brain worms

‘Oh, hello lover!’ Eddie’s voice trills through, sickeningly sweet and it sounds like him but also not at all like him, like it’s a recording of his voice playing loud through a speaker far away.

Steve reaches back to grab at something, anything, and only grips at air as Eddie laughs and laughs. He stumbles backwards, eyes still on Eddie as he presses further into the gap, turns to face up, shoulders and hands and back into their space, Steve at least too shocked to do anything, not sure what he could do, feeling like a rabbit chased by a fox into a little hole except the fox is Eddie . He pulls himself through with uncanny core strength, garbage falling in around him from the barrier, and he thumps to the ground and springs up, arms dramatically gesturing at the sides like ‘it’s me!’

With zero fanfare, Murray tackles him to the ground. Eddie is laughing and spitting blood, he must have bitten his tongue or cheek, and it makes him look even more monstrous. Dustin flings himself into his feet, and Joyce shoves rope into Steve's good hand before kneeling down to tie him up. It all happens faster than Steve even registers fully what's happening.

Murray shoves Eddie into a sitting position, restrained and laughing, and Steve thinks What is the point? Why is Vecna, or whoever, even taking Eddie over? If he's only a little stronger and a little faster and a lot meaner, what is the end game?

'Well maybe this is a Kas thing,' Dustin is shouting quickly as Joyce and Murray reset the fireworks and Eddie laughs and laughs. 'Maybe he's a follower of Vecna and he's going to turn on him and-'

‘Not everything is about your fucking dragon game, Dustin!’ Steve feels bad about it as soon as it’s left his mouth, but Dustin doesn’t look hurt, he looks fierce and like he’s gonna start a fight. It's quiet finally but for the bats and thunder. Eddie's even looking at him with wide eyes. His whole body burns.

‘You know that-’

‘ No! It’s not your fucking game! It’s not! Pretending it is isn’t gonna give us some, some clue, or some magic spell! This is our friend we’re talking about, and there’s something wrong with him, and it’s hurting him and it’s hurting us! It’s hurting me!’ His eyes are prickling.

‘Oh a friend, right, of course, we spend the apocalypse tongue-kissing all our friends on the front porch-’

'Well Dustin, I'm a pretty sweet piece of ass.' Eddie’s voice interrupts. He sounds bored.

'I'm not talking about you , asshole, I'm talking about Eddie.' Dustin’s anger turns onto Eddie’s figure.

'Same difference,' he shrugs. 'I've been here the whole time, anyway. You’re quiiiiiite the kisser, Harrington. Makes a girl blush.'

'Can we gag him or something?' Steve looks wildly around their little dugout for something, anything. All they have is explosives, a small remainder of rope. Maybe in a pinch.

'Hmm, kinky.'

'I can't do this.' Steve is close to leaving, to running out there and letting the bats take him. He's mostly meat anyway, feels ground up and spit out. Maybe he can buy some time.

The walkie crackles to life. 'Big Guns advancing, over.' Nancy whispers, and the drainpipe is quiet again. Then there's the sizzle of fuses and a ' Fore! ' from Murray and there are fireworks.

There's the high keening of bats in trouble, which is something Steve's grown to see as positive. The air crackles from lightning, from loud cracks of small explosions.

Steve grabs an extra lighter and runs to help Dustin. Eddie lifts his tied legs as an attempt to trip him, and he catches himself and points a warning, even though he doesn't know what the 'or else' could possibly be, and Eddie's laughing again.

His body is a traitor and his chest tells him 'Eddie is fine because he's laughing!'. He shakes his head and distracts himself by lighting Dustin's fuse and watching as he aims, as the embers fall and then shove upward into the swarm. because he's laughing!'. He shakes his head and distracts himself by lighting Dustin's fuse and watching as he aims, as the embers fall and then shove upward into the swarm.

Eddie coughs and spits a stream of something dark to the side, then he starts humming. Steve doesn't know what the song is, but he recognizes it, and it pisses him off because it's an Eddie song and it's just another thing this fucking creature is stealing and corrupting and ruining. His skin feels like it’s burning right up off of his body as he watches the fireworks shoot off into the sky, sparks catching on thick wings and sending bodies to the ground in soft thuds. The smell of gunpowder is thick in the space, the air feels thick with it, and Steve’s eyes are watering like sobs.

‘This is boring.’ Eddie calls loudly from his place in the dirt.

‘You’re the one that did a terrible job of attacking a bunch of literal children and got tied up again.’ Dustin yells out over his shoulder as Steve fumbles through lighting another firework through tear-blurred vision.

‘Ouch. You know, that’s hurtful. I thought I was your friend, Dusty.’ Eddie is coughing and spitting again. Steve can’t look at him, between the flash of his eyes and the dark slime oozing out of his mouth.

‘I don’t even know who you are, asshole.’ Dustin aims the fireworks at the swarm of bats again, focused even through the bickering. ‘You tried to kill my friends and burn down my house, and you’re literally possessing Eddie.’ Snap, sizzle, bang. Steve hands him another, lights it, watches as he aims it.

Eddie laughs again, hard and loud, and it turns into a groan and more coughing. Steve hears something wet hit the ground, and after this firework lands true in the middle of the chaos outside, he flicks his eyes over to where Eddie is gagging and has to clutch at Dustin’s arm. He can’t find a word for what’s happening.

I'm repentarium there, here, Twitter, and insta.

ao3 link

I have some prequel stuff I will probably post one day to the series, but I am taking a little break before I get into another massive 'edit desert song' hole.

I'm repentarium there, here, Twitter, and Insta.

thank you all for reading and sharing!

All on the up and up, very above the board and even boring, maybe. A normal bodily reaction. Not a big deal. Cool as a cucumber. 

He’s talked to Robin about it - well, he’s talked around it in Robin’s general direction, he hasn’t jumped off the diving board per se, which is fine because there’s nothing weird here. Anyway, he told Robin that he thought Eddie was really cool is what happened if you want to know the exact details, and Robin said ‘Yeah, I think so too!’. So that was like proof that it was normal, you know. Everyone thought Eddie was cool. 

Steve is a liar. He is lying to himself. He does that sometimes, and he’s trying to get better about it, but it’s easier to not understand something than to dig into all the messy feelings. So the nail polish? He could have removed it, he maybe should have, but it’s like a physical something-or-other, and looking at it, or catching it on accident from the corner of his eye, gives him that same electric jolt he gets when he catches Eddie looking at him from across the room, or when he realizes the bell over the Family Video door ringing is actually heralding his loitering presence. 

Anyway, he’s a liar, mostly to himself, mostly for convenience, but this whole nail polish thing is wrecking it, it’s making it harder and harder to lie about it, even in the comfort of his own thoughts. 

He went on a few dates with Marie Thomas the summer before sophomore year, and she was like a vampire. She’d latch onto his throat and chew and it wasn’t like he wasn’t into it, but the real secret thrill was that he’d then catch the little bruises she left on his neck when he passed by the mirror. He hadn’t really thought he should cover it up, didn’t get why it was weird or whatever until Carol noticed on a Monday and started calling him a slut. He’d just liked that it was a physical and visual reminder that he had felt something, that he’d had a connection with another person. He liked pressing his thumb against a bruise and feeling the little bit of pain and he liked the way the purple bled out past the collar of his shirt as it healed. He and Marie didn’t last much into the school year, but he thought about the bruises sometimes. 

So looking at the yellow of the polish on his finger for the next few days and feeling that same thrill, like some kind of weird neon sign that flashed and told him ‘Eddie was kneeling at your feet the other day, remember? He was looking up with big eyes through his bangs and blowing gently on your finger and he was real and it happened’ as if some sort of hot and heavy backseat-at-the-drive-in action happened when it was truly something boring in a room full of people in his mom’s living room? 

It’s almost the same thing, really, and that feeling makes it harder to lie . 

By the time the golden-sunshine-yellow paint is chipping off the tip of his finger, he’s spiraling into a real conundrum of truths. It’s a Wednesday, and he is late to pick up Robin for work because he honestly truthfully spent ten minutes looking at the fresh chip in his paint. He’d been wondering if that was Eddie’s little bottle, if he’d had yellow fingertips like this before, or if this was from the girls’ collection. He’d been wondering if, if he went to the trailer park, Eddie would give him a touch up. If he’d sit at his knees while he did, or if they’d sit across from each other on his bed at the new government trailer, legs crossed and hands held like highschool girls holding a seance. 

It took the phone ringing to shake him out of it, Robin yelling at him for not being there yet. 

So it was toeing into his shoes, snatching his keys off the counter, and speeding to Robin’s and then to open the store. Busy with his body but his brain still whirring around with honest-to-god honesty. He liked Eddie, sure, but he also likes Eddie, the way he’d liked Marie Thomas or Nancy Wheeler or any of the girls he’d gotten handsy with. Pants feelings. 

And, maybe scarier, heart feelings. His terrible idiot of a heart whispers to him about how brave Eddie actually was and how kind he actually was and how good he actually was, how he treated the kids and how he nearly died to save the town that hated him and how he’d carefully held his hand and taken the time to do two coats of paint and to blow across the tip so that the sunny color looked Just Right and smooth even though Steve had (out of his mind, maybe) said he’d just wash it off. Like he’d been painting something special, maybe one of the tiny creatures for his game, instead of an ungrateful little jerk of a guy. 

It all has him itchy, tapping one hand on the counter and staring at the other, the truthy yellow of it all, while Robin complains about the shitty movie she’d chosen to throw on the tv. He knows that she knows that he’s in his head about something, they basically share the same head, and he’s grateful she’s keeping it light and surface level so he can dwell and hiccup over all the sticky stuff. 

The bell over the door rings, and Steve’s head snaps up (with hope, he recognizes the fluttery little wings of it and it’s like a carrier pigeon with a notarized message, the  contents inside enough to make him gulp) and of course it’s Eddie, he’s always around, especially on Wednesdays when the store is at its emptiest. Steve swallows again when he sees him, forces out a ‘Hey, man!’ and holds his hands steady on the counter, palms to the glass.

Eddie looks good, of course he does, eyes and teeth bright and sparkling and his hair backlit by the late morning light so it’s like a halo. He’s fizzy with energy, like he always is, and he comes up to lean against the counter directly across from Steve. Close, like always. In Steve’s personal space, like always .

“Hey yourself, man .” Eddie smiles at him and raps his knuckles against the glass. 

“Thank GOD you’re here, Munson, my brain is leaking out of my ears and Steve has been brooding and just so boring all morning.”

“Unfortunately, my dear Buckley, I’m on a mission today. I’ve gotta go out of town to get something for Wayne’s truck, so I can’t stay. Just wanted to check in with my adoring masses, a tough tour, you know how it is.” He raps again, and Steve’s eyes fall to their hands, Eddie’s rings clacking together and Steve’s sweaty palms pressed into the glass just an inch or so away. “Broody, huh? Run out of your fancy-boy hair gel?” 

Eddie frowns with pomp and drama and tucks his head down to make Steve look into his eyes, and he’s looking through his lashes again, just like when he was painting his nails. It makes him clear his throat, and clear it again, and think about Marie’s bruise on his neck, wonder if Eddie would bruise him like that, if he would rather Steve mark him up, and then he’s looking at the long line of his neck and the way it slides into the curve of his shoulder before it disappears into the stretched-out collar of his once-black shirt. He clears his throat again , and then, as if Eddie can read his mind (God no, please), he looks down at Steve’s hand and taps at the nail polish. 

“You need a touch-up, Stevie, that yellow is just falling apart. It’s called Sun Day, you know, that color. Two words: Sun Day.”

Steve hums at him and looks back at his hands again. Feels the ghost of the little tap he’d touched against his nail. 

“ Anyway , my friends and fellow freaks, I am a little overdue on this old thing.” He struggles into some hidden pocket under the flannel tied around his waist, turning his shoulders enough that Steve feels like whatever spell he’d cast is maybe broken and he can breathe again. 

He presses the plastic case onto the counter with what Steve just knows he thinks is his most winningest grin, but it only works because it’s created this silly stretched-out grimace that Steve finds charming, okay, it’s silly and it’s charming. 

“Fine! Okay, fine, you got it, what fees?” Steve shakes his head at him, one hand finally lifting from the counter to run through his hair and the other finding home on his own hip. He hopes there isn’t some sort of sweaty mark on the counter but he can’t look to check without showing his cards. 

“My everlasting thanks, sweet Stevie.” Eddie bows low and backs up a few steps, turns around as Robin says goodbye, taps the top of the door frame as he leaves and shoots a wink over his shoulder back at Steve. Steve stares too long, raises his hand in a wave after Eddie is already out of sight. 

Robin is snapping up Eddie’s returned VHS to rewind it; you’d think with his friends cutting him so much slack with the rentals he’d be-kind-rewind them at least, but he never does, and the worst part is that Steve doesn’t even care. He’s fully complained to many a customer with his arms crossed pissily about rewinding their spoils, but for some reason Eddie’s disregard is just another Cool Thing about his Cool Guy Persona. 

Something about that’s the final straw. When it crosses his mind, he crosses to the front of the store and flips the closed sign, locks the door, and turns off the display lights. By the time he’s turned around again, hands in his hair and his heart pounding in his throat, Robin is looking at him with an eyebrow raised. She doesn’t seem panicked, but Steve is starting to feel panicked, so he comes around the counter to lean next to Robin and then slides down to sit on the floor. It feels right. It feels even more right when Robin slides down the wall across from him and kicks her scuffed up Converse against his sneaker. 

She’s quiet and watching him with big eyes. It’s uncanny. 

He has a few false starts, big breaths and an open mouth before reeling in whatever he was going to say and snapping his jaw closed again. 

Finally, after minutes of Robin just Looking and Steve floundering and feeling warm, he looks at his painted nail for courage and just spits it out. 

“I like Eddie. Like I think I want to kiss him and hear about his day and touch his butt and stuff.”

“God,” says Robin, “of course you do. Have you seen the two of you dancing around each other? It’s like you pinball from middle school crush to old married couple and back again.”

Steve sputters. “You knew ? Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Like that wouldn’t have totally freaked you out. You had to figure it out in your own time.” Steve would bet she thinks she looks wise, but to him she just looks constipated. 

“Well so. So what do I do? What now?” He’s chewing on the skin of his thumb, not the one who is neighbors with the Sun Day, he’s got enough presence of mind for that .

“What do you mean?”

Steve sighs in frustration and then his hands are tugging at his hair again, elbows balanced on his knees. “Is he even. Does he. What if he doesn’t like me back? What if he does ?”

“Breathe, Steve. He definitely likes you, he just thinks you’re straight ‘cause of, you know.” She gestures vaguely at him. 

“So did I.”

“Yeah, uh. Are you, like, freaking out?”

“I… don’t know. It snuck up on me. I just. He painted my fingernail.” Steve flips Robin off to show off the sad and chipped polish. 

“Yeah you showed me. Multiple times.” She has a pretty unimpressed expression on her face for someone who is supposed to be helping him. “ That’s what made you realize you liked his dork ass?”

“I mean, it was a series of things, I guess. I don’t know.” He’s looking at his silly fingernail again. “He’s really good. Like better than anyone maybe.”

Robin is gawking at him. “That’s not how you talk about girls, Steve. You haven’t mentioned his boobies like, at all.”

Steve groans and slides sideways to lay on the floor, sprawled out and looking at the cobwebs fighting to cover the overhead lights. Gross. 

“I’m sure his boobies are lovely, Robs, I just… wanna spend time with him, and listen to his weird stories and his weird music and look at his eyes when he talks about all the things he likes. And. Maybe he’ll like me like that too, you know? Like maybe he’ll feel the same way one day and I’ll be able to look at him and just know .” 

“Ew, you suck, Steve.” But her face when he looks is soft and caring. 

“Should I like. Talk to him? No. I don’t even know if he’s. You know.”

“You won’t know for sure until you talk to him, but I wouldn’t encourage you to talk to him if I didn’t think he was safe. And also like completely obsessed with you. But even if he wasn’t! He’s a good guy and he’s a good friend, you know. He’s not gonna be weird about it.”

“Hmm.”

Robin puts a hand on his knee and shakes it side to side. “Look at us ! You basically said you loved me and I’m still here, and we’re even closer than ever.”

Steve frowns at her, but he knows she’s right. Eddie’s a good guy, that’s the whole point.

“I guess I’m gonna talk to him.” Even saying it out loud to Robin like this makes him nauseous, makes his pulse pound, but she smiles at him in encouragement. 

“Yes! A great idea. You can turn on the old Harrington Charm, maybe-”

A pounding at the closed door and a muffled voice interrupts her. They both scramble to their feet, and Steve sees old Mrs. Burke pressing her face to the door, talking through the glass and shielding her eyes from the glare. 

“Coming!” Robin yells and darts to the door, lets her in and flips everything to open again. 

“You’re supposed to be open!” Mrs. Burke gripes. 

Steve mutters a ‘yeah, yeah’ and lets Robin take over. He’s usually fed to the Mad Old Lady Wolves but Robin loves him and lets him go sit in the breakroom for five minutes while she helps her find whatever romantic comedy she needs so badly. 

That means he gets to sit on the ratty old sofa and stare at the walls and wring his hands because it sure doesn’t feel like it’s as easy as flipping on some sort of charm switch. He’s got indigestion thinking about it, actually. 

And okay, the whole ‘King Steve “the Hair” Harrington, Master of Charm and Suavity’ was… a little bit of a farce, actually. It worked for him, but from an outside perspective, especially lately? Let’s just say it’s a little lackluster. Nancy told him one time, giggling in a way that didn’t hurt his feelings, that the reason he was charming was because he wasn’t charming, just sincere. That was after he successfully(?) charmed her with shotgunning the beer by the pool and before the big breakup, so that means something, right?

When the bell over the door rings again (Steve’s ears are trained to recognize it) he gets to barge out into the main room and say “Robin, do you really think I’m charming or are you joking?”

Luckily there’s no one in the store again, and he just finds Robin between the aisles pausing her restock to look at him with wide eyes. 

“I’m being serious, I’m having a crisis.” he continues when she doesn’t immediately respond. 

“Steve, buddy, I hate to be the one to tell you this. You’re a total dweeb.” It’s delivered with the gravitas of a doctor giving a horrible diagnosis, and it feels that way to Steve. “But!” she continues quickly when his face definitely flashes with the fall and the crash, “I have incredible news for you! I personally mean that as a term of endearment and, maybe even better, everyone you know is a dweeb, and ? Best of all? One Eddie Munson is maybe the biggest dweeb that’s ever existed”

Steve is still frowning. It’s kind of a lot to absorb, that the common perception of yourself is so… unsmooth. 

“You’re very sweet, Steve, and everyone likes you. Well, mostly.” Robin stiffly pats his shoulder. 

“Should I like, buy a leather jacket or something?”

“Steve it’s June. Also I don’t think you need to pull a Sandy Dee. Actually, please don’t. Just, you’ve got your whole… thing… and it’s maybe a little uptight? But it’s your thing ! You don’t wanna change for a person, you know, you’d tell me the same thing.”

“I want him to like me. Suddenly. Very badly.” 

“That’s the nature of a crush, Steve-o. It’s evil.”

“I need to go lay down for a few days. Maybe this’ll blow over, like…” he thinks and snaps his fingers, “temporary insanity.”

“Oh, honey. It’s been a while I guess, what with the world always ending, but I don’t know if you can sleep this kinda thing off. You probably have to talk to him.” 

He stands and stares and thinks while Robin putters around doing menial movie store tasks around him. It’s hard work, standing and staring and thinking, especially when he’s interrupted to take care of customers, so really it takes him the rest of the afternoon and all the way up through quitting time. 

It’s like he blinks and he’s pulling into his driveway, no memory of dropping Robin off. He shakes himself and turns the engine off, stumbles up his steps and through the front doors with legs that feel asleep and a brain that’s still all fogged up. 

It’s not even an Eddie is a boy and this makes him Different kind of freak out; that’s not it at all, he’s somehow leapt straight past that like hurdles in track and is standing facing a brick wall of but he’s Good and maybe you Don’t Deserve This . 

Steve knows he’s a lot, see, and he falls hard and fast, and Eddie is fun and light and not weighed down with all the guilt and anxiety and bullshit Steve’s dealing with; Eddie has his band and his game and his friends and he’s going to community college and working part time at a garage in town and figuring his shit out. Steve is working at Family Video (still), floundering his 20s away with no hopes or dreams or friends older than teens, and he also almost got a significant percentage of them, including Eddie , killed. Very recently, actually. 

Like Eddie is a glowing light and Steve is a cold dark box that puts lights out. Like he’s become his shitty, empty house. 

He’s still standing in his dark entryway, breath kicking up into something that’s sure to be a real doozy of a panic attack, when there’s a firm and rhythmic knock at the front door. He eyes the bat leaning against the wall (in case of emergencies), then flicks on the lights and opens the doors to find Eddie standing there, arms weighed down with bags and a hand raised to knock again. 

“Hey Stevie!” 

“H-hey? Hey, Eddie! What’s, um. What’s going on?” He tries to channel coolness, suavity, leans against the wall next to the open door and doesn’t almost fall. 

Eddie pushes past Steve without being invited in, typical behavior, and slides his wares onto the counter in the kitchen. 

“I brought us a feast.”

“A feast?” Steve’s stomach grumbles, reminds him he skipped breakfast and lunch, only split marked-out snacks with Robin all day. “What’s the occasion?”

“Kinda you are.” Eddie is unloading takeout containers from what smells like some Italian place. 

“I’m… confused.”

“Your birthday!”

“It’s definitely not my birthday, Eddie.”

“No, but we’re celebrating it today because I don’t know when it is.”

“That doesn’t make, like, any sense, man, my birthday was in April.”

“No, that’s perfect! I was probably recovering from the whole near-death then, so. Birthday.” He grins cheesily at him and Steve feels like all of his insides are scrambling to leave his body via a new pathway up his throat. “I hope you like pasta!”

“I love pasta.” Steve manages to mumble, and his feet move him towards Eddie on their own, his eyes snoop on their own, his hands pull out a stool on their own. It’s like he’s haunting his own body. Eddie is mumbling song lyrics and pulling out plates and dishing out pasta and salad like he belongs in his kitchen, like he’s more at home there than Steve has pretty much ever felt, and that combined with his day of Thinking and the snare of the stupid yellow polish on his nail that has him still feeling breathless when he says, watery and all in a jumble: “Eddie I think I really like you. Please don’t make fun of me.” 

He feels the panic on his own face as he just pauses. He didn’t mean to just say that, and now Eddie’s stopped, still as hell and facing away from him, carton of breadsticks lowered to the counter. He tries to school his face (cool, suave) as Eddie slowly, so slowly, turns around and leans against the edge of the counter, as he crosses his arms in front of him, but he just knows he looks like he’s seen a ghost or like he’s on fire because he still kinda feels that way. 

“You okay Stevie? You look a little. Well, you look a little freaked out.”

“I just, ah. I just mean.” He sinks fully into the stool, grateful it has a back to catch him because otherwise he’d end up on the floor for sure. His knees are basically on strike. He’s so warm. He keeps clearing his throat. 

Eddie is still looking at him with worry making the line between his brows creep below his bangs. He turns again to run some water into a glass and slide it across the island to Steve, who grabs it and makes himself sip mostly for something to do with his hands. But now Eddie is leaning across the whole island, pushed up onto his toes for sure, pushing into Steve’s space just enough that he knows he’s blushing. It makes him feel ridiculous because this is just Eddie, his friend, one of his best friends. Eddie who, god bless him, has never had a firm grasp on personal space and it’s never really been an issue before right exactly now.

Steve’s talking into the glass and avoiding Eddie’s eyes when he says, “I mean. It’s. I don’t think. I just. You don’t have to say anything. I’m, like, working through something.”

“Hmm. Did you mean it, Steve?”

Steve gulps again. “Yeah. Yeah, I did, I mean. I do. Like you. Like more than a normal amount. And it’s okay if you don’t, and I’m sorry if that’s not…”

“Stevie, breathe.” 

Steve can hear the chuckle in his voice and it finally makes him look up, which was a terrible idea, actually, because now he’s stuck again, caught on looking into Eddie’s stupid beautiful eyes as he laughs at him. “Please don’t laugh at me. This is. A lot.” Steve feels small and tiny and miniscule and he wants to go hide under the covers like when he was a kid and his parents were yelling. 

“Sweetheart. I am not laughing at you.” Eddie’s voice is firm through the grin that’s still there, and he reaches out slowly like Steve is a startled horse and lightly - lightly - touches the side of his face. It’s like walking through a spider web in the park if the spider web was cotton candy instead. “Oh my god. Steve Harrington, you’re such a dweeb.”

“That’s what they say.”

Slowly, to keep from startling him any more, he’s sure, Eddie leans further across the island, hand still on Steve’s face, and presses a gentle, feather-soft kiss against his lips. It’s nothing, really, not even close to the kinds of kisses that led to hands or bruises, but it’s like fireworks catching on all his nerves and he can feel all his hair stand up. It’s like superpowers and swimming and drowning, and he knows a little about all that. 

Before he can get his brain on the same channel, Eddie is pulling away with a soft pat to Steve’s cheek. Steve makes a very sad noise at the back of his throat and he knows he’s pouting but Eddie has turned away already, is humming again and grabbing plates and saying “Let’s eat some pasta, babe. I’m starving.”

He watches as Eddie grabs plates, balances a box of breadsticks on an arm, asks him to grab the Cokes. Steve grabs the bottles on autopilot, cracks the caps open on the counter the way his mother would kill him for, and follows Eddie into the living room where he’s seated on the sofa, plate in his lap and pasta in his mouth. 

He’s got a numb almost-feeling as he clinks a Coke down in front of Eddie and takes his plate, sits stiffly. His brain is sloshing around as he eats his spaghetti. 

“How are you normal?”

Eddie raises his eyebrows over his Coke bottle. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I just mean. I guess I don’t know what to think. Usually people say something when you say you, well. Say you have feelings for them. Or…”

Eddie puts all his things down on the coffee table, no coasters, and curls his legs up onto the couch. 

“Stevie, I’m sittin’ right here with you. You don’t have to say or do anything, you know? I’m here, and I’m not goin’ anywhere. We can eat dinner, we can talk about it.” He shrugs a shoulder, totally not bothered.

They’re words, just words, and they shouldn’t strike him so hard, but his face feels warm and he still feels like his brain is spinning around, like he’s at sea. Eddie frowns at him. He seems to see how lost he is suddenly because in the next breath he’s taking everything away from Steve to put it next to his own stuff. He grabs his hands and tells him to breathe. “Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

“You are freaking out. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m fine, I’m just.”

“It’s okay not to be fine. I think you’ve given this all a little more thought than I thought.”

“I’m serious, I was serious. I even told Robin. I think I, well, I know… I like you a lot. Like in a way I don’t usually like guys.”

“Oh. Wow.” Eddie is looking at him, and now he looks like he’s seen a ghost. Hands gripped, seance-style. “Okay, I’m not gonna lie, Stevie, I kinda thought you were just trying to say I was your… pal.”

“So you kissed me on the lips.”

“Pals kiss! And okay, cards on the table I guess, I know I feel a certain way about you , that’s not news to me. I wanted to do that for years, since even before you saved my life. I just don’t exactly expect any kind of… reciprocity.”

“Like?”

“Like you’re not gonna look at me and see me the way I see you .” By the end of the sentence his voice has fallen to a whisper.

And, well. Now Eddie is looking away and blushing and Steve feels a little more balanced, feels like this is something he can participate in. Not so much confidence, but familiarity, a comfortable sweater. “It depends how you see me, I guess, but I’m a little obsessed with you.” 

Eddie lets out a loud laugh in surprise and tries to pull his hands back but Steve flips them around so he’s grabbing Eddie’s hands and keeping them safe. It’s like holding small birds.

“No, stop. I mean it.” He’s picking up steam, pulling out the things he was turning over in his head all day. He mirrors Eddie, knees touching knees. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Robin’s tired of hearing about it. Being around you is easy, you make things easy, like it gets quiet even though you’re loud as hell.”

“Shut up, man.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re not like, joking with me right? Because that happened sometimes in the hallowed halls of Hawkins High and gotta tell ya, not a fan. I’m not a good fighter and I like you too much to wanna hit you but I would be very sad , and-”

“Eddie, it’s not a joke.”

“-like, I just wanted to bring you dinner because it looked like you were having a bad day and we all know how that goes, and this is all feeling very weird actually-”

“You were so cool a minute ago, it made me think I was losing it-”

“-maybe I got into a horrible car accident and died and this is like the last firing of my synapses or whatever.”

“-but this is actually more of an Eddie response. Is this okay?” Steve is ecstatic, actually, this is going so well, way better than he thought, and he can feel the smile on his face as he reels Eddie in closer to him, as he plans to redo that kiss in the kitchen. 

“God, yes.” Eddie laughs, and then he shuts up as Steve presses his lips against his. 

And okay, it’s more teeth than it should be, what with all the smiling, and it’s a little garlicky from the pasta, but it’s Good in the way that all first kisses are but it’s Better because it’s with Eddie. 

By the time they get back to their pasta it’s cold but they’re still smiling and the little worried line between Eddie’s brows is gone completely. 

They’re laughing as they eat, and they’re laughing as they clean up, and they’re laughing as Steve stops Eddie at the door to pull him into another kiss, and it’s easy . 

When he goes to bed that night, he runs his thumb over the chipped yellow polish in the dark and he thinks wow, Robin was right , and he thinks oh no, Robin is going to be so annoying , but he falls asleep with a smile anyway. He has incredible dreams for a change, dreams where everything is all Sun Day Golden Yellow and cotton-candy-sweet and he has this dork of a guy next to him holding his hand.

It’s all pretty punk rock. 

-----

i have been on several work trips and am in the process of moving so i have been s l a c k i n g, esp here and on my longer fics, but i haven't abandoned them! This is an older short lil story i edited and posted when i couldn't sleep

He just wanted to talk to Robin. If he could talk to her he could fix things, at least fix his dizzy head, which feels like it's just gotten off of a carnival ride or climbed out of a burnt up skeleton of a totaled car at all hours of the day. 

He'd turned the stove off and tried to call her three times before her roommate picked up and screamed at him that she was in class and some people liked to sleep. 

He has missed her like air. Robin, who could help him talk things out, who could help him pinball around in his brain and come up with a plan or a solution or a way to let things go.

Keith at work noticed the 'love bite' (his words, not Steve's) and made such a big deal out of it and the eyeliner he couldn't scrub off of his eyes that Steve had raised his voice at him for the first time ever, just to plead with him to cut it out. Keith had gotten quiet and left early, and Steve felt bad about it as he closed. He felt bad about everything, bad in general. 

The next two and a half weeks were a quiet that rivaled the times he was at his parents', and if it wouldn’t have made it worse he would have called off of work and stayed in bed. 

They were both busy working, and Eddie's been getting ready for some whirlwind practices with Corroded Coffin when they're in town so they can play a few shows at the Hideout over the holidays. He’d told Steve before all this, with a laugh, that they had to stay relevant, keep from getting too rusty. 

Waking up quiet, work, working late if he could help it, sneaking home past the sticking door and having microwave dinners in bed, laying in the dark and maybe falling asleep but mostly listening for Eddie to get home just to make sure he was still alive, then doing it all over again the next day. A horrible and freezing cycle. 

It’s not like he hates Eddie. He’s not even mad at him, even though he knows he promised he’d stay; technically kind of he did, that night at least. He remembers how soft his hair was and how plush his lips were and how firm and right it all felt, he has dreamt about it all every time he does manage to drift off. He hopes he doesn’t call for him in his sleep, because if Eddie could hear nightmares through the paper-thin walls he could undoubtedly hear his own name. Embarrassing. 

He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about how he was always the lover, never the loved. Not really. This was just more of the same. He shouldn’t be surprised. He always fell too hard too fast and was too quick to attach, and on top of it all he was terrible at hiding it because why should he? Shouldn’t people want to know they’re loved? He would. He would want to know. 

Eddie hadn’t said it in so many words, but lurking in the ‘we can’t do it again’ was the ghost of Nancy telling him his love was bullshit, the ex-girlfriend calling him clingy, his dad telling him he was too soft and to stop crowding him. 

The problem with seeking home in other people is finding it, and the problem with finding it is that when they take it away you're left wandering again. That’s not really fair to Eddie, and Steve knows it as soon as he thinks it. Eddie didn’t ask for Steve to rely on him the way he does. Clingy and soft and crowding. 

The only thing helping to keep him sane the whole time was knowing Robin would be home soon for Thanksgiving, that she'd talk him through it and help him shake it off. He could tolerate anything for ten seconds at a time, and what’s a couple of weeks but a bunch of ten second blocks?

So he spends the time feeling cold and sad and melodramatic, and he spends the time counting the days. 

When it’s finally time, he drives the Beemer to Chicago to pick her up, thinks the time away will do just as much for him as seeing Robin so he takes off work and leaves a simple note for Eddie. He doesn't think about the whole 'staying alone in a car for eight hours' part of it, and he cycles through his tapes quickly. 

She greets him with a hug that makes both of their eyes water and he practically shoves her into the car to go somewhere they could actually talk, and she must have be able to tell through their weirdo wondertwin psychic bond that something is seriously wrong because she just rambles about her classes while he helps with her bags and the whole way to the first stop.

He pulls off the road and into one of those nondescript rest areas, a field and parking lot, a gas station and a forest of vending machines surrounded by actual trees. He parks in the back and turns the car off even though it's chilly. 

He hasn't been able to look at Robin much the whole time, and still fixes his eyes out the windshield at a hole in a nearby tree and while he gnaws on his lip and twists his fingers in his lap silently. Robin puts a hand on his arm and says his name. 

‘There’s something wrong, and I don’t know what could have happened but you know you can talk to me about it. I love you no matter what. Even if you're kind of a loser sometimes, you’re my loser.'

The carefully- but poorly-constructed dam breaks and Steve is suddenly crying, full-body and ugly in a way he doesn't remember ever crying, even in the midst of all the Upside Down or Nancy's 'bullshit' or his dad giving him his second or third concussion, and he's so fucking scared for no good reason because he knows of all people Robin is on his side. He’s not scared of Robin.

She just quietly says 'oh my god, Stevie,' and unbuckles both of their seatbelts, crawls as close to him as she can and pulls him into another firm hug that at least stops some of the shaking he hadn't realized he'd been doing. She pets at his hair (unstyled and flat-looking, at least to him) until he's calmed down a little bit. He matches his breath to hers and tries to let it ground him.

'Robs,' he still sounds like he's drowning and he kind of feels that way too, 'I don't even know where to start. I missed you so much.'

'Stevie, I am so sorry, I should have called you more, I was just so busy and-'

'No, Robin, I know-’

‘-I should have tried harder-’

‘Robs, I just missed you so much and I think if you'd been there you could have stopped all of this from happening or something. I think I messed up.' He's basically talking into her neck and he knows he's soaking the shoulder of her sweater, so he sniffles and pulls away but keeps his head down. 

Robin pushes his hair back out of his face and tucks what can fit behind his ears. 'You gotta talk to me here, man, what the fuck is going on?' She looks scared. She hasn’t ever seen him like this. He knows because he hasn’t seen himself like this. 

He finally meets her eyes and fights the tears back that try to push forward again, and he sees that her hair is longer than he remembers it, and that she's got these cool dangly earrings in and a little eye makeup that's smeared because of course she's crying too. He doesn't remember ever seeing the sweater she's wearing. It’s striped, and soft. 

'I know it's only been a few months but it feels like so much longer and all of this stuff is happening and I think you're right, I need to get glasses, because my headaches keep getting worse-'

'Well, I could have told you I was right about that.' She rolls her eyes but still has to dab at them with her sleeve.

'Please don't be upset with me when I tell you. I know you won't be, but I'm kind of freaking out.' He clenches his hands onto the bottom of the steering wheel until his knuckles cramp.

'Scout's honor, we will figure whatever it is out. It’s not an Upside Down thing, right? Or the twerps? Is it a girl thing?'

Steve fights off a hysterical giggle trying to force its way out of his throat and says 'It's actually. A guy thing?'

Robin stills and is completely silent and after a minute of it Steve has to know so he looks at her again.

'Steven Jacob Harrington-' 

'-you know that's not my middle name, Rob-'

'I know there's no way you think I'd be upset with you because you're having a gay crisis.'

'Well, half-gay? Maybe? That’s not what’s wrong.'

'Half-gay.'

'Yeah, I mean I'm still into boobies-'

'Please do not say that-'

'But. I kissed a guy. And it was so good, Robin.' His head hits the headrest in frustration. 

'We're gonna come back to the fact that you kissed a guy and talk about it in detail, but first I need to know why you're upset if it was that good and it’s not a gay crisis.’

Steve is feeling a little bit better, like he's let off some of the pressure, lanced some kind of horrible infection, but he doesn't know if telling Robin about Eddie is something he's really supposed to do. Like, it’s one of those things that could get people in real trouble. 

'He. Well. He's someone… or was someone, maybe?’ God. ‘That was really important to me. Like a best friend. And I think I ruined it.'

'Oh no, Stevie. Was he not into it? Did he do something?'

'I don't know, I thought he was, it was good I thought, he was, like, enthusiastic about it, and so nice, but then he said we could never do it again and he's been completely avoiding me and Robs I miss him so much, and we don't even have to keep kissing or anything, I just miss my friend.' 

'Steve, is this someone I know?'

He nods after a moment. 

'Is it Eddie?'

He can feel his chest get tight and his eyes widen and water and he knows he has a terrible poker face but he really does try, it’s just that even on a good day it’s so hard to hide his feelings, especially from Robin, and he's been through such an emotional rollercoaster and feels like such absolute shit that there wasn't really any chance. 

'Hey Steve, it's okay, you're okay. He's avoiding you? You live in the same house.'

'Yeah, no shit. He's trying really hard.’ He laughs, sniffles. ‘I don't know what to do, if I should move out? I don’t know where-' his breath is catching again. He scrubs his face, his itching eyes.

'Okay, slow down. You haven't talked to him since?'

'Not really.' he'd tried a little, tentatively and just at first. Asked how his day was, or if he wanted dinner. He'd just say 'good' or 'nah, not hungry Stevie' and smile sad and shower or go into his room and close his door with a soft click. 

'Stevie. I am going to tell you something but I need you to believe me because I can't tell you why I know this. This is like, damage control, like talking you off the ledge shit.' 

Steve looks at her and nods for her to continue.

‘Eddie doesn't hate you. You tend to have a hard time not believing this but I swear you're an amazing friend and all of your friends love you and you're handsome and cool and smart, even if you still won't wear glasses because you're stubborn and probably a little afraid to make the appointment, which we are absolutely going to do while I'm here by the way. Eddie cares about you, and I don't know what's going on with him right now but you have to know, and I mean this the kindest way possible and with all the love in my heart, it is not always about you.'

'Jeez, thanks, Rob.'

'No! I mean it! You haven't talked to him, so you don't know what's going on in his world, and projecting something onto him isn't fair for either of you so you need to like take a breath and not freak out about it anymore until you talk to him.'

Steve feels like his brain is untwisting a little. God, Robin is such a good friend. 

'If you want to use logic here, I guess that makes sense.'

'Exactly! And I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling emotions about it because this is all kind of a big deal. But please know that even if Eddie suddenly for some reason decided whatever happened was a bad idea-'

'-which he did say, with his actual mouth, verbatim-'

'-he wouldn't hate you or want you to be upset or anything because he is your friend.' Robin finally sits back into her seat, but keeps Steve's hands in hers. 'Now tell me everything about what happened. Don't skip anything.'