One thing that sucks about fighting monsters from some weirdly dusty and gooey parallel universe to your own… is going back to school. Specifically going back after telling all your friends that they’re actually trust fund assholes and your girlfriend - ex-girlfriend - ends up with the one guy she swore up and down was just a friend.
Not that Steve really blames Nancy for that. Jonathan’s a good dude. Plus, it’s not like Steve was the perfect boyfriend or anything. He tried, but maybe it just wasn’t enough.
Maybe it’ll never be enough.
Steve takes a sudden right, making a detour from all the student rushing into the lunchroom in favor of being anywhere but there. He barely registers walking out of the school until he notices the woods in front of him. Why does everything always lead him back to here?
He doesn’t know why, maybe it’s what Dustin call his “mother hen” instinct, but Steve continues walking into the woods, wondering if maybe there are more monsters lurking about that he can spot early this time. God knows he would do anything for those kids - not that he would tell them that. Dustin especially does not need the ego boost.
So Steve wanders, listening closely for any unusual noise.
And then he hears one.
It’s just the thud of something metal sounding against maybe… a tree? Something solid. Then a crunch of leaves. And…
Singing?
Steve slowly peaks around a tree and finds the source of all the noise.
Eddie Munson.
Steve nearly rolls his eyes but finds himself fondly watching the boy as he drums on a wooden picnic table singing some song Steve has never heard. It’s when Eddie does some type of ridiculously uncoordinated twirl that Steve ends up snorting. It’s loud enough that Eddie ends up hearing it, startling mid turn and head bang that has him misstepping and landing right on his ass.
Steve tries to let some sheepishness bleed through the amusement in his expression. “You okay, man?” He asks, stepping forward to offer him a hand.
Eddie eyes it wearily. “Depends. What are you doing out here?”
“Just…” Steve stares at Eddie for a moment, trying to find a normal answer, but instead he shrugs and sighs, “I don’t know, man.” He takes another step closer and pointedly looks down at his offered hand.
Eddie narrows his eyes at him before taking it carefully. Steve is caught off guard by the cold metal rings but hauls Eddie up easily who wobbles when he gets to his feet. “Thanks,” Eddie breathes out, lingering in Steve’s space.
Steve just nods and wonders if Eddie Munson’s eyes have always been so big and brown.
“So, Steve Harrington,” Eddie starts, drawling out his name while taking a step back and brushing dirt off his pants, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Steve raises an eyebrow.
Eddie marches over to the picnic table and gestures dramatically at his lunch box. “I’m assuming you’re here for the goods?”
“The what?”
“Drugs, Harrington. Are you alright?” Eddie asks with a tilt of his head leaning forward as if assessing him.
Steve shrugs. “Fine. And no. I’m not here for your drugs which you evidently keep in your lunch box for any teacher to find.” Eddie’s brows furrow. Steve rolls his eyes. “I know you sell, but Tommy usually does this part.”
“I know,” Eddie replies as he hops up on the bench and crosses his arms. He faces Steve and bends at the waist - Steve ignores the urge to reach out and steady him so he doesn’t fall again. “So what are you doing out here? Are you here to… beat me up?” Eddie asks dramatically, hopping onto the table and pretending to brandish a sword.
Steve simply raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms.
Eddie’s arms drop. “Okay. Surprising but I guess you would’ve already taken a swing if you wanted a fight.” He squats down on the table until he’s eye level with Steve. “You’re not here because of the rumors, right?” Eddie asks, dropping his voice and appearing weirdly serious.
As for the rumors, Steve’s sure he’s heard more than he can count - including one about Munson being a vampire - so he’s not sure what he’s talking about. He’s also not sure if he wants to know which rumors he’s talking about. Steve runs a hand through his hair and settles his hands on his hips. “I just needed to clear my head. I didn’t know you were out here.”
Eddie squints at him. “You’re clearing your head by taking a walk in the woods?”
“Yes.”
They hold eye contacts for a few moments, and Steve can’t really tell what they’re silently sizing each other up about. Eddie reluctantly stands up and jumps off the table. “Fine. What are you clearing your head about?”
Steve stares at him.
“What?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Eddie steps closer to him and obnoxiously twirls a piece of hair around his finger. “Because you’re Steve Harrington, and I must be the luckiest guy in all of Hawkins since I’ve got you here alone with me.”
Steve laughs loudly and gently shoves Eddie away. “Shut up.”
Eddie’s cheeks flush pink, and Steve can almost see him biting back the words “make me.” Then he’s reminded of the rumor that Eddie bats for the other team, and Steve suddenly wonders if it’s true - not that he would mind.
Steve pushes the thought away as Eddie smiles sincerely and pushes some hair in front of his face. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind the company. Plus,” he turns and sprawls back on the picnic bench, “You can tell me anything. I’m great at keeping secrets, and even if I wasn’t, it would be your word against mine.”
Steve considers what he’s said before asking, “And how crazy of a secret would you not only keep but believe?”
Eddie smiles almost manically. “Try me.”
Steve looks around wondering if the government people or whoever they were can hear him out here. He’s not sure if it’s been long enough to guarantee there’s not someone keep track of each of them, waiting for them to slip up. He also wonders how cruel it would be to unload all of this onto Eddie. Steve knows life was much simpler before he knew that demogorgans existed.
“I’ve been fighting… some monsters recently,” Steve settles on, hoping Eddie doesn’t take it so literally.
“Yeah?”
Steve nods and takes a step closer to where Eddie is sitting, gesturing at nothing as he continues, “It started when I was an asshole to Nance and then she ran off with Jonathan and the rest is history there but… they really dragged me into some heavy shit.”
“I can imagine. It’s not every day that your girlfriend runs off with another guy. Which is a shitty thing to do by the way.”
Steve tries to steer the conversation away from his failed relationship without setting off Eddie’s alarm bells. “It’s not that I really blame them. I mean you’ve seen them, everyone has, they’re kind of made for each other. Who am I to get in the way of that? Especially since I was a shitty boyfriend. But that’s not the point. Before Nance left, I was pulled into helping some…” he pauses, trying to think of a way to talk about the kids out of context without sounding like a creep. “Well, there was this guy who needed help and so… I helped him and his friends out.”
Eddie fixes him with a carefully blank look. “Helped this guy out… how exactly?”
Steve shrugs and sits next to Eddie as he figures out how to phrase things. “He… well. His cat… di- escaped! It escaped. And I was helping him find it, and we actually grew pretty close.”
Eddie knocks his knee against Steve’s. “So… you and this guy grew… close.”
Steve nods and smiles. “Yeah, he’s this dumbass genius k-,” he cuts himself off before he can say kid. “Anyways, then his friends needed help, and I helped them fight… their monsters.”
Eddie raises his eyebrows at him. “So you helped… multiple guys… fight their… monsters?”
Steve nods. “Yeah. But that’s over and now I have to go back here and pretend that none of that ever happened. It just… sucks, man.”
Eddie nods. “Uh. Yeah. I can imagine pretending for so long is... exhausting.”
“Tell me about it,” Steve says with a laugh.
A silence falls between them and Eddie glances over at him. “You know… you don’t have to pretend with me.”
Steve smiles and wonders what not pretending means now, but it’s sounds good nonetheless. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
Eddie softly smiles and his eyes move down to Steve’s lips slowly. “Yeah?”
And oh. Oh. There was definitely a miscommunication somewhere along the way. And… okay. Fighting monsters and helping guys fight their monsters is maybe not the best phrasing. But Steve thinks he likes Eddie remaining so blissfully ignorant.
So, Steve kisses him.
And yeah. Maybe there are quite literally hundreds of different ways he could’ve let Eddie remain oblivious to the whole vague Upside Down retelling, but Steve can’t really complain when Eddie kisses him back, finding the scrape of stubble against his face surprisingly pleasant.
And Steve finds himself taking his time thoroughly allowing Eddie to believe this story that Steve wishes were true rather than the real thing. It’s only when Eddie’s watch beeps that they finally pull away for longer than a few seconds.
“Shit,” Eddie mumbles, resting his forehead against Steve’s, “Time to head back in.”
“Can’t skip?” Steve asks, wondering why he’s trying so hard to solidify his false story.
Eddie sighs and pulls away. “Unfortunately, if I skip anymore, they’re not going to let me graduate. Although right now I think spending more time with you might be more important than my diploma.”
Steve laughs and feels himself pleasantly flushing. He nudges Eddie’s shoulder with his own before standing up and offering his hand to him again. “Come on. We can’t have you not graduating again.”
“Again? Harrington, are you keeping tabs on me?”
Steve raises his eyebrows at him as Eddie takes his hand and pulls himself off the bench. “And what if I am?” He flirts easily.
Eddie smiles giddily and grabs his lunch box. “Then I really must be the luckiest boy in Hawkins.”
Steve doesn’t say anything when Eddie doesn’t let go of his hand as they walk out of the woods toward the school. It’s only as the school slowly comes into sight that Eddie drops Steve’s hand and shoves his hands into his pockets. He stops in his tracks and turns to Steve. “Hey, thanks for not pretending with me.”
Steve glances at the school before moving in to give Eddie one final kiss. He lingers in it before breaking away to say, “Thank you for listening.”
They wordlessly separate as the head back to the building, knowing that even with the few weeks of school left and both of their tarnished reputations that they can’t truly risk it all.
As Steve makes it to his class just before the final bell rings, he’s left to wonder if maybe he really does have some other type of monsters to fight. And he really hopes Eddie Munson can be there to help him with those ones again.
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I wish women did not feel so strongly about the fact men, on average, are physically stronger than them. I feel like women have such negative feelings about this that it drives them to ridiculousness. Listen, I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. The fact men are stronger is frightening. It’s scary to know that if a man decided to physically attack you then you are probably fucked. The USWNT, women who have spent years honing their skills on the field, lost to teenage boys who—when compared to the women—were basically just beginning to develop their talents. I understand how demeaning that can feel to every woman who hears this fact. I can imagine how demeaning it was for the USWNT. I’m sure every woman has been in a situation, playful or threatening, where they have tested their strength against a man and lost miserably. I’ve seen videos where women hit and slapped men with genuine rage and fury and the man barely even flinched. I understand how embarrassing and scary it can be to come to terms with the strength disparity between men and women, but you simply must come to terms with it. Far too many women have taken to pretending that it's not there—this is not a good approach.
Women choose to pretend it's not there because acknowledging that it's there makes them feel inferior. I ask women to remember that this world was built with the ideals of men in mind and to cater to their specific strengths. Men value strength and violence so of course the world is going to seem like those two things are all that’s valued in it. It's no coincidence that many male heroes are physically strong/easily able to cause harm—such as Naruto or John Wick or the Avengers. Of course it feels shitty, as a woman who inhabits this world, to have to acknowledge that your biology generally prevents you from being able to have the ‘can beat anyone in a fight’ type of strength that gets constantly praised.
However, I implore women to consider that men being physically stronger than them is no more of a significant fact than women being able to give birth while men cannot. Women also have biological advantages over men but when was the last time you saw a man calling himself inferior because of them? Imagine if the world was built with female advantages in mind. Imagine a world where the ability to give birth was seen as some sort of pinnacle of human worth. I mean, the ability to give birth is crazy. You are literally creating a whole new life. The female body is capable of providing the necessary tools to bring about a whole new person. Every brain that has thought of something life changing and every hand that has built something new was brought into existence by a woman’s reproductive system. Every single person that has ever so much as breathed was brought to life by a woman, but men never think women are superior for this fact.
Oh, but women couldn’t get pregnant without men, right? No. IVF exists. But even without it, the correct thing to say would be that women cannot get pregnant without sperm. A woman can get artificially inseminated. She never has to go out and find a man to have sex with. Is that not an advantage? Because, I mean, what can a man do if he wants to have a child but no woman is willing to give him one? Hire a surrogate? That comes with a list of complications, is far more intimate than artificial insemination, and is incredibly expensive. How is that not a disadvantage of being male? You may be thinking that you, as a woman, never want to become pregnant, but that is not the point! The point is that it's arbitrary to look at biological advantages as anything other than completely neutral.
Women also survive famine better and live longer than men. Imagine a world where women held this over men’s heads? But we don’t live in that world. In this world, I’m certain a man would say that they die sooner because of being braver, taking more risks, and doing dangerous jobs. However, if it were women putting themselves in danger and dying as a result, men would not be quick to call us brave; they'd call us the opposite. Idiotic. Foolhardy. Too stupid to take the necessary precautions to keep ourselves alive.
It is just so painful to see women lamenting over the physical disparity between men and women. Let it go. Consider being neutral on the subject of biological advantage. Consider that male strength isn't something to pretend doesn't exist and isn’t something that proves women are inferior.
I understand that acknowledging vulnerability is against the survival Instinct—I get it—but come on. How can we let this get to a point where we’re saying it’s okay for males to enter female sports and beat the absolute crap out of/wipe the floor with women? Them being stronger is neutral! It does not mean anything! But it’s fact. Pretending it’s not only serves to put women in a losing position. Pretending it’s not only serves to make women into a laughing stock. Men will gladly collect medals that belong to women—they’ve been doing that forever. If there was no reason for male and female leagues then there wouldn’t be any. You cannot deny your way into something being true. I also wish it were true that the average woman was evenly matched against the average man, but it’s simply not reality. In the same way that it’s not reality that the average woman is taller than the average man.
I am begging women to think neutrally about this topic instead of being in such deep turmoil over it that they open the door for men to walk all over us.
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