the eddie and max siblings agenda

Jeff isn’t an idiot. Chrissy is beautiful. He’s also learned she’s incredibly nice and funny once she gets comfortable with you. It didn’t take him longer than crossing the state line of Indiana to develop a crush.

He didn’t think sharing a bed tonight would be a problem, but now that he sees her bouncing on what is clearly a waterbed, he’s not sure he’ll be able to sleep at all.

“Oh my gosh, my friend has one of these. It’s like being on a boat!” She giggles again as she bounces a bit more.

Jeff smiles at her. He can’t help it. She’s been pretty quiet for most of the trip. Obviously scared about the future, worried about having to make a new life for herself. Jeff would be scared, too. Shit, he is scared, and he’s just one step in her journey.

“Come here!” She waves him over with one hand and pats the bed next to her with the other. “It’s fun!”

Jeff’s pretty sure he’ll do anything to see her keep smiling, so he joins her. She nudges his shoulder and he bounces himself, which bounces her, and then they’re both laughing. They bounce more, even after Jeff stopped trying to, and eventually lose their balance, falling backwards on the bed.

He looks over to see her smiling up at the ceiling as both of their bodies keep moving to the rhythm the bed’s made.

When she looks over at him, he quickly looks up at the ceiling, hoping she doesn’t notice he was staring.

Her arm touches his, then her hand finds his and she laces their fingers together. He feels like he can’t breathe.

“Thank you for doing this,” she says quietly. There’s still a hint of a smile in her voice, but she’s gotten more serious now. “I know it’s a lot to take on. Risking yourself and everything. I just…”

“Needed to get out, I know.”

Jeff turns to look at her again and she doesn’t look nearly as sad as she did this morning. She’s almost glowing. Distance from Hawkins has clearly done wonders for her.

“Will you stay when we get there?”

“Oh.” Jeff breathes out. “Probably for a bit, so it’s not suspicious that I was only gone for a few days. But I have to get back to my parents.”

“Right.”

Her smile drops, but she doesn’t look away.

“Will you visit?” She asks. She almost sounds hopeful.

“Definitely. Once Steve and Eddie have a new place, I’ll probably bring more of their stuff to them,” Jeff says. “And I’m sure they’ll bring you with them.”

“What if they bring me somewhere else?”

“Then I’ll visit you there.”

He doesn’t know that he could, really. He has quite a bit of allowance money saved up, but he used some of it for this trip since Steve and Eddie pretty much had to start over and don’t have much to their name. If they take her somewhere he has to fly, he’d eat up a lot more of it. Maybe all of it. He doesn’t know how far they’ll go to keep her safe.

He’s pretty sure he’d go anywhere, though.

“You’re a good guy, Jeff.”

He can feel the heat on his face as she leans her head over to rest against his shoulder. He can’t help but lean his head down on top of hers.

“You wanna take a shower?” Jeff asks after they lay like that for a few minutes.

Chrissy sighs and stands up from the bed, laughing when she almost loses her balance from the water making sloshing noises as she moves.

She walks towards the bathroom and strips off her shirt. Jeff pretends not to look.

“I’ll be quick,” she says. When Jeff thinks it’s safe to look, he sees her taking off her pants. He doesn’t look away fast enough. She winks at him. He’s dead. “Or we could just both take one. Since there’s probably not much hot water.”

That could be true, but he’s fine with a cold one. Or he was, until this offer presented itself.

“Like…naked?” Jeff sits up.

“Well, yes. We do have to get clean,” Chrissy giggles again. It’s so cute. “Or maybe I read this wrong…”

“No!” Jeff stands up as quickly as he can. “I want to do that! Let’s shower!”

Eddie whips back around, an expression on his face like confusion and anger mixed.

It's only then that Steve realizes he spoke. He hasn't meant to. He was going to let Eddie walk away but now his voice has been freed from the cement. His heart has shut down his brain it seems because he just keeps talking, voice flat and hollow, "why can't you love me the way I love you? What is so broken and wrong within me that no one loves me back? My parents, Nancy, now you. Why can't- I thought that we were- where did I go wrong?"

"What?" Eddie asks, and the anger is gone from his face but now he just looks horrified. Which is understandable. It's horrifying to be loved by Steve Harrington. "What did you think we were?"

Boyfriends. Together. Going steady. At the very least, dating without labels. But none of those very reasonable, normal answers come out of Steve's treacherous mouth. Because Steve can't seem to be a reasonable, normal person. He's got to be too much, too soon, too clingy. So, instead, he says, "In love."

Eddie looks like he's just received the worst news of his life. In fact, he looks a little sick. "Oh fuck. Jesus Christ. I can't- I thought- Fuck!"

Steve just nods along. He hadn't actually said I love you to Nancy that night at Tina's Halloween party, but he imagines if he had, the beginning of the bullshit conversation would have sounded much the same as Eddie does now; like anger and regret, the starts and stops. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have- if you want to go, you should go."

Eddie crosses the room back to Steve in half the steps he took when he first walked away, hands reaching to grab Steve's face between them. He speaks quickly and sounds panicked now. "No, no no no. I fucked up, misunderstood. I don't know how I got it so wrong. I don't want to go. I never did."

"What?"

"I am in love with you, sweetheart. I just- I didn't know you loved me back. I thought you didn't- that we weren't..."

"I thought we were boyfriends."

"Jesus, please let me fix this. Let me stay and make it up to you. I'll be the best fucking boyfriend you've ever had."