, the knowing winks that would slide into uncomfortable frowns. Any possible advice given wouldn’t be appreciated, and the last thing Steve wanted was to get the “everyone has an off season, son” speech.

So he’d stayed away from his usual haunts. Explored some storefronts instead, the Beamer parked in front of Family Video as he wandered.

Had an entirely too peaceful two hours, which of course, meant he had to bump into someone.

At least, Steve thought dully, whole body tensing in preparation, it was Munson.

Not Hargrove, or Tommy, or hell--the children, demanding he help them fight some other fucked up creature the government had accidentally summoned.

“Hey Harrington.” Munson said, and it took a moment for Steve to realize the guy was embarrassed. “I uh, I need to talk to you.”

Steve just stared at him.

“If you couldn’t tell from earlier,” He warned, “I’m a little done talking for today.”

Or any day, for the foreseeable future.

“Yeah no--I, I got that. I--okay.” Eddie stopped rocking on his heels, before giving his entire body a shake, like the guys sometimes did while prepping for a game. “Hear me out, and then you can deck me or leave or whatever makes you feel better.”

“I’m not going to deck you.” Steve said, exasperated and frazzled and not wanting to do this whole song and dance a second time.

Not that it mattered, because Munson had already launched right into whatever it was he needed to say.

“There’s this book right? My Uncle got it for me. It’s a fantasy book all about this big battle and there’s these wizards in it, and--” He stopped himself, shaking out his hands.

Like he realized he was rambling and needed the movement to get himself back on track.

“I always--I guess I saw myself as a Gandalf kinda guy? Like I was this shepherd herding these lost sheep. A person who intimately knew all the dark forces of the world and could be a shield for them. Do not pass and all that.”

He chuckled, but it was weak, and he killed it almost immediately.

“...Okay?” Steve said, knowing he was supposed to say something here, even if he had no idea what.

Maybe something about how Gandalf the Grey wasn’t exactly a shepard given he’d led the hobbits straight into Mordor, but saying that meant admitting Steve knew what Lord of the Rings was, which wasn’t a conversation he felt like getting into.

Particularly not because he’d only read the damn things after losing a bet to Dustin and Mike both.

Munson nodded, as if acknowledgement was all he needed.

“I thought that’s what I was doing. I wasn’t and I didn’t realize I wasn’t until you pointed it out. You shouldn’t have had to point it out. You shouldn’t have had to say any of what you did.” He rushed to add, oddly sincere.

"Is this…" Steve might be confused but catching on, an uptick at the corners of his mouth as the tiniest spark of amusement leaked through. "an apology? Are you trying to apologize right now?"

Eddie groaned, flinging his head back. "No!”

Then immediately;

“Actually yes, but--”

Which caught Steve off guard enough that he laughed, and had to hide it with a cough.

“I am sorry, man. I shouldn’t have said that shit about you, especially not about you and Wheeler. It's more than that though.” Munson swallowed, before squaring his shoulders. “It’s that you were right."

“I was right?” Steve repeated dumbly, because fuck, he couldn’t believe it either.

Not that Munson heard him. Eddie always had been hard to stop once he started, and Steve had been in enough classes with the guy to know the train had left the station.

"I did yell at Jeff because he wanted to watch that stupid football game.” He began, and Steve got a front row seat to watch as one Eddie Munson word vomited his way through a myriad of emotions.

“I fuckin’ lost it on Grant because he missed band practice to drive his sister to some thing. Gareth looked like I was going to hit him when I asked if I had really been that bad--same exact look he gave Hagan and those other assholes that cornered him in the bathroom two weeks ago!”

“Tommy did what?”

Steve was promptly ignored.

(Or more likely, Eddie simply didn’t hear him, too lost in his own voice to realize Steve had said something.)

There were a lot of mentions of the Gandalf guy. Where Eddie thought he’d gone wrong, and even something about a glowing eye thing that had Steve a little concerned until he realized Munson was talking about Sauron (and also made Steve realize that he’d been pronouncing Sauron in his head wrong, oops.)

“I called up this friend of mine who graduated. She’s always been no nonsense, so I asked her for her advice.” Munson said, finally seeming to slow down a little. “She told me I might as well eat my own doctrine because I sure wasn’t living by it, and that if I wanted to fix it then I should start by apologizing. To everyone but--to you, first.”

Eddie took a step back, winging out his hands as if to present himself.

“So here I am. Apologizing.”

A pause wherein neither of them did a thing, which caused him to awkwardly add; “To uh, you. Harrington.”

“Yeah I got that.” Steve said, because what else was he supposed to do here? “Good for you? I guess?”

“Most people either forgive a guy or tell him to fuck off.” Munson pouted, and mimicked like he was kicking at a rock.

It made Steve want to laugh again, though he shoved the urge down.

“Someone once told me,” He said instead, speaking slowly to make damn sure he didn’t let slip this piece of advice came from a middle schooler. “that apologies without actions don’t really mean anything. They’re a start--they let people know you’re aware you screwed up, but no one’s going to trust you if you don’t follow through. So I can forgive you, but I think you’re better off doing this with one of your friends.”

Someone who would hug it out, or at least tell Eddie how he could be better, at least.

Rather than argue, Munson just titled his head back, eyes to the sky. Like he was really thinking on the words, before giving a sort of accepting sounding noise.

“That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?” He asked, head coming back down so he could stare at Steve.

“Trying too.” Steve admitted with a sigh.

“The thing in the cafeteria was a good start.”

“Yeah?”

Eddie grinned.

“Yeah. Don’t think Hagan’s gonna see it the same way though.”

“We were falling out anyway.” Steve admitted, and hated how easy it was to say.

That they really were just going through the motions of friendship. Had been, ever since Jonathan had punched Steve in the face.

“Think you lost more than just him as a friend, to be honest.”

“Pro tip about the actions thing, Munson?” Steve said with a snort, once again unsure of where this conversation was going, “Nice people don’t typically point out when someone’s turned into a social pariah.”

“No, I get that. Say,” Eddie’s grin had grown, which Steve would have taken poorly except he invaded Steve’s space with a goofy little hop. “I think you might be in need of some new ones!”

“New…friends?” Steve hesitated, very unsure of what was happening.

Munson promptly stuck his hand out. “Yup! So--hello, my name is Eddie Munson, and I am here to apply for the position as your friend!”

Steve snorted, but the harshness of it was taken away by the grin on his face.

He took Eddie’s hand, noting how doing so made the older teen’s smile widen.

“Nice to meet you Eddie, I’m Steve.”

Excited, Eddie waived their arms up and down, with far more enthusiasm than the gesture required.

“How about we cement our new friendship by renting a truly terrible horror movie and drowning our woes with my other good friend, Mary Jane?”

Then he waggled his eyebrows, like that was something scandalous.

“Tempting me along with weed, huh?” Steve mused back, sticking his hands in his pockets once Eddie let him go. “Guess you’re a little like Gandalf the Gray after all. Just don’t send me on any missions.”

“Steve Harrington.” Eddie gaped, pure delight spreading across his face. “Have you read Lord of the Rings!?”

He got a shrug and a sly; “Maybe.” in response.

It was worth the barrage of questions, even if the rapid fire pace of them nearly gave Steve a headache.

(Just as it was worth it several months later, when Steve was comfortable enough to instigate wrestling matches with Eddie over the dumbest of things.

One particularly semi-drunk tussle over the remote led to an interesting discovery when Eddie popped a boner, and then frantically tried to escape when it brushed against Steve’s leg.

Instead of panicking--or letting Eddie bolt in his panic, Steve just dropped his whole weight down, effectively pinning the slimmer man to the floor.

“Steve.”

Eddie said it so quietly he almost didn’t hear it, the word filled with desperation.

The kind of tone someone whispered a prayer in, a sort of pleading that Eddie did better with his eyes than his voice. Or would have, given his own were firmly scrunched closed the second he realized he’d been caught out.

Except--

“Not right now I’m thinking.” Steve told him absently.

Which he was. Speed thinking even, if that was a thing.

Because if two plus two equaled four (which it did) then feeling the exact same, fluttering excitement about Eddie’s boner as Steve had Nancy’s breasts, equaled…

“The fuck? Steve--”

Steve shushed him.

That pulled a frustrated, embarrassed groan from Eddie that went directly to Steve’s own dick, not that it needed much help waking up.

“I think I’m having one of those crisis’s Robin is always accusing the basketball team of having.” Steve informed Eddie dutifully, the dots done connecting.

Eddie, still refusing to open his eyes, snorted.

“Whatever man. Can you at least be decent and hurry up with the beating? This is embarrassing enough.”

“I’m not going to beat you up.” Steve said, thankful that his brain managed not to add some shitty comment about the entire town being awash in rumors of Eddie’s sexuality. That he’d confirmed it here wasn’t exactly a surprise.

“I’m going to try something. If you don’t like it, let me know.” Streve added, before screwing up his courage and leaning down.

That of course, got Eddie to open his eyes.

“Wha--” He managed, before Steve’s lips were on his.

For one single, blissful moment, Eddie Munson’s mouth was too busy to talk.

“Huh.” Steve muttered, when they broke for air. “Well that’s new.”

“Yeah?” Eddie said, voice wrecked, and oh, Steve liked that.

Liked the way Eddie looked at him more, hesitant, but with heat in his gaze.

Steve had always been good about knowing what to do with heat.

He leaned back down, pecking lightly at Eddie’s lips, and was delighted to find Eddie not only let him, but kissed back.

“Not bad, Munson, but I think I could give you a few pointers.” Steve muttered, nose ghosting alongside Eddie’s. “Let me show you…”

One boyfriend, several weeks, and another interdimensional monster later, Steve found himself socked in the arm by none other than Robin Buckley.

In her defense, she’d confessed her love for Tammy Thompson, still somewhat drugged on the Starcourt bathroom floor, only for Steve to tease her that at least his boyfriend could actually sing.

“God you and Eddie Munson.” She muttered after, smile on her face. “How did that happen?”

Steve knocked his shoe into hers, returning the grin unabashedly.

“So remember last Valentines Day?” Steve started, all too eager to finally tell someone who understood about the best thing to ever happen to him.

Robin of course, would soon also be ranked in that same chart, but Eddie didn’t need to know that. )

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