#I caught the Panorama tour at Koko! it’s been a very dykepop year in live music for me

[laundrybiscuits]

7

let me out my head, let my mind run free / let me just pretend that I feel like me / need a flicker start ‘cause I’m ready / anything to spark a new beginning

That murky summer was the longest of Eddie’s life. It had started in rapid-fire panic and death like a blockbuster horror flick, and tapered off to a dull ache that seemed to stretch over his body and soul like a shaky meniscus. 

He moved slow, that summer. He’d never thought too much about his body except as something that had inconvenient wants and needs sometimes; it cleaned out the fridge and cupboards faster than Wayne could fill them, it kept shifting and fidgeting when he knew damn well that he had to sit still, it had strange hungers that he swallowed down again and again. 

In the spring, he’d opened his eyes to a pea-soup fog of pain, and for a little while it had felt like he didn’t have a body at all, just a useless collection of twitching flesh pieces strung together with chicken wire. 

It got better. The docs threw around words like “miracle,” but it didn’t feel much like one. Mostly it just felt like getting back to his old body, but with all the dials turned down. Slower, especially at first, and stiffer, and weaker. Everything took twice as long to do, and consequently the summer became longer and longer. It might’ve had the same number of minutes in it that all of Eddie’s summers always had, but every one of those minutes was soaked through with a grey kind of languor. 

Dustin didn’t really get it, but he kept coming around anyway. With him came Steve Harrington.

Steve didn’t talk to Eddie a lot. Not that summer. Not at first. He was just sort of there, flipping through a magazine in the corner of Eddie’s hospital room like a blurry apparition, then shepherding in Dustin and sometimes Mike and Lucas (and even Erica, once or twice) while Eddie held exhausted court from a recliner, handing them off like a pack of puppies for Eddie to watch for a couple hours.

Eventually, Eddie roused himself enough to ask: “Where do you even go while they’re here, man?”

“Just around, I don’t know,” said Steve. “I drive around. It’s nice out.”

“That’s really dumb. Just stay here,” Eddie told him. So after that, Steve stayed. 

It was easier when Steve could say hey dickheads, Eddie’s tired, let’s go. And then ten or fifteen or twenty minutes later it’d be quiet again, and most of the time Eddie wouldn’t even bother  moving, he’d just curl up and fall asleep on the recliner. 

He was just so worn-out all the time. There didn’t seem to be any such thing as rest for him. Even when he wasn’t actually sleepy, getting through the day felt like slogging through calf-deep sand. 

The first time Steve showed up by himself, Eddie wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

“I thought Henderson left for camp this week,” he said. Steve had a key by that point, to save Eddie having to get the door all the time, so he’d just walked in and started unloading groceries. 

“Yeah,” said Steve, like it was obvious. “That’s why he’s not here.”

Eddie didn’t ask the conspicuous follow-up question, but he thought it real hard as Steve shut the fridge. 

Maybe the bat bites had psychically linked them after all, because Steve huffed out a sigh and turned around. “I brought a couple of those movies you like—the werewolf one and the zombie one. Plus we just got Jewel of the Nile, so I figured if you wanted a change of pace…” Steve wiggled his eyebrows, and Eddie found himself laughing without really meaning to. 

“You thought I’d like Jewel of the Nile for a chance of pace?”

“No, I thought I’d like Jewel of the Nile and you’d put up with it because you’re such a good friend,” Steve said. “For a change of pace.”

So that’s how Eddie found out they were friends. 

After that, it was easier. That was about the time Eddie started being able to move around a lot better too, so it all got tangled up in his head: Steve, and movement. Freedom, and Steve. 

It was a lot to put on Steve’s shoulders, so mostly Eddie tried not to. But Steve kept coming around by himself sometimes even after Dustin got back from camp, and the back half of the summer passed a little smoother and a little sweeter like that. 

The kids started preparing to go back to school, and Eddie didn’t. Steve very blatantly tried not to ask about it until one evening, sitting on the porch, he finally said: “School.” 

He pressed his lips together like he hadn’t even meant to say that much. Eddie just shrugged.

“Got my pity diploma in the mail, dude.”

“What? When?”

“Like, uh. A month ago? Maybe two?”

“Shit, man. You shoulda told me, I’d have—we’d have—the kids’d go nuts, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“What, uh. What’re you planning? Like, what’s next?”

Eddie rolled his shoulders. “I dunno. What’s next for you?”

Steve leaned back, bracing himself on his hands and looking up at the violet sky. After a moment, he said, “Guess I don’t know either. Maybe we both need, like…a fresh start. We could, I don’t know. Go somewhere.”

“Ste-eve Harrington.” Eddie smiled up at him. “Are you asking me to run away with you? Whatever will the society papers think?”

Steve didn’t take the bait, though. He just grinned back at Eddie and said, “Maybe I am. Whatcha gonna do about it, Munson?”

Eddie hesitated, but what did he have to lose? Or rather—what did he have to gain?

He reached out, slow and careful, and settled his hand over Steve’s. It felt like a circuit connecting. Like something was clicking back together inside of Eddie at last.

Steve didn’t say anything about it, but he didn’t move, either. They just sat there for a while in the twilight, watching the light change.

DVD extra:

“I’m going to see Eddie!” Lucas hollered, halfway out the door. “I’ll be back by dinner!”

“Uh-huh, and I’m not good enough for your stupid boys’ club?” Erica shrieked, tearing around the corner and skidding to a stop so she could plant her hands on her hips and glare at Lucas.

“What?” said Lucas. 

“It’s just a little suspicious how there’s no girls allowed when you go see that long-haired freak,” she sniffed. 

“Do you…want to come with me?” Lucas said slowly. 

“Of course I don’t, dumbass! Why would I want to go?” Erica pushed past Lucas, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “But someone’s gotta make sure you stupid boys don’t burn the place down.”

“Hey, Lucas,” called Steve, leaning out of the car window. “Erica coming with us today?”

Lucas made frantic throat-cutting motions.

“Huh?” said Steve. “She’s…not coming with us?”

Lucas groaned and jogged up to the car. “She’s coming, just don’t talk about it,” he hissed. 

He thought for a second about trying to slide over the hood of the car like cool guys in the movies, but if he messed it up, Erica would never let him live it down. She’d be telling the story at his wedding and his funeral. So he just walked around to the passenger side like a normal person and got in.

“Seatbelts,” said Steve.

“I remember you being less of a nerd,” said Erica. “Now move it, the king of the nerds is waiting.”