#this was born out of me realizing how cool eddie would think hopper was for using a sword

[munsonfamilyband]

I feel like Eddie collects knives after the upside down stuff. It starts as a coping mechanism. When Steve sees them for the first time Eddie panics because he doesn’t want Steve to think he’s crazy (he doesn’t like to think about why he cares so much about Steve’s opinion of him, he knows why but he pretends that he doesn’t). Steve, instead of laughing or telling him he’s insane, just smiles and says he did something similar after the first time. Steve tells him about the bat he essentially stole from Jonathan in 1983 and then recreated so that he could keep one in his car and another in his room, then he made more to hide around his house after 1984 because he felt the need to constantly have a weapon on him. It helps Eddie a lot, being told that he’s not crazy but he’s just dealing with trauma like someone else did.

Later, after a few months, he moves most of the practical ones into a box and starts collecting cool ones. He gets a few switch blades with fun handles, starts finding knives with decorated hilts or engraved blades, even finds a few with colored metal. The obsession only gets worse when he finds out, months after the fact, that Hopper used a real life sword to kill a demogorgon in Russia. The knives change then, getting longer and slowly morphing into swords. By then he has to make something to display them all because there’s too many to have them cluttering his room. He and Wayne aren’t living together anymore so he has a little more space to himself and Eddie decides to replicate Wayne’s Hat Wall but with his knives and swords. The kids think it’s the coolest thing ever when they see it for the first time. Steve is… less enthusiastic, but mostly because he’s worried about the kids being around so many sharp things. He spends a solid minute complaining about Dustin especially, and whenever the kid tries to argue Steve just brings up something called Dart and he shuts up. (By this point Eddie has come to grips with the fact that he’s head over heels for Steve and seeing him care so strongly about the kids doesn’t help that at all.)

When, after a miraculous moment of stoned courage Eddie asks Steve out, they start dating Eddie starts getting little gifts for Steve, including pocket knives that he thought were pretty or cool. Steve cherishes them and he repays Eddie by getting him a custom sword for his birthday months later. (The sword gets used to cut the cake when they get married, both holding onto it together)