#tbh if you squint and are dedicated you could get a bunch of different ships out of it

[2btheanswertothequestion]

Burning Sage (a.k.a. the Spicy Six go camping)

Part Deux

It begins with Steve and almost ends with Robin, because every time he brings it up she’s quick to respond with a resounding “nope!”

It doesn’t matter how sneaky he is about it. Nor does it matter how long her day has been or how exhausted she is. He can handle both their clean-up duties after their shift. He can ply her with pop and homebaked muffins. He can carry her dozing, dead weight from his car and up to her bedroom – the answer remains. And yes, she loves him. She loves him a lot, probably more than she loves, has loved, or will ever love anyone else.

But she won’t endure blisters and black flies for anyone, not even him. No way.

So, whenever he starts talking about camping, or hiking, or – god forbid – fishing, she’s quick to shoot it down. They’ll argue about it, and he’ll grumble and pout, but she stands firm every time. She successfully holds down the fort for over half a year.

And then.

It happens on a Wednesday afternoon. Business is slow, the only customers two eighth-grade girls whispering in the comedy section and one Eddie Munson up by the checkout. Although, the jury’s out if Eddie counts as a customer. Most of the time he only shows up to talk for a few hours (“enriching your work environment!” says he; “being a fucking nuisance,” says Steve). He’s been regaling them with a tale of how the kiddies utterly failed all their rolls and almost got eaten by a something-or-other because they couldn’t make a fire when Steve gets that wistful look in his eyes.

Here it comes.

Cub scouts. Nature. Knots and s'mores. The taste of wilderness and sound of fresh air. She could stop him already, but if she’ll refuse to tag along the least she can do is let him reminisce about it. It is pretty endearing, the way he lights up, words tumbling out and hands waving with excitement. Were she weaker…

But no. Black flies. Blisters. No way.

“...and it’s the best feeling in the world,” Steve says to Eddie.

Eddie stands draped over the polished countertop, curls spilling past his shoulders and an easy smile on his face. His eyes are glazed, though not with boredom or disinterest. Rather the opposite.

“I haven’t done it in ages,” Steve continues. “I’ve been wanting to! It’s just that it’s not the same thing, doing it alone. But Robin’s not into it, and I never even asked my high school friends since, uh, you know.”

Steve sighs and rests his forearms on the counter. It brings his face closer to Eddie’s, whose eyes grow hazier and ribcage heaves deeper. The tip of his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Robin would've laughed at him because of it, if her gut hadn't screamed that something terrible is about to happen.

“You wouldn’t be interested, would you?” Steve asks Eddie with a dry tone, like he isn’t really asking because he already knows the answer.

Except Eddie nods, still smiling. Robin’s breath stutters and her gut shrieks as he says, “Yeah.”

Steve gapes. “Wait, really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“HAH!”

Steve slaps his palm against the counter, leaving a smudged print on the wood and making Eddie flinch and reel out of whatever daydream he was stuck in. Steve doesn’t notice as he whips toward Robin. “You see?” he says. “Eddie gets it!”

Robin rolls her eyes but swallows her retort, because the two girls are approaching. They’ve been in here before – many times, in fact – and the last time she tried to serve them instead of letting Steve do it, she was on the receiving end of twin glares during the entire transaction. Whatever. She grabs Eddie by the jacket sleeve and pulls him out of the way.

“You’re a damn traitor, you know that?” she hisses.

Eddie shrugs. “In my defense, he’s hard to say ‘no’ to.”

“He’s literally the easiest person ever to say ‘no’ to.”

“Maybe for you, with your rock heart pumping ice through your veins!”

She rolls her eyes at him, too. “You’re actually going through with this?”

Eddie hesitates only so long it takes him to steal a glimpse of Steve, who's politely ignoring how the girls flutter their lashes and stick their little chests out. Doesn't seem like they'll go further this time either, which is a shame. Robin needs to witness them once they finally gather the courage to ask him out – she’ll take great schadenfreude in their rejection, and she won’t be ashamed about it.

Turning back to her, Eddie nods. “Yeah. Why not? He wants it, and… it’s camping. How hard can it be?”

And that’s how Robin gets roped into a three-day camping trip. Because what else is she supposed to do? Let them go alone? The woods are dangerous! The last time she took her eyes off either of them in the wild, they both ended up strangled and nearly eaten. Also, what would she do in the meantime? Wait for them to come back?

No way.

— ⛺ — ⛺ — ⛺ —

Jonathan isn’t entirely sure why Steve is there. Will and El are out, so it can’t be to pick them up or drop someone else off. His mom was clearly expecting Steve, though, and now she’s rattling away in the kitchen cabinets while Steve hovers in the living room and makes awkward small talk with Argyle. The news anchor is giving a semi-interesting update on the situation in Chernobyl, so Jonathan opts to focus on that, bestowing a mere half-ear to the conversation in the room. He barely catches when Steve says something about a camping trip and Argyle responds with a drawled “camping is awesome, brochacho!”

“You want to come with?” Steve asks, ripping Jonathan from the weather report because, hang on now, what was that?

Argyle and Steve have both turned to Jonathan with open, questioning expressions. He darts between them as he tries to untangle his own tongue. Camping trip? Camping trip? Jonathan has never gone camping before, unless staying the night in Castle Byers counts (it doesn’t). Camping is for people with time to spare and money to spend on equipment. And that means the nice equipment, the waterproof kind that’s too thick to tear after a single use.

“Uh,” he says. “Um, I guess, yeah?”

Argyle smiles his relaxed and late-summer-warm smile, nodding his approval. Steve’s face, however, erupts into a million-watt floodlight-beam. He lets them in on the plans: who else is going, where they’re going, what they’re bringing, that they’re leaving early on the 24th and driving back before noon on the 26th so no one will be missing any possible Memorial Day celebrations, and and and and and-

And Jonathan is going camping for three days with Steve Harrington. What the fuck.

He thumps his head against the sofa’s backrest, begging for the world to stop spinning and make sense again.

“I’m not sure how,” he tells Nancy the next day as they lie sprawled on her bed, she reading and he drawing lines along the patterns of her sweater, “but I’m going to go camping with Steve in two weeks.”

Despite everything, he is going. He’d tried finding a reason not to, but when he asked his mom if she surely didn’t need him to be home during Memorial weekend she told him no and that he should enjoy himself. “You can bring your camera,” she’d said. “I bet the woods at Everdusk are much prettier than ours.”

“You too?” Nancy says, flipping a page of her magazine. “Robin said she dodged it for ages, but then Eddie agreed and she felt forced to go.”

“And then Argyle agreed and I felt forced.” He rolls on top of her, burrowing his face between her shoulder blades until she grunts. “Will you come too? I don’t know if I’ll survive without you.”

“Robin said that, too.” She sighs, puts the magazine down, and wriggles around so they’re face to face. “Camping just isn’t my thing,” she says, as if it’s even remotely Jonathan’s thing either. “I didn’t go back whenever Steve and I were dating. Going now feels strange.”

“Why is it strange? It won't just be the two of you – it’s a group thing.”

“Why not let it be a bonding experience for you boys? And Robin.”

“Nance, you don’t understand. Steve will be there.”

“Oh, yeah.” Nancy nods and knits her eyebrows into mock seriousness. “Very audacious of him to be at the camping trip he’s organizing.”

He laughs. “You know what I mean. He’ll be there, and he’ll have Robin and Eddie, whom I don’t know at all, and I’ll have Argyle. I need you there for balance.”

“What if I go rogue and create a third faction with Robin?”

“We’d still be balanced.”

Nancy heaves a sigh. “Look,” she says, pushing him off whilst grabbing for her magazine, nearly slipping down the bedspread. “I just really don’t want to go camping, okay?”

“Guess that makes three of us.”

Her painted lips twist into an almost-smile. She’s about to speak when a bang sounds from downstairs. She snaps towards her closed door, like a hound catching scent; her shoulders tense and jaw clenches as the noise is followed by voices – Mike’s and maybe Dustin’s? – shouting. Amongst the muffled screams, Karen calls for Nancy to “please come down and help”.

Nancy’s entire face clenches – jaw, mouth, eyes – whilst she rubs at her temples with her middle and pointer fingers. A groan slithers out her mouth. Jonathan sits, offering his hand to pull her with.

“You know,” he says. “There won’t be any little brothers in the forest.”

She glares at him, though her heart’s not in it, and then they both rush downstairs to face the ruckus.

— ⛺ — ⛺ — ⛺ —

“How did I end up here?”

Eddie folds his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling. There used to be a poster there above the bed, but it’s since been ripped off, the tape taking flakes of paint with it and leaving beige spots in the white ceiling. He can’t remember what kind of poster it was.

“Depends on what ‘here’ is,” Jeff says without looking up from his acoustic. He strums experimentally, and shakes his head at the resulting sound. “My house? You drove.”

“How did I end up being the kind of person who goes camping with Steve Harrington?”

“Luck? Destiny? I’ve no idea, man.” Jeff goes back to plucking scales. “You know I don’t like existential questions – they’ve got no clear answer.”

Eddie scrunches his nose. “I hate the outdoors.”

“So don’t go?”

“But I like spending time with Steve, and Robin. And Nancy, apparently? And I do want to get to know Jonathan and his pattern-christened compatriot.”

“Okay.” Jeff positions the guitar back on its stand, then leans forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes are gaining that same sharpness as when he’s considering his choices, weighing them on an invisible scale. When DMing, Eddie quite likes that sharpness; right now the hollows of his knees are starting to get clammy. “What do you want from me here? Tell you to go? Not to go? Go and how to survive slash not make a fool out of yourself? What do you need?”

“I don’t know!” Eddie throws his hands into the air. “I’m digesting!”

Jeff hums. Goddamnit, Eddie should’ve gone to Gareth instead. Gareth would’ve let him complain for an hour tops and then thrown something at his head with a “suck it up and shut up”. He would not have tried to help solve the problem (the not-problem – there is no problem). Because Gareth is considerate like that, unlike Jeff, the bastard.

“Why did you agree to do this?” Jeff asks. “And don’t say it’s because you want to hang out with them – you already do. Constantly. Us guys have actually started to feel a little bit replaced.” He cocks his head askew, adding softly: “It’s kinda hurtful, you know?”

It’s instinctual, how Eddie rolls off the bed so fast he nearly brains himself on the side table. His knees thunk against the carpet and then he’s crawling up to Jeff on all fours. He grabs Jeff’s hand, and Jeff lets it be grabbed, fingers curling around Eddie’s.

“Don’t say that! Jeff, don’t ever say that! I could never- you had my back for years, whenever no one else would, okay?” His eyes bore into Jeff’s as he squeezes his hand. “Nothing can replace that. We’re still the same, yeah? I’m yours and you’re mine. It’s just that, lately I’ve needed… ”

“I know.” Jeff waves his free hand in the air. “Whatever went down in March, you need to work it through. With them.”

“I will tell you about it, sometime,” Eddie says but doesn’t quite promise. He isn’t yet sure it’d be a good idea for them to know, now, later, or ever.

He doesn’t have to promise, though, because Jeff is already smiling, placated.

“All right. So. Why did you agree-”

He interrupts himself with a chuckle as Eddie spins around and faceplants on the bed, groaning into the unwashed mattress. It really was a bad idea to talk to Jeff. To be a problem-solver is one thing, but to be so relentless about it, too? It’s rude.

“It was just…” The words come out muffled; Eddie slides his face down an inch to release them. A stray feather sticking out of the down comforter ends up poking him in the cheek. “He was so excited about it. You should’ve seen him! He kept looking at me with these eyes and my brain went frtzz.” He wiggles his fingers by his temple to illustrate. “Next thing I know, I’ve pledged to spend one of my treasured three-day weekends in the wilderness.”

“I get it.”

Eddie looks over his shoulder at Jeff, who’s picked up the guitar again and started playing the intro to Electric Funeral. The feather pokes his ear now. “You do?”

“Yeah. I’m not into dudes, but he’s got this, like, guy-prettiness to him? I’d definitely agree to doing something stupid just ��cause a hot chick suggested it.”

Eddie grunts in reply. Plucking the feather from the comforter, he starts pulling off the barbs while Jeff plays. Finishing the first verse, Jeff’s eyes flicker from the fret to meet Eddie’s.

“So, did you want survival advice?”

Eddie snorts. “Think I’m better off asking Wayne.”

“Hm, yeah. Or don’t. Play up the helpless angle, let Harrington be the big, manly hero who-”

“Jesus Christ, shut up.”

Jeff snickers. “Okay. Hey, are you nervous?”

Eddie rips the last barb off the shaft. The downy bits lie scattered on his thigh and, without them, the shaft looks unrecognizable. Almost alien. His head is cool, his breaths are slow, and his gut is housing a raging storm. He flicks the bare shaft across the room, shaking his head.

“Why would I be?”

— ⛺ — ⛺ — ⛺ —

La continuation

Tag list: @santasteve, @madaboutmunson