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sp0o0kylights · 3 months

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Give meee: an Eddie who went into a small little bookshop on an Indie trip and stumbled across an in person fandom meeting.

It's mostly Star Trek, and also mostly women, but the stories they have are nothing like Eddie's ever read.

He's barely a teenager, and already protective of himself and his real identity--but everything he's ever wanted is written down, right here, on a little zine with Kirk and Spock doodled on the cover.

They’re not--it’s not obvious, that they’re what he is, but the story itself is blatant and Eddie ends up being so obviously close to tears, he accidentally outs himself without ever saying a word.

(He also ends up on the mailing list, then being sent home with several hand printed copies of all kinds of zines.)

Eddie would remain on this list well past his third senior year in high school.

Past bats, and Vecna and Steve fucking Harrington.

Flash forward to his first apartment.The tiny one he shares with Steve when they followed Nancy and Robin to college.

Steve knows Eddie’s gay.

Or rather, Steve has been told, but Eddie's still pretty clammed up about it. He's not yet where Robin is, ready to bemoan her loveless existence while draped over their crappy, thrifted couch.

He makes jokes and he flirts and he absolutely says things he shouldn't, but none of it is real.

It's flash. Showmanship.

It's the persona that yes, is him, but Eddie consciously built it. There’s nothing soft or gooey there, nothing anyone can use to hurt him.

So when he comes home and sees that plain, padded envelope with the neatly printed label on the counter, torn wide open and flat without its contents?

Eddie panics.

His heart thunders in his chest, vision tunneling as adrenaline kicks through him.

He wants to bolt-- should bolt--except ever since he almost died his brain no longer obeys him.

Not when it comes to running, anyway.

Instead it fights him to a standstill, freezing his feet right to the living room floor.

The urge is still there.

To run, and save face the cowards way.

Vanish before Steve could get at a part of him that had once kept Eddie out of Wayne’s trailer for two days, until the old man had hunted him down and made him come home, huffing about how he’d love Eddie no matter what but he better never disappear like that again.

(Which Eddie did anyway, and of everything that happened with Vecna, it’s that he regrets the most. The stories he heard of Wayne putting up posters. Squaring off with angry, too-righteous townies, and--)

A sniffle jerks him out of his thoughts.

Eddie gasps, entirely unsure of when he stopped breathing. Stumbles back and turns, right in time for Steve to come out of his room and amble down their hallway.

One hand rubs at his eyes, and the other is--the other has…

Eddie identifies the cheaply printed, stapled zine immediately. It's one he's wanted to read for a while now, solely because it features a story about Kirk and Spock being stuck in a cave together on a planet that has bat-like, vicious animals on it.

Kirk gets bitten after something goes wrong with the transporter and, look, it’s carthiatic okay!? Sue a guy for wanting to read a romance about a situation he identifies with!

Steve looks up from the zine and startles.

For a second his eyes go dark and flat, the same way Eddies and Robins and Nancy's and everyone's does when caught off guard.

It's gone in a flash though, Steve visibly relaxing when he clocks that it's just Eddie.

He keeps the zine pressed to his sweater clad chest, and huffs out a laugh that's half forced and half pure relief.

“Fuck Eds, you scared me! I didn’t know you could be quiet.”

“Uh huh.” Eddie manages, voice sounding totally and absolutely normal and not at all ten octaves higher than it usually is.

They stare at each other for a second. Long enough that Steve's eyebrows crinkle in the middle, which is the first hint that he’s beginning to worry, and Eddie really cannot handle Steve being worried right now.

“What's--” Eddie’s voice cracks and he coughs to recover. “what's that?”

Steve frowns at him for a moment, until Eddie gestures at the zine in his hands.

“Oh!”

Steve holds it up, as if to show it off.

“It's a little book Robin got in the mail. It has a bunch of stories in it. They're normally boring as fuck but this one's from Star Trek.”

Hearing the words ‘Star Trek’ out of Steve’s mouth shouldn’t be weird, not anymore, when Eddie and Dustin have been on a two man mission to nerdify Harrington as much as possible, but it still kicks like a mule to hear him say such things without any prompting.

“You know what Star Trek is?”

“Eddie,” Steve tuts, tongue clicking in his mouth. “everyone knows what Star Trek is. It’s nerd shit, but like, old nerd shit. My grandparents used to watch it when I stayed over. This?”

He shakes the zine, so hard Eddie wants to snatch it away from him.

“This isn't nerd shit. This is excellent.”

Steve gives the zine an appreciative glance and hell, maybe Eddie accidentally walked into another dimension.

He’s been trying to get Steve to read more, rediscover the joys of books the public school system does its best to destroy, but until now Steve hasn’t really taken to it.

Enjoys when Eddie reads aloud sometimes, and has started to bug Robin to do it for him too, but otherwise?

Eddie’s nerve seen him with anything that had the written word on it that wasn’t a cooking or car related magazine.

“Honestly,” Steve’s saying, “I think Robs fucked up, this isn't her style at all. She’s gonna be pissed.”

He eyes the thing appreciatively, like the gift it is.

“I'm stealing it the second she figures that out.” He adds decisively.

“You like it?” Eddie asks.

“Mmm.”

“Even though it's--it's got…Kirk…”

Steve's frowning at him again. “What?”

“It's queer man. It's really queer.”

Steve peers at him, the crinkle back in his eyebrows.

“I know. Wait, how do you--”

And well. It’s now or never.

“It's mine.” Eddie says in a rush.

“No it's not.” Steve scoffs, and okay, maybe this is a dream. Eddie pinched himself twice already, but perhaps a third time would wake him up?

(It does not.)

“it was even addressed to Robin. Well,” Steve has one hand on a hip now, his default position when arguing, “Robbie, but she goes by that sometimes.”

Which Robin does, but not in the fucking mail.

Without a word, Eddie turns and goes for the envelope the zine came in.

Steve follows, invading Eddie’s space to peer over his shoulder (and that’s Eddie’s fault too, that closeness, but he didn’t think it would be turned on him in a moment like this--)

There's a sticker on the envelope’s label.

It’s barely hanging on, half of it curled into the air. Round and yellow, with little black lines, it becomes immediately obvious that one of Robin's smiley face stickers has migrated again.

They're all over the apartment. Remnants of a phase she went through after she stole a roll of them from her and Steve’s job at a local toy store.

This one had clearly jumped ship from its original spot (likely on the ceiling somewhere), and was now firmly over the E in Eddie's name.

‘Ddie’ still isn't exactly ‘Obbie’ but--

Steve leans around, snatching the envelope up and bringing it close to his face.

Far too close, like he can't read it, eyes squinting as he examines the label--and suddenly Eddie knows exactly what happened.

He laughs, an explosion of noise that's half hysterical and half disbelief.

Steve looks at him.

“What?”

“Oh my God,” Eddie says, one finger jabbing in the air in the vague direction of Steve’s nose. “I told you you needed glasses!”

“I do not!” Steve protests immediately, but his eyes are darting around the envelope.

He’s scrambling to figure out what Eddie’s seeing, trying desperately to find a hole that can prove himself right.

Eddie decides to help him, by plucking the smiley sticker off the envelope.

“See?” He jeers, and shit okay, maybe his life isn’t over just yet. “It says Eddie, not Robbie!”

“You guys have got to start using your government names for this shit.” Steve bitches, but it’s weak.

Eddie feels a grin coming on, and lets it overtake his face.

“So...Kirk and Spock huh?”

“They’re cute.” Steve defends instantly, before sighing his defeat and tossing the envelope on the table.

The zine he keeps in his hands.

Eddie crosses his arms and leans against their rickety table. “Even though they’re both guys?”

“I thought we were past this!” Steve whines. “I went to a gay bar with Robin last weekend!”

Which is news to Eddie.

“You didn’t invite me?” He gasps, feigning hurt by putting a hand over his heart.

Truthfully he still hasn’t fully recovered--is play acting himself, almost, but is rapidly coming around to the idea of Steve appreciating queer fanfiction.

“We did!” Steve rolls his eyes so dramatically his whole head moves. “We absolutely did, You said,”

Here Steve’s voice pitches into a mockery of Eddie’s that he will not give him points for, even if it is a little hilarious, “Me? At some loser bar? Fuck no, I’ve got a campaign to write. Starbuck, don’t you have homework?”

“I didn’t know that was a gay bar!”

“You did! Robin told you!”

“Okay well, I wasn’t listening!”

“Clearly. I keep telling you we need a fucking--system or, I don’t know, a code word or something!”

“Yeah well, when you wanna make us a safe word for conversations, big boy, you let me know.”

They’re both laughing a little now, this argument veering into familiar territory, with Eddie not really listening and Steve mocking him for it later. (As well as vice versa, with startling regularity.)

“You really like it though?” Eddie says after the laughter winds down, gesturing to the zine still clutched in Steve’s hand.

“Yeah.” Steve confirms, easy as he’s said anything else. Like this isn’t embarrassing, or almost worse than the time Wayne found Eddie’s porno mags and alphabetized them as a joke.

“It's part of a mail tree. I’m supposed to send it on to the next person when I’m done with it. I make copies though,” Eddie rushes to add, because Steve is now clutching the little booklet to his chest in horror, as if Eddie was about to rip it out of his hands. “If you like I’ll show you my other ones?”

Steve eases his grip, giving Eddie the little smile he makes that makes his stomach flip.

“That’d be cool.”

(Later, Steve pokes at Eddie’s thigh from where they’re both sprawled on Eddie’s bed, Steve having switched the new zine out for one of Eddie’s copies. “Are you going to laugh at me if I ask you to read some of these aloud?”

“Only if you don’t laugh when I ask you to take me to that gay bar.”

“Deal, but on the grounds you’re barred from making fun of my flirting attempts. Robin doing it was bad enough.”

“Well you deserve it if you’re hitting on women at a gay bar, Stevie.”

“I wasn't hitting on women you asshole.” Steve says and oh.

Oh.

Eddie feels the floor drop out from under him for the second time that day.

At least this time it’s not fear that thunders through him, but possibility.)

#steddie #pre steddie #eddie reads star trek slash fiction #kirk/spock #mentioned anyway lol #Steve Harringtons Terrible Fucking Eyesight #(me too buddy me too)#steve harrington #eddie munson #zines #0o0 fanfics #stranger things

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