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in case anyone else would find this helpful, for a fic i'm tangentially working on, i broke down eddie and steve's school grades in relation to the show's timeline.
to preface, in the US a school year typically runs from august/september through may/june of the following year. it's not uncommon for kids to refer to "last year" or "next year" and be talking about the school year, not the calendar year.
academic year 1980–81:
eddie 9th grade
steve 8th grade (middle school)
nancy/jonathan/robin: 7th grade (middle school)
academic year 1981–82:
eddie 10th grade
steve 9th grade
nancy/jonathan/robin: 8th grade (middle school)
academic year 1982–83:
eddie 11th grade
steve 10th grade
nancy/jonathan/robin: 9th grade
1983–84: [season 1 takes place in november 1983]
eddie 12th grade (first attempt)
steve 11th grade
nancy/jonathan/robin: 10th grade
academic year 1984–85: [season 2 takes place in oct–november 1984]
eddie 12th grade (second attempt)
steve 12th grade
nancy/jonathan/robin: 11th grade
summer 1985: [season 3 takes place over july 4th weekend 1985]
eddie between 2nd and 3rd try at 12th grade
steve graduated (working at scoops ahoy)
nancy/jonathan/robin going to enter in to 12th grade
academic year 1985–86: [season 4 takes place over spring break in march 1986]
eddie 12th grade (third attempt)
steve graduated (working at family video)
nancy/jonathan/robin 12th grade
Hey, all! Welcome to your second new fic of the new year! This was the most requested plot bunny that people wanted to see a full fic for that I had (full idea here, careful there be spoilers)!
Summary: Eddie is trying to make this his last senior year because as much as he loves his club there are others who like a crack at the presidency. He thinks he's won the lottery when he spots FOUR new freshmen talking about D&D in the halls the first day of school, but he quickly learns they come with some pretty hefty disadvantages, namely trauma they won't or can't talk about.
Enter Steve Harrington to the rescue when the first session goes horribly, horribly wrong. You see Steve has collected every bit of D&D lore possible since the first go round with the Upside Down and is willing to help Eddie help the freshmen navigate their new normal.
Season 3 AU were everybody lives and Vecna gets his end before the kids start high school so Eddie was never involved.
~
The world didn’t end. Though it sure as hell tried really fucking hard. Steve’s summer had gone from bad to worse as with the defeat of the Mind Flayer the actual Big Bad, Henry Creel decided he was going to move up his timeline to take over the world.
But because El had the forethought to seek out the other test subjects, she regained her memories of Henry Creel, of One just in time for the group of them to kill Vecna as those D&D loving idiots decided to call him.
But once Henry was gone, the Upside Down retreated. Became something else. It was no longer Hawkins November, 1983. It was actually eerily beautiful.
It turned out that the entity known as the Mind Flayer was the conscious of the dimension and had been trying to getting Henry out. But they had gone about it the wrong way. They had tried to replace Henry Creel with Will Byers, because he was a soft, gentle soul. That he would change the world to fit that.
But Vecna caught on and tried to bend the younger Byers boy to his will and that was the power struggle that resulted in twenty-eight dead in the Starcourt Mall.
No, the world didn’t end, but it meant that Steve had six kids in high school and he wasn’t looking for to that nightmare. Vecna would be a piece of cake compared to raging hormones, high school hierarchy, and new interests clashing with old hobbies.
Steve picked up Dustin and Max, as the others’ parents wanted to drop them off at their first day of school. Dustin had pretty much forbidden Claudia from driving him as he was sure he would be a sobbing mess. And that really wasn’t a good look for high school. So she agreed.
They did the sobbing before Steve arrived.
Susan was working nights now and couldn’t take Max to school but she would be able to pick her up. Which Steve wouldn’t have minded bringing her home, too, if Susan needed to sleep. But for now, they were going to try having Susan take her home.
Dustin claimed the front seat and Max just rolled her eyes and slipped into the backseat.
Steve had barely pulled out of the gravel drive and she had her headphones on and her eyes closed.
They pulled up to the drop off and Steve stopped her before she went in. “Hey, if you need anything, call me. I don’t care what time. And that includes if you want to skip school.”
Max stopped dead in her tracks and then turned to him slowly. “And what does that mean exactly?”
“It means that if you are getting overwhelmed and need an out,” Steve said seriously, “I will fake an emergency and pull you of class for the day.”
She walked back up the car. “Why...”
He let out a slow breath through his nose. “Because there will be times when the grief gets so bad it feels like a tidal wave and I’d rather you not drown.”
“Steve...” Max said in almost a whine. “You can’t still be on about that. It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe if I had been able to take Nancy away from it all once and awhile,” he said, pained, “maybe we would still be together, you know?”
She reached through the open window and cupped his face in her hands. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that and trying to twist yourself in knots trying to change the past is only going to make it rougher for you.”
“Maybe,” Steve said with a half smile. “But at least I can do better by you.”
“Stubborn ass,” Max huffed, shaking her head. “See you tomorrow, dickhead.”
He burst out laughing. “See you tomorrow, random girl.”
She gave him the double middle finger and walked backward until she ran into someone, then turned around and ran into the building.
He was about to pull away from the curb when he heard the roar of an engine and the blasting of something he couldn’t possibly discern the lyrics to because it was so loud and they were screaming.
He was about to cuss them out when he saw who it was. The van’s engine cut off and out stepped Eddie Munson. Apparently he was back for the third time. He was loud and obnoxious and absolutely hated jocks like him. So he did the smart thing and drove off, hoping he didn’t recognize the maroon BMW.
~
Eddie dangled one foot out of his van, swinging back and forth as he contemplated what he had seen. Max Mayfield, new neighbor willingly talking to King Steve. Granted with the same attitude she gave everyone, but it tickled something like unease under his skin.
But sadly, he knew the type. She was a lone wolf, someone who might have friends out of school, but at school mostly kept to themselves. The elder Byers boy was like that until he stole the King’s queen. Then it got really weird. As he hung out with both Steve and Nancy. Which shouldn’t have worked, but did.
But probably because Harrington blew up his social status for her. A bit sunk cost fallacy on Steve’s side no doubt, but why the other two hung out with him? Was one of Hawkins great mysteries. Second only to the death and resurrection of the younger Byers boy.
That brought Eddie up short, pausing his swing as he cocked his head to the side. Was that why?
He jumped down and got his bag out of his van and slammed the door shut. At the entrance, he spotted a couple of familiar faces.
“Jeffy and Gare-bear!” he greeted warmly.
“I can’t believe you’re back again!” Jeff cried giving Eddie a high five. “When are you going to let me take over as club president?”
Gareth cackled. “Never at this point. Eddie is going to be forty and DM’ing for our kids.”
Eddie pushed Gareth playfully. “Fuck off, Gare.” He put an arm around each of them. “Let’s go find some loner nerds to adopt!”
Both boys laughed as Eddie led them into the building.
Eddie dropped them off at their lockers and made his way to his own. They had given him the same one as last year so he hadn’t bothered to clean it out. Not that he had anything in it. He only put his lunchbox in there. For safe keeping, if you catch his meaning.
He had just locked up when he spotted four freshman, laughing and talking to each other. The one of the far right was wearing a trucker hat and a Weird Al shirt, he had a gap tooth smile and a softness that didn’t last long in high school.
Walking next to him was a tall lanky kid who was all at once too big and too small for his long limbs. Next to him was a kid with the most unfortunate hair cut imaginable for the first day of school. But there was something about his face pinged in Eddie head...
The last kid burst out laughing something at Trucker Hat said and the memory was gone. The last kid was black and while he stuck out a little bit, it was clear they had been friends for a long time.
Then their conversation breached Eddie’s ears.
“There is no way a paladin, a rogue, and wizard can kill an adult black dragon in one round, Mike,” Bowl Cut huffed. “Whoever told you that was pulling your leg.”
“You calling my sister a liar, Will?” Mike, as the lanky kid was obviously named, huffed. “She was the wizard in question, man.”
“I’m betting it was closer to two rounds,” the black kid with a shrug. “Because if you include sneak attack, fall damage and smite, I bet you could do enough damage it it would have to make a saving throw to avoid dying...”
Trucker Hat snapped his fingers. “Boom! Dead dragon. And that’s not lying that’s just good story telling, Will. And we all know Nancy is going to be the next Barbara Walters.”
And then it clicked. Eddie knew those children. Or at least knew of them. Will was Will Byers, which meant Mike was Mike Wheeler, the best friend. He thought harder and came up for names for the other two. Lucas Sinclair and Dustin Henderson.
Eddie pulled out some papers out of his bag and walked out in front of them, deliberately tripping on his own shoelace, sending the papers flying.
It was a test for both interest and kindness. So...
“Holy shit, dude!” Mike said, “Are you okay?” He bent down to help Eddie up while his friends swooped down to pick up the papers before anyone could step on them.
“Yeah,” Eddie huffed. “I was almost late getting those puppies printed up.” He dusted off his knees and decided that the new rip made him look even more bad ass.
“What’s ‘The Hellfire Club’?” Will asked, shuffling his stack of papers together.
Eddie opened his mouth to answer but a passing teacher sighed. “Still here, Munson? I thought Principal Higgins dispensed with both you and that club of yours at the end of last year?”
“Mrs. O’Donnell!” he greeted warmly. “Nope! Both are back and if I have anything to say about it, our lovely school D&D club will be around long after I’m gone.”
“We’ll see about that, Mr. Munson,” she said with a scowl and shuffled off.
He turned back to the kids who were looking at each other with excited and awed expressions on their faces.
“You have a D&D club here?” Dustin asked brightly. “That’s so cool! I’m Dustin and these are my friends, Will, Mike, and Lucas! I’m a dwarf bard!”
“I play a human paladin,” Mike said smugly, crossing his arms over his puffed up chest.
“I’m an elf ranger!” Lucas said, jutting his chin up. “I was a knight, but when Mike became a paladin, we decided that was too close to his character, we swapped me over to ranger!”
“I’m a human cleric,” Will piped up excitedly. “I used to play a wizard though, but I think I like being a cleric better. Me and Mike swap DM’ing!”
Eddie lit up light it was Christmas. Here were four nerds, and D&D loving ones as that, he had struck gold and only within the first five minutes of the school year.
“Well, if any of you gents have second lunch,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, “then come join me and friends at our table. We’ll all be wearing our club shirts!”
That was when they actually looked at him and by extension his shirt.
The red devil was surrounded by a pair of dice a D4 and a D20 with a flaming sword on the right and a flail on the left, HELLFiRE CLUB emblazoned across the chest.
They all stared at it in awe.
Will looked up first. “Did you design the shirts?”
Eddie grinned back. “I design the fliers and shirts every year. I hand draw them every time.”
“That’s sooo cool,” Will sighed happily.
Mike nudged his shoulder. “It is cool. Will here is just something of an artist himself. But yeah, we’ll be there at lunch.”
Dustin and Lucas shared a glance, and Dustin rolled his eyes.
“We can check it out,” Lucas said, giving Eddie the side eye. “And then go from there.”
Eddie nodded solemnly. “Then I will see you gentlemen later. If you’ll pardon me, I’ve got to get to class, can’t be late on the first day of school.”
They parted to let him through and as he walked away he heard Lucas and Mike arguing about wanting to look cool and not so eager.
Will was on Mike’s side that being enthusiastic wasn’t lame, while Dustin was telling them to ‘fly casual’.
Eddie chuckled at the reference. Yeah, this was going to be a great year, he could tell.
written for the @softsteddieseptember week three (september got weird for me after week two idek) prompt "second meeting" | rating: T | wc: 2327 | cw: n/a
Saying yes to the reunion wasn’t even really a question for Eddie.
For one – he has nothing but good memories from his time on set for the kids’ comedy-adventure movie he’d filmed when he was…Christ, Eddie doesn’t even remember. Eleven years old, maybe?
Eddie knows he’s one of the lucky few ‘child actors’ who wasn’t screwed up in some way by his early foray into the world of Hollywood, but he really did have a blast on set – probably because there were so many other kids. The movie had a big ensemble cast, and while the adult actors did still outnumber the child ones, it wasn’t by much, so it’d felt more like a summer camp to eleven-year-old Eddie, with the way ice cream trucks were driven in around lunchtime and playrooms were set up for the younger kids and how they were brought on bonding outings to the zoo and a local amusement park early on in the filming process.
It had all paid off, Eddie supposes, because the film had performed pretty good in the end – good enough for a sequel a few years later, even if it didn’t use any of the same actors as the original.
Cut to today, fifteen or so years later, the studio is finally releasing a long-awaited third installment in the franchise, and organizing a reunion of the original cast as part of the promo.
None of them – those now-adult kids from the first movie – have become A-List anythings over the years, least of all Eddie, which is totally fine by him. He didn’t really even do too much acting afterwards and eventually his interests tipped over into the music side of things.
Now, he’s living comfortably in the underground music scene, which brings Eddie to his second reason for agreeing so quickly to attend the reunion, because it’s not like he’s not trying to carve out his own space in the world of entertainment, and it couldn’t hurt to get a little mostly-free publicity, especially if it related to the project he’s probably still best known for.
So, yeah, Eddie was all for it, and he was still excited by the time he needed to make the trek from Seattle to LA.
The first event on the docket was the true reunion – no cameras, no press, just as much of the cast and crew from the franchise as had RSVP’d yes to the whole shindig in an event space on the second floor of the hotel that the studio had booked out.
It was a little overwhelming at first, honestly, mostly because there were a lot of people who remembered Eddie and not a lot of people Eddie remembered back – such was the nature of being a kid at the time, he supposes. It didn’t take too long, though, for him to start running into the kids he’d worked with fifteen years ago.
It’s funny, honestly, the way they’d all been stuck as kids in Eddie’s head. He hadn’t really kept in touch with anyone beyond the first year or two after filming, so he figures that makes sense, but it still doesn’t make it any less crazy to see little El, who’d only been four when she was cast, five while they were filming, now at the big age of twenty.
He also runs into Dustin, the little kindergartener pest who’d followed him around on set – he’s twenty-one now apparently, and the tallest of all of them by a mile – then Gareth and Robin who’d been eight and nine respectively and now are wrapped up with college and stepping firmly into the grown-up world (Eddie was thrilled to hear that Gareth’s doing music now too, and Robin’s some kind of global diplomat or something – okay, probably not a global diplomat, but something along those lines because she’d been a smarty-pants at nine and she’s clearly still one to this day).
Then Eddie’s path finally crossed with Steve, and holy fucking Christ, had the past fifteen years been kind to Steve Harrington.
He might be the hottest guy Eddie’s ever been in the same room with, and that’s being objective. What absolutely is not objective is the ridiculous gymnastics act Eddie’s heart had done when Steve’s eyes caught on his, when he saw the way Steve grinned, excused himself from whatever conversation he’d been in to make his way over.
“Eddie!” Steve exclaims. He stutter-steps for a moment, arms slightly open like he’s taking a second to assess whether or not Eddie’s a hugger.
Eddie is a hugger, for the record, and he meets Steve in the middle, and, yeah, he fuckin’ smells him – he won’t lie, and he can’t help it either. He still has to breathe air, obviously, and if the air in question comes with the faint scent of cherry and lemon zest and something kind of woody he can’t put a name to, what’s he supposed to do about it?
“Steve!” Eddie laughs as they step away from the hug, “Holy shit, what happened to you?”
“Grew up, apparently,” Steve shrugs, still grinning, “Same as the rest of us, I guess. Dude – did you see Dustin? He’s, like, thirty feet tall now, I swear!”
Out of all the kids in the cast, Eddie had been closest with Steve. He may have been a school grade above Steve, but they’d only been six-or-so months apart in age, so they’d been buddies on set, always goofing around and getting scolding by the director for making each other laugh during scenes and running off to play videos games whenever they had a break, and now, even fifteen years later, it doesn’t take long for them to fall into an easy rapport.
Eddie learns that Steve still acts – he’s a series regular on a fairly well-received TV show that Eddie had heard of but admittedly never watched, and he’s had a steady flow of projects since he was a kid – and Eddie gets to spend some time rambling about his band and his music.
Steve surprised Eddie by remembering Wayne after all these years, asked how he was doing and what he gets up to now that he’s not accompanying a pre-pubescent Eddie on movie sets. He even talks a little bit about his own parents too – Eddie doesn’t remember them in the way Steve had remembered Wayne, probably because they hadn’t really been around too much during filming (not any more than they were required to be, at least). Steve talks about how he’s not all that close with them anymore, which Eddie has to imagine is probably the natural consequence for parents who were both overly controlling and chronically uninvolved.
They even talk about dating for a while. Steve tells Eddie about his break-up from a while back – nothing too heartbreaking, just two people who wanted different things out of a relationship. In return, Eddie tells Steve about his heinous break-up from a little over a year ago now.
In the end, they spend the rest of the evening talking. It occurs to Eddie at some point that they're technically supposed to be reunion-ing with everyone else in the room too, but there's something magnetic going on that feels so much like the way he and Steve and been drawn to each other as kids on set but with more, more layered onto it because there's fifteen years worth of more to both of them now, and Steve doesn’t seem all that pressed to move on either so, yeah, either way, they talk the rest of the night away until, eventually, some folks from the PR team who organized the whole event circulate a schedule for tomorrow right as some of the venue’s staff starts clearing away any untouched food, and on the whole, Eddie gets the sense that it’s time for them to clear out.
They take their leave not too long later, heading out of the banquet hall and towards the elevators, and Eddie’s not an idiot.
He does recognize that maybe there’s something going on between him and Steve, and he’d have a pretty good chance at having a really good night if he decided to shoot his shot, but…he doesn’t, and neither does Steve.
Steve just gives him a lazy salute before they part ways.
Eddie won’t speak for Steve, obviously – he hasn’t truly known Steve since they were in grade school – but he can speak for himself and maybe at his big age of twenty-six, he’s ready to seek out more than just a hook-up. Maybe he wants something bigger and maybe whatever’s going on here is looking like a chance for something like that.
While Eddie’s getting ready for bed, his phone lights up with an Instagram notification – steveharrington started following you.
Eddie bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning over the fact that Steve’s still thinking about him enough to seek him out on Instagram, and before he can even hit the Follow back button, he gets a second notification – a DM with only a phone number (Steve’s phone number, presumably), and then another DM comes through.
text me so i have urs :)
Eddie sends back the salute emoji, then does as told – opens up a new text message, pastes Steve’s number in, and then sends a hey.
(Followed by an i’m cAlliNG FROm iNSIDE yOur HoTEL, because…why not?)
He’s got a few other missed texts, including one from his agent reminding him that the itinerary for tomorrow is in his inbox, which he thumbs ups in response, and one from Wayne asking how the travel down to L.A. went, which he ignores in favor of texting him i’ve met the love of my life
Despite the time difference between Cali and Indiana, Wayne replies back almost immediately.
Oh brother.
actually, Eddie continues texting, more like re-met. remember steve harrington?
Yes.
Then – Cute kid.
you don't know the half of it, Eddie fires back, and then he sends the drooliest emoji he can find.
Keep those details to yourself, boy. Wayne replies, which makes Eddie throw his head back and laugh.
--
The press junket of it all begins bright and early the next morning.
Eddie had known going into everything that he’s not the guy everyone is there to see – that’ll be the cast of this new film, plus the few A-minus-Listers from the previous two – so he’s not surprised when he gets positioned near the back of the group, and next to Steve by chance (by height, more like, since Dustin’s on Steve’s other side). He answers the few questions that come his way every now and then, and spends the rest of the day trading jabs and nudges and funny looks with Steve and wondering what might be the chilliest, most cool and normal way to ask him when he can see him again.
It's kind of agonizing, honestly, because the itinerary had outlined about six hours’ worth of press, and Eddie feels every single godforsaken moment of it, including the allotted time the reporters surpassed and the transitions between each events that always took too longer and the very generous interpretation of lunch hour one of the aforementioned A-Minus-Listers took, and so he’s not at all shocked to learn that they actually net out at a mean eight goddamn hours.
When all is finally (finally) said and done, Steve catches up with Eddie as he’s grabbing his stuff from the greenroom.
“Hey,” Steve says, “Uh, I know we wrapped late and you might have places to be, but…would you wanna go grab dinner with me?”
“Yes,” Eddie replies immediately, heart doing those same gymnastics again, except, like Olympic-level at this point (collegiate at the very least). He grins, “Aw, did you wait ‘til everything wrapped so there’s no fraternizing with the colleagues or whatever?”
“Basically,” Steve shrugs, “Didn’t want the whole day to be weird if you weren’t, like, feeling it. Feeling the same.”
“Uh, don’t worry, big guy, I think it’s pretty safe to say I’m feeling the same.”
A month or two later, all the press starts to come out as the new movie’s release date approaches.
Eddie didn’t really think too much of it, honestly – like he said, he knows he’s not the reason anybody would watch those videos, but Wayne still sends him a link to one, and Steve sends a few more.
(you look hot in these, he’d added – Steve, not Wayne, obviously).
Then clips started getting posted to TikTok and Instagram, and then the comments started rolling in, because apparently Steve and Eddie’s time spent goofing off in the back row was not subtle.
loved this movie so much as a kid but WHAT is going on between the two guys in the back
more chemistry going on at a reunion for an early 2000s kids’ movie than this season of the bachelor
Steve sends him a screenshot of one of them – a TikTok comment that says dear god tell me they were at least single
He follows it up with a text – *please* can i post something – and that pouting emoji that looks remarkably similar to the actual pout Steve hits him with whenever he wants something.
yes yes go ahead my liege Eddie replies.
And it’s honestly kinda pathetic (and cute and endearing and sweet) how quickly he gets an Instagram notification saying that steveharrington mentioned you on their story.
Eddie opens up Steve’s Instagram story to see that, yeah, the bastard had clearly been working on this for a while because he’s got his screenshot of the TikTok comment cropped small and pasted in the bottom corner of a selfie Steve had taken of the two of them last time he visited Seattle, where Steve’s got his face half-tucked into Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie’s hand is squishing Steve’s cheeks. Steve’s got an arrow sticker pointed at the comment, a cheeky little not anymore ;) text box on the other end.
It doesn’t take much longer than Eddie reposting the story for his notifications to start blowing up, and all he can really think aside from the SteveSteveSteveSteveSteveSteveSteveSteve that’s been looping around his brain for two months is thank Christ Eddie said yes to that reunion.
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
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AU where Steve hears that his girlfriend is cheating on him with the town freak but never suspects it’s with his good friend Jonathan.
So now, Eddie had a sad jock at his door threatening to beat him up but like, through tears. A lot of tears. He’s crying pretty hard and it’s getting really awkward.
the light behind your eyes (steddie timeloop; pre-bat attack🦇)
feat. Eddie falling hard and fast when Steve's had innumerable loops to have already fallen ✨🖤✨
“Not that I am not, hmmmm,” and he can barely bite back a moan; “not that’s I’m not fucking ecstatic, Harrington,” Eddie mouths against the lips on his, and he means it, too, he is in fucking heaven right now because not only is the hottest guy Eddie’s ever seen in real life and probably also in, like, magazines and stuff too: that guy is kissing him, touching him, running hands up under his shit and teasing his waistband, rutting a little against his thigh but…he’s doing it almost like it’s routine, like it’s not quite desperate, or not just desperate, expect for the touch of it and so no, Eddie doesn’t have to understand it at all for him to not be fucking complaining in the slightest—
Save that pointing out that he isn’t complaining stops Harrington’s hands on his body cold, freezes the lips pressed against him mid-suck and then they pull back, and Eddie’s panting so hard it burns, and he wants to whine, he’s only just learned the taste of this man but he wants more, it’s like he’s addicted already but then kinda like he always has been, like the deepest cells of him, the mitochondria from the textbooks he didn’t fucking read: it’s like it all knows the shape of this body, the flavor, and—
And that’s fucking ridiculous, but when Harrington pulls away?
Eddie kinda feels like the world’s ending.
And it is ending, in a way. Interdimensional madmen serial killers and all that, but.
This is different.
“Steve.”
Eddie frowns and can’t help but reach, frame Steve’s face even as Steve tries to shy away but still leans into the touch, and Eddie doesn’t understand; not least how Steve sounds so fucking shattered around his own goddamn name—
“Can you,” and Steve’s breathing heaves, shudders: the kind that lives between sobs but Steve’s cheeks are dry under Eddie’s palms and that almost feels all the more heartbreaking:
“I know it feels like you barely know me but,” and Steve blinks so fast, then he’s scrunching his eyes so tight and that, that might be why his cheeks are dry and oh: this is it. He thought before but:
This is the heartbreaking thing.
“Could you call me Steve? Please?”
And god, good fucking god but he asks it so small. It’s pleading and kinda edged in something desperate but here, from this titan of a man Eddie’s seen anew just these past days, this warrior barbarian his sheepies sand the praises of, this paladin out of the shadows come to save them all: he’s so small.
Eddie’s hands don’t move from Steve’s face, just draw him closer, upward on instinct until their brows touch, until Eddie can breathe in every shaky exhale that spills forth.
“Steve,” and maybe Eddie doesn’t quite understand the why, here, but he sure as shit savors the shape of that name on his tongue anyway, fucking sue him; “not that every single fucking version of my gay little fantasies aren’t dancing like they’re at queer fucking prom,” and he pauses, because he expects Steve to snort, maybe, expects to lighten the moment so charged, and not just with the kind of tension that tightens Eddie’s jeans—and Steve does make a sound for Eddie’s stupid little not-quite-joke, but it’s not a chuckle.
It’s a moan—but not the good kind. The kind that means pain.
And it’s almost worrisome, how when Eddie pulls Steve closer, he doesn’t fight it one bit; leans in almost…not even greedy. Almost fucking anguished.
“But this is just because it’s the end of the world, right?” Eddie makes himself ask, because too many things don’t add up, not least how Steve doesn’t even try to pull away, barely moves at all save just to breathe, and just to press closer into the crook of Eddie’s neck to do it.
“It’s just because I’m a wanted man whether it’s the cops, or the feds, or that fucker with the clock and the music,” Eddie rambles; doesn’t move his hand where it’s slipped to the side of Steve’s neck like an intimacy, though, doesn’t even consider shifting a fucking centimeter away from the heavy pulse of life surging under his palm. “Like, I mean, whether it’s 20-to-life or an electric chair or the bats—“
It’s the way the chest against him shudders that trips him up; not least to realize how close they are, that they’ve gotten, that Steve’s heartbeat’s something he can tease out without effort at all there, too, and…
Eddie glances up a little further to see Steve staring at the ceiling of the trailer, eyes glistening, the effort not to fucking cry evident as anything and, just, like…
What the fuck?
“Steve?” Eddie hedges a little, gentles his voice further because even though he doesn’t let a single tear fall, just seeing this man so close to it, while staying so close to Eddie, it’s, he just…
He can’t even try to lighten the moment, can’t even push didn’t realize I was that bad of a kisser, fuck past his lips.
“Give me a minute,” Steve doesn’t even rasp, just says even but so so quiet, and again, just so so small. It’s…
It’s not even heartbreaking anymore. Eddie’s whole chest just fucking hurts.
“You okay?” Eddie ventures after what has to be more than a literal minute; when Steve stops staring at the ceiling but screws his eyes close tight again to pull creases at their corners, between his brows; and Eddie whispers the question when he even dares to speak at all because something in this moment feels…fragile. Sacred in some way, even if he can’t name how or why. He waits, and Steve doesn’t move, barely breathes for the longest time so much it starts to kindle real fear in Eddie’s chest, so it’s only once Steve half-gasps and gets back to his lungs working like Eddie wants them to, once that holds for a while and Eddie understands that the closest to an answer that he’s going to get—he lets Steve breathe, and lets the feeling of it calm Eddie down, too, before he does the stupidest, most selfish fucking thing and asks, again:
“What is this, though?”
The way Steve sucks in his breath at the words cuts Eddie sharp; he shouldn’t have said anything. He should have let this lie and just…enjoyed a little bit of impossibility at the end of the world that wasn’t a bad thing.
He thinks maybe that’s what pushed him over, though, and made his tongue move, to shape the question at all: it’s so fucking far from a bad thing that it’s…it makes too much lightness in Eddie that he’s never felt before. Even in the absolute shit of this entire situation, Eddie’s basically nonexistent future on the horizon if he manages somehow to make it out of the next 48 hours alive: this is something that makes him feel like he could hope.
Hope even for the most absolutely absurd fucking things.
And hope like that has to make anyone fucking selfish.
“This?” Steve glances indicatively between them, with a quirked brow that he pulls off perfectly but it can’t land like it should, not for Eddie who’s just watched this gorgeous human swallow the stages of grief whole where he’s…he’s pulled back, Eddie realizes, Eddie can’t feel him chest-to-chest anymore and the idea of it’s a crushing thing, but it’s got nothing on the reality—either way, though, he’s hovering over Eddie now, still close, likely has been for a while and…and shit: his arms hadn’t even given out.
What the fuck kind of…superhuman stuff is this man made of?
“Thought it was obvious,” Steve chuckles, and that part, that sound rings hollow: Eddie’s had enough of a latent-forever crush on this boy for enough years to maybe have never heard this kind of chuckle but, it’s off. Eddie knows it’s not…what it should be.
Steve laughing is some kind of sunshine, nearly always, like a rule. Eddie knows that much.
“Must have lost my charm,” Steve grimaces while he looks down, down, hides from...Eddie doesn’t know what from, exactly. Save that whatever it is, he wants to hide a little, too.
But hiding, now, means that he’ll turn from Steve. And Eddie…Eddie wants to hide from the nameless horrible thing that’s swelling up in the space around them.
But Eddie doesn’t want to miss a second of Steve. He’s kind of afraid of the very concept of it, missing any…part of Steve. He knows they’re on borrowed time. He’s also not entirely sure this isn’t all of fever dream, maybe he got scraped by one of the nasty-ass rusted nails in the boathouse and all of this is just tetanus or some shit. Maybe it’s the X-Men-knockoff wizard fucking with Eddie’s head by giving him the unthinkable sort of thing he’s always wanted.
Whatever it is: Eddie cannot miss a second of it.
“This, yeah,” Eddie reaches to brush Steve’s chest where his heart’s still pounding, even when it’s not presses flush to Eddie’s anymore, even when they’e stopped kissing too many minutes ago for an excuse; “you more that live up to the hype, big boy,” Eddie chuckles a little, tries to make it warm, fucking grateful; “exceed it even,” Eddie adds, can’t help but splay his fingers and stroke up and down a little over the street of Steve’s shirt.
“But,” because Eddie’s selfish. Because touching Steve slow like this, even as he’s so stiff and his pulse is so fucking scared: take out the frantic pace of what it means to feel him, and Eddie…the hope’s all the stronger, now. The wanting.
The selfishness.
“This,” and Eddie lets his hand move to the notch in Steve throat, like his body knew he’s feel the pulse there as much as the shiver, and the hard swallow after he asks, one more time:
“What is this.”
And Eddie forces his gaze from Steve’s skin to Steve’s face, where his eyes are blown and his color’s off, too pale even in the dark.
Where he’s fucking beautiful, even as he steels himself and takes a deep breath, less like a diver to the depths and more like a man facing an executioner. Jesus.
But his gaze is still so tender, like whatever hurt he comes to know for what he’s about to do is acceptable, so long as it doesn’t touch Eddie, doesn’t spill over. Like he’s…shielding Eddie from something worse than everything that’s already come, somehow, and that’s fucking terrifying in and of itself but—
But Steve—Steve who he barely knows but feels like he knows somewhere deep in his chest that feels knew and known somehow before these moments, like it was made only for the feelings and the certainties he holds in regard to Steve, Steve, Steve, like maybe that space inside of him was only made on some cosmic level not just for the person who made him feel this way against all odds, but maybe made only and specifically just for Steve—but Steve protecting Eddie, and hurting all the more for taking the hit?
It’s unacceptable. It’s sour in Eddie’s veins.
“If I fuck it up again, it won’t matter, I guess,” Steve seems to speak to himself, mutters low even for the soft quiet they’re holding between them. He doesn’t even know if he’s seeing Eddie for how far away he looks, sounds, like he’s reasoning with the universe.
That tips the sour feeling straight into full on sick.
But before Eddie can say anything, do anything, Steve’s sitting up, drawing back: Eddie can’t help the way he whimpers in the back of his throat for the loss; if the loss feels like more than just the closeness, the promise of it—if it feels like the moments to come are poised to change the world.
“Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?” Steve asks, implores. Eddie’s powerless against it.
His throat’s already too dry to do anything but nod.
Steve looks, nearly studies him, wide-eyed and needy and…Eddie just wants to hold him.
He just wants to hold him, and keep him.
“‘Kay,” Steve exhales heavy, shaky, like his heartbeat’s knocking around his lungs so there’s no possible world where he could have breathed out steady, where no one could, no matter how strong.
“I’m in love with you.”
Eddie—for wholly other reasons he suspects—gets his own dose of his lungs getting knocked around for how his heart trips and stumbles around those wholly fucking impossible and insane and desperately wanted words echo through his head, his ribs.
“And it might not make and fuckin’ sense to you, but,” and Steve’s breath hitches as he reaches, as he pauses like he’s not sure he’s allowed; “Eds,” and that’s not a thing he’s called so often, and certainly not in that tone, gutted but so steeped in…he said it and it’s true, because that name, hisname on Steve’s lips is fucking saturated in love and how, sure, but the fact of its undeniable enough that the semantics, the mechanics of it: irrelevant.
Would have mattered in the face of something lesser, but.
This isn’t that other-lesser thing.
So Eddie grabs those questioning hands and brings them to his cheeks where they’d been looking to land, to frame his face: to let them both feelthis, however it came to be, whatever else it holds inside.
He looks Steve in the eyes as he holds Steve’s hands to frame his own face like he’s something dear: because it is love. Unmistakably. Steve isn’t lying, or exaggerating.
And Eddie’s halfway fucking there with him, just to look at it.
Save for the way it also looks devastated. Also looks…in the kind of pain that doesn’t end, but somehow doesn’t fade. The scab you rip off to start the process over and over, to hurt all over again.
“I’ve been trying to save you so many times,” and Steve’s voice hitches some more around it, and it should probably cause more question, those words; should definitely cause more questions for Eddie himself, given how he accepts it so fast—the fairly clear implication.
“I’ve held your body in my hands so many times,” and Steve sounds broken for it in ways that even he, Edward Munson, who has seen what he’s seen these past few days, didn’t know a body, or a soul, could withstand and survive.
Also: okay. Okay.
More than an implication, before. Yep. Okay. But—
“Times?” Eddie finds himself croaking because…he’d jumped straight to saving his life but, but: times?
How many fucking times has Steve scratched the scar off and started again? How hard, how deep is the scar tissue?
“I’ve broken your ribs trying to convince this,” and Steve’s hand’s sliding down from one side of Eddie’s face to settle over Eddie’s still fumbling heart, hand stretched wide like it wants to hold the thing whole and true and safe: “to come back, back to me—”
And Steve’s voice cleaves down the center then, just flat out fucking gives out. And Eddie…
Eddie’s an impulsive person. Eddie’s not what you’d call…circumspect, doesn’t pull his punches once he feel inclined to run, to or from or alongside anything in his life.
And even he has never felt so strongly about anything than then thing that spills form him in absolute earnest, with the whole of his mess of a chest and the entire weight of his wild frantic heart:
“Sweetheart,” Eddie takes the one hand that’s not holding Steve’s to his face anymore and reaches, strokes his thumb so gently over Steve bottom lip, and yeah he takes in the way Steve’s eyes widen for it, the way he shifts from shattered to shocked in a second: but it’s all peripheral.
But the whole of Eddie is invested in the one thing he needs to know. More than he needs air to fucking breathe:
“How can I stay with you?”
And he watches Steve’s jaw drop as he moves his hand from those lips to cover Steve’s own hand one more time, still on toppings chest and he doesn’t think twice before damn near close-on begging:
“What do I need to do?”
Steve stills. Blinks.
“What?”
“I might not have had the pleasure just yet,” Eddie tries to sort the words out as he goes because his heart hurts so hard but at the same time it’s so full: “but I’m looking at you,” and he is, he’s looking at Steve and seeing so much, so many things, things that are there and things that could be there in the foreseeable future and things that Eddie can fantasize and dream of being his whole-ass future and just, just, just—
“You love me?”
Steve nods, lips still parted. No hesitation. Not a question.
Jesus.
And Eddie’s heart’s still racing, faster now, even but for…
Not just for fear, or shock, or lust, or…any of it.
Not for anything so simple as all that, now.
“And I die?” Eddie chides himself when Steve flinches ever so slightly, tries to find a gentler way to pitch the words when he speaks again because the point itself is thorny, he can’t make it soft:
“I’ve,” Eddie licks his lips; “I’ve died a lot of times?”
And he waits, and Steve’s blinks a lot of time really fucking fast, but then, again: he nods.
And Eddie’s heart hurts harder at the confirmation, and Steve’s clear bid not to shed a single fucking year—his heart hurts harder, but poundsharder for bigger reasons because fuck, fuck—
“And you’ve loved me enough to somehow bend time and space to try and undo it, to try and stop it?”
And if Steve’s got the trick to that magic, it stills the moment, stops time around them both as Eddie sees the words as they sink in for Steve, as they register and shift the shade of his gaze ever so slightly, brighter and deeper and magnetic and Eddie…
Eddie doesn’t need him to nod. Just looking him, just feeling everything that gaze is giving, solely for him, is all the answer he needs.
“So how do I get even the chance to stick around enough to deserve it?” Eddie asks, because he needs to know so that he can make sure he does it to the letter, and then fifty million times over to be sure. “To get to feel it full on,” because for as much as he’s already feeling, he can’t only imagine what it would be to feel it for an hour, a day, a week, a…a lifetime. He can only image.
And he fucking wants.
“What do I have to do to be able to feel this for more than a couple minutes,” and Steve’s eyes shift again, because he hears what Eddie’s saying, not hiding so much as trying to cram in: he feels this already, and at the same time knows it’s sample sized when what he craves, what he needs is something too big to measure; “to feel this, and return it twenty-fold and for the long haul,” and Steve’s still staring, still kinda gaping, so Eddie forces himself to pause, to ask even if everything points to a singular answer—he forces himself to wait and make super fucking sure:
“If you’ll have me?”
Steve blinks, frowns, then asks, voice hoarse:
“You believe me?” and he says it so slow, disbelieving himself. “Like, you get what I’m saying, and you, you,” he flounders, looks cast adrift and closer to tears now than he’s been yet and Eddie…
Eddie can’t let that just be.
“Of course I do.”
And maybe it’s not of course exactly, in the sense that Eddie doesn’t have questions, like a fuckton of questions but: he doesn’t have doubt, not in Steve. Somehow of all that he doesn’t know and that makes no sense, he does know that Steve is where his faith—if he was ever going to have any in anything—is meant to sit, whatever that means, whatever that demands accepting.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Eddie says with so much of himself he never knew was actually inside him to speak, to beg such truth. He didn’t know.
“So please, please tell me,” he fucking please it; “what do I do?”
Because he knows now. The breadth of what can, could, does, will live in his chest. And once he knows it?
He’s gonna fight like hell to have the whole of it. For always.
“To get to have this,” Eddie reaches, can’t help but brush some of Steve’s hair behind his ear and just…consider him. Marvel a little at the fact that the world is changing, Eddie can feel it, and it’s because this man loves him.
Him.
“This thing I’ve never even considered getting to know,” Eddie strokes Steve’s jaw and asks the only question left:
“What do I have to do to have the chance fall in love with you?”
Because Eddie doesn’t care if he has to lob off a fucking arm. He’ll do it. He’ll learn to play his guitar with his goddamn feet before he lets this chance go.
“Don’t be a hero.”
Eddie’s face must do something at the sorta sudden kind of outburst from Steve, because Steve ducks his head down a little and smiles almost apologetic, and still so fucking sad.
“I tell you not to be cute about it, and not to try to be a hero, but you are, you do, every time,” Steve tells him, explains, and that part at least tracks: he’s a contrarian to his detriment but…he doesn’t want to believe he’d do it when the stakes are this high. Not without a good reason and he can’t…imagine a good enough reason to leave this man so broken, and still fighting nonetheless.
He can’t imagine any reason in the whole fucking world good enough for that.
“Then I won’t,” Eddie says, because: well. It’s an easy fix in general, but like, he’s no fucking hero, so then it’s even easier.
“You will,” Steve smiles the saddest goddamn smile Eddie’s ever seen in his whole entire life., I too of the string of sad smiles he’s been treated to so far. “You always do,” and the resignation in stage a tone is only outweighed by the…pride, almost, for what he’s declaring against all odds to be true.
“Just, just,” Steve seems to debate with himself for a second, maybe whether he wants to fight the weight of established precedent one more time, wants to scratch off that scab in a whole knew way, because it felt like Steve was watching this play out different when Eddie believed him, and asked to work with him to make the wrongs right instead of aiding the process of his own ruin, and what looked like Steve’s own process of self-immolation in slow motion, over and again. Eddie gets why he pauses.
But it’s not even long enough to be called hesitation, really, before he’s diving in and giving Eddie the playbook, with no guarantee or even a whole lot of hope based on existing evidence to trust.
Eddie feels the magnitude of the living in a whole new way, on a whole new level, for that, as Steve speaks:
“When you do, when you’re a hero again because you always are, I need you to run when you’re done. We will be okay, I know what I’m dealing with now, I know how,” Steve says with. Steel creeping into his tone and Eddie wants more than anything to know what he’s planning to deal with, how Steve plans to stay safe because now Eddie’s heart’s tied up on the opposite end of the equation and he…he can’t survive and have it only flip the tables, have there still be a loss because Eddie’s not made of what Steve’s made of, and sure he’s only had a taste of this, but he…
He won’t survive losing it. Even just the taste.
“Don’t buy us more time,” Steve cuts back into Eddie’s headspace, the more important voice; the most important; “you do more than enough, I need you to trust me and I know you don’t have a reason to—“
“I trust you.”
And that’s unequivocal. Eddie trusts Steve. The end.
“How will I know when I’m done?” Because if Steve’s willing to go through this for him, he’s going to fucking take notes to make sure he does his part in turns, makes sure this is the last fucking time.
“Play the puppet master song,” which Steve doesn’t know, no way he’d fucking know on his own and Eddie didn’t doubt, but, like…
Jesus.
It takes a fucking second, just digesting what it means to be right for no doubting. It’s heady. Terrifying.
But also like stars in his stomach. He feels reborn in the simple reality of believing in this person who loves him this hard.
“Block the vents, don’t ignore the vents. When Dustin goes up the rope, you follow. Pull it up after you and block it off, hold them off in case any stragglers stick around,” Steve tells him, doesn’t sound skeptical, exactly, but just…maybe wary. Rightly so, given the…previous rounds of things. “We’ll need you to throw it back to us when we’re done.”
Eddie feels his face screw up a little because he wasn’t paying the most attention but he really thinks, like:
“Aren’t there closer gates—“
“I’ll need to,” Steve swallows hard, the bob in his throat almost painful to watch because Eddie can almost imagine the weight of it, the way the same motion’s been repeated so many times and yet he’s still at it, he’s still trying—
For Eddie. Jesus fuck.
“I’ll need to see.”
And if the hard-swallow wasn’t heartbreaking—again, every time Eddie thinks he’s been gutted entirely Steve goes and ups the fucking ante, good god, and he keeps doing this? He continues to say yes to this, these feelings, this, this…this, because if, for, for…
But regardless how you slice it: the way Steve’s voice cracks, on just those four words?
Holy fucking Christ—this has to be what’ll kill Eddie harder, deeper down than anything Steve’s trying to save him from.
“I won’t fail you this time, Steve.”
And Eddie means it, even if the words themselves spill from him automatic: they’re there to spill at all because Eddie means it, because Eddie’s heart’s never felt swollen like this before and he wants to give whatever it’s all fat and tender with to this man he barely knows but…maybe he knows more important things about him than he knows about most people in his life. Nearly all people in his life.
And that’s fucking has to count for something. For more than something.
“Eddie,” Steve starts, like he wants to argue some point but Eddie isn’t gonna have that, not now.
Not ever again, if he has anything to fucking say about it.
“No,” Eddie cuts him off and this time, this time, it’s Eddie who reaches and cradles Steve’s face, holds him like he’s precious, as much as he can because this man is precious beyond reason, but human hands are only capable of so much care: he gives what he can.
He knows it’s not enough, and hopes his heart in his words will make up the difference.
“No, this,” and he runs the pads of his thumbs beneath Steve’s eyes, because as gorgeous as they are, as he is: those eyes used to be bright. They were bright…before. When did they change, when did Steve from now like Eddie become Steve who’s tried to start Eddie’s heart with his own hands, and couldn’t?
Doesn’t matter.
Steve’s eyes aren’t supposed to be hollow behind the color; there’s only supposed to be the sunshine.
Not the endless dark.
“I’ve been taking it away, haven’t I?” Eddie breathes out in a level of horror at the realization that’s settling in the more he looks at Steve, and reads the toll he’s been paying, for Eddie. “I hate that, I hate that I—“
“Eddie,” Steve breathes, and the only shine in his eyes is tears and it’s wrong, it’s just wrong.
“It gets taken away because yours isn’t there anymore,” Steve reaches back, now, and holds Eddie’s face in his broad hands: “the light in you,” and his voice cracks and he blinks and one tear.
One tear falls.
Eddie’s sternum splits in two.
“I want to know what it is to fall in love with you,” Eddie says in a rush, demands on the whole fucking cosmos: “the whole way, because I think I’m already halfway there,” and it’s true, it’s true because he’d give his life for Steve already so he understands, of Steve’s in longer and deeper, why he’s fighting despite the hurt, but, but…
No more.
“And I want to earn it,” Eddie tells him. “I want you to fall for me not just because of, because of life and death stuff, or tied up in losing,” Eddie tries to fit the avalanche of feelings in him to words, prays it’s enough:
“I want it to be a,” he chokes, shakes his head and bites his tongue: “a good thing,” because he wants to be a good thing for this man. He wants to be only a good thing, as best he knows how.
“You are a good thing,” Steve counters, and fierce with it; “you’re the best thing.”
Eddie’s not strong enough to hold himself to just one tear when the floodgates break.
“I run when Henderson runs,” he breathes shakily. It’s a vow more than anything he knows how to give.
“You don’t run,” Steve tells him, so soothing, still so protective of Eddie, always protective of Eddie; “you’re so fucking brave, and you save our asses,” and he brings their foreheads to lean against each other as Eddie’s inhales trembles: “you’re just gonna fall back this time, so you don’t break my heart, too, okay?”
“Okay,” Eddie would agree to anything, at this point; this is easy. This he can do, no problem.
This he will do, no question.
“I’m sorry,” he finds himself whispering, because…because he has to.
He is so fucking sorry.
“You’re…” Steve starts, uncomprehending as Eddie just shakes his head, almost like a compulsion.
“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you so many times,” Eddie hissed through clenched teeth, tries not to descend into blubbering, tries to maintain something like, if not composure, the capacity to be heard and known when he promises with his whole heart:
“I won’t do it again, I swear.”
And Steve watches him, eyes red rimmed and still brimming but carefully, assessing.
Eddie can help, though. He can put him a little bit at ease, or damn well fucking try.
“I already feel something,” and he brings Steve’s hand to his chest again, reminds them both his heart’s still beating in this world, in this time. “And I’m too selfish Steve.”
Steve cocks his head in question; Eddie wants to watch this man’s quirks, learn the minutiae of his every expression.
Forever.
“I need the whole shebang.”
Steve smiles, watery and still strained but less sad, and that’s something.
It’s all they have time for, because he can hear everybody coming back with supplies, remembers they’d been prepping for war.
It’s all the have time for—for now.
“I’m holding you to that,” Steve says, a little watery, a little shaky, a little unconvinced but wholly filled with love, still, and all together isn’t only serves to harden Eddie’s resolve that much more.
“You flake on me again?” Steve flips his fingers backward against Eddie’s shoulder in a poor excuse for a smack: “I’m gonna tie you to the driver’s seat next time, and leave Nance with Dustin.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Eddie answers, dead serious; “except for one thing.”
There’s something molten, a glint that isn’t tears when Steve lifts a brow in askance; when Eddie leans in and kisses Steve hard, deep, quick because they have to but it doesn’t have to be anything else because he leaves his heart and soul in the exchange, willingly and willfully and all fucking in.
“There’s gonna be a next time for that. I swear to god,” Eddie murmurs against Steve slips when he pulls back; “we’re gonna have so many next times.”
And when the door to the RV bursts open and everyone else spills in, Steve’s lips are a little swollen if you’re looking.
And Steve’s eyes still have that light.
For @klausinamarink, who requested 'The Light Behind Your Eyes—My Chemical Romance' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST
✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @sadisticaltarts
General Fic Tag
Ao3 Account - All fics with [Ao3] next to them can be found here.
Reference post for Steve's BMW
Bad News First, Eddie - Completed [Ao3]
Part One 🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Final Part
Shovel Talk(s) - Completed [Ao3]
Part One 🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Final Part
Porcelain Steve - Completed [Ao3]
Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six🦇Part Seven🦇Part Eight🦇Final Part
What's Eight Plus Seven? - On Going - [Ao3]
Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six
The Interview - Completed [Ao3]
The Interview (Part One)
The Response (Part Two)
The Conversation (Part Three)
Untitled Song - A The Interview Tie-In Fic [Ao3]
No Regrets - On Going
Part One🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six
Good People - Completed [Ao3]
Part One🦇Part Two🦇Final Part
My Default’s Self-Destruct (Oh, I’m Not Used to Normal) - On Going
Part One
Envy, Baby. Written for Rustypeoplekillz for the Steddie Summer Exchange 2024. Eddie makes a new friend and Steve spirals about it.
Steve and Robin talk about how Steve wants to be romanced, instead of always doing the romancing.
Eddie's over dramatic, Steve talks him down, and they're okay in the end :)
Steve reflects on how other people make the decisions in his life and decides, y'know what? No. Fuck that and fuck you.
Beg You to Love Me - Steve and Eddie talk for the first time two and a half years after they break up. [Ao3]
Steve pines for Eddie and carves a pumpkin for the first time. He is completely normal about both things. [Ao3]
Eddie left, and has to face the consequences of that
Steve has great parents and goes to therapy. Too bad he forgot to tell his friends that [Ao3]
Middle School Meet Cute? [Ao3]
One sentence and one phone call are all it takes for Steve to realize he needs to go after what he wants [Ao3]
Steve's sad, Eddie's an (accidentally on-purpose) jerk, and the miscommunication gets solved? [Ao3]
Steve gets Vecna'd and a terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody saves him
Angsty Ella Enchanted AU
Steve finds it funny, the differences between him and Eddie.
#81. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop and feel the rain?” [Ao3]
#23. “Just pretend to be my date.” and #60. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.” [Ao3]
#60. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me." [Ao3]
#13. "I dare you to kiss me"
Requested by Anon - Eddie catches Billy throwing Steve around in the locker room; it leads to an unintentional deescalation of the situation and a conversation Eddie's surprised to have. [Ao3]
Steddie Week 2023: Day 1: Pining [Ao3]
Anon Prompt - Robin brags about her boyfriend to Steve. He's a little jealous, because he wants to brag about his own boyfriend but doesn't know if Robin is safe to tell that too. Until, whoops, turns out Robin's BF and Steve's BF are the same boyfriend. [Ao3]
Steve doesn't want to be put on a pedestal. Eddie doesn't understand, and tries to reassure Steve. [Ao3]
Eddie's friends try to prove Steve's cheating on him. Eddie doesn't take kindly to them trying to ruin his relationship for no reason.
Plot Idea I’ll never fully flush out or write but gotta get out of my head or it’ll never let me know peace again. It’s basically Steve sent from the future going all John Wick.
Steve-focused ficlet exploring the idea of Steve becoming a Mean Girl because he learned his tactics from Carol Perkins rather than Tommy, and how he regrets the results of that.
Domestic Bliss fluff fic that ends in a loving blow job. Minors DNI. [Ao3]
Childhood Best Friends AU where Steve and Eddie agree to learn the elvish script from The Hobbit so they can pass notes and no one can read them. Things get a little messy when Eddie moves away with no notice but Steve takes it upon himself to learn Elvish anyway. [Ao3]
Steve doesn't think before he all but crawls seductively into Eddie's lap accidentally. There's also not much thinking once he realizes what he's done, or in the aftermath of it. [Ao3]
Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy Are Cousins [Ao3]
Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy are all cousins, and Gareth doesn't want anyone to know that. For his street cred.
The Steve, Gareth, and Chrissy are cousins AU gets sad (Sad AU Part 1).
Steve realizes he's the only adult left In The Know in Hawkins; Gareth wants answers, one way or another (Sad AU Part 2).
Steve doesn't attend a funeral; Gareth goes with Jason&Co to Reefer Ricks (Sad AU Part 3).
The gang arrives at Skull Rock and Steve learns Gareth's now involved. Robin learns the truth (Sad AU Part 4).
Vecna gives Steve the vision and forces him to make a choice (Sad AU Part 5).
Everyone learns they are cousins now and it goes well. Gareth makes his own plan to save the day. (Sad AU Part 6).
Wayne joins the fight and Gareth ensures that Max gets saved (Sad AU Part 7).
The cousins reconcile. Max and Steve don't (yet). It's as happy an end as a Sad AU can get (Sad AU Final Part).
Time Travel Fix It Fic
Class of '85 [Ao3]
Save Max [Ao3]
September Prompts 2023
Coffee Smell ○ Horizon ○ Foggy Mornings ○ Jukebox ○ "Kiss me or leave me" ○ "Did you lie to me?" ○ Bonfire ○ Recipe Book ○ Gas Station
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written for @steddieangstyaugust (prompt:Future ) and @augustwritingchallenge (Prompt: Force into hiding)
Rating: Teen and Up
Relationship: Steve/Eddie
TW: Eddie shaving his head (I know!!!)
Words: 1196
“We are leaving. Now.” Steve says, grabbing the duffle bag they always have ready under the bed.
“Who?”
“Suits.”
Fuck. Still better than Demogorgons, but not ideal.
“How many?”
“Eddie, I didn’t stay to introduce myself, ok? I just saw a couple waiting suspiciously outside the diner and I turned back before they saw me.”
“You’re not wanted. You could just go there and tell them I kidnapped you or some shit like that. Everyone will believe you and you will finally be free from hiding.”
“No fucking way. We’re in this together, did you forget it?”
Steve was the only other person at the trailer when Chrissy’s Cunningham body snapped into pieces like nothing. He knew about monsters, and creatures from other dimensions, and now that the big boys have invaded Hawkins, he’s Eddie’s only companion. Steve’s the one who can drive, go grocery shopping, book a stupid motel room, all of this while Eddie hides in the trunk or in the back seat covered by bags and moldy blankets. Because nobody suspects that Steve Harrington, Hawkins's golden boy, is friends with the suspected serial killer Eddie Munson.
Yeah, because after Chrissy other two teenagers died one after the other, Fred and Patrick, and even Max almost didn’t make it. But the danger is still lingering in Hawkins, waiting to find a way to get back to their dimension, and while Eleven, the super girl, and the Party do their best to find a possible solution with the help of Owens’ team, Eddie is still suspect number one so the only thing he can do is hide.
Canada doesn’t sound so bad after all. A little bit cold, maybe, but Steve told him his parents have a house somewhere in Canada and that’s exactly where they are going, traveling by night, driving always within the limits to avoid bad encounters.
Avoiding Hawkins’ checkpoints wasn’t that easy, but luckily the military was still busy coordinating the aid and it wasn’t that hard to pretend that Eddie died in the earthquake, but now that they are finally close it seems that the suit is following them. Maybe they didn’t find a body and so they have sent communication outside Indiana. For the first time ever Eddie saw his face on the television and it wasn’t a nice feeling. But Steve is optimistic, he keeps saying that they are almost there. Just a couple of days more and they’ll pass the border and then things will get better.
“Hey, big boy, need a place to rest?” Eddie asks, seeing Steve’s head fall down abruptly.
“I’m good. We’re almost there.”
“We are not, Steve. We can rest for a moment, you know that right?”
“We can’t keep spending money in motels, we have to save. Canada is expensive.”
“Let’s reach a parking area and rest for a bit, huh? Just half an hour, maybe less.” Eddie proposes, while he knows perfectly well that if Steve agrees he will let him sleep way more than half an hour. The boy has huge dark bags under his eyes, and they haven’t checked his wounds in hours. They surely need to be clean again. And that’s Eddie's second part of the plan. Get clean in a bathroom and maybe do something a little bit drastic but necessary.
“Ok. Just half an hour, ok?”
Eddie winks, fingers crossed behind his back.
Once they find a little rest area he helps Steve in the back of the car, it’s not comfortable enough, Steve is too tall and he’s sleeping all crumpled on the back seat, but it’s still better than sleeping on the driver seat.
Eddie turns on the radio, keeping it softly, listening to the night music. A dejay somewhere is talking to the night people, and Eddie never felt such a deep connection with someone he doesn't even know.
His life, his messy and complicated life, it’s gone. The only person who ever cared about him thinks he’s dead, or a murderer, or both. And he didn’t graduate. Not even on his third try.
The sun is starting to shine when Steve stirs in the back, coursing loudly when he notices how late it is, but Eddie simply shrugs.
“You needed to rest, Steve. We both know it, and a couple of hours will not fuck up our entire plan, ok? Now come on. I need to check your wounds and ask you a favor.
***
The bathroom next to the gas station is filthy, dirty and smelly. The walls that once were white are now yellowish and covered in pornographic graffiti and phone numbers. For a moment Eddie wonders if they should call one of those numbers, just to hear who will answer. Maybe Mary Ann, who seems to be ready to help everyone feel good, is just a nice granny baking cookies in California.
“You ready?” Eddie asks, grabbing the white bag with antiseptic and bandages Steve just bought.
“Be quick, I don’t want to lose more time.”
“Yes, captain,” Eddie chuckles, unwrapping Steve’s bandages while he holds his t-shirt and hisses between his teeth, “This might sting a little. Sorry.”
Steve nods and Eddie cleans the wounds that are still pouring some blood even after days.
“You should have those checked. Like professionally.” Eddie says, trying his best to patch him up.
“Once we’re in Canada I promise I will,” Steve replies, pulling down his t-shirt and covering his hairy chest that was already giving too many ideas to Eddie.
“Now what? You told me you needed a favor.”
Eddie nods, grabbing his switchblade, “Cut my hair.”
“What?! No!”
“I’m too fucking recognizable, Steve. Cut my fucking hair, then I’ll shave my head.”
“I thought you wanted to shave your face! not your hair! I’m not going to let you.”
“So what? Are you telling me what I can do and what I can’t, Stevie?”
“No… it’s just… it’s your hair.”
“They’ll grow back.” and they will, the only thing Eddie doesn’t know is if they’ll grow back in prison or not.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I hate this!” Steve complains, but grabs the switchblade and starts to cut Eddie’s black curls.
The more hair falls on the ground the more Eddie remembers that his father used to keep him with a buzzcut and that he hated it, but that’s not the moment to cry on some stupid hair.
“Do you want me… do you want me to shave you?” Steve asks softly.
“Please…” Eddie begs, unable to stare at the mirror.
Steve squeezes Eddie’s shoulder, trying to reassure him, and then he starts to shave his head. Once he’s done Eddie doesn’t seem the same person as he was when they first entered the bathroom. Even he as to stare at the mirror for a long time to realize that’s him. Once he’s finally convinced they leave the bathroom and get back in the car.
This time Eddie is sitting next to Steve, wearing Steve’s clothes and with a shaved head he keeps playing with.
“You ok?”
“Peachy.”
He freezes when they cross the border, but once they are safely in Canada Eddie takes a big breath of relief.
One Is the Loneliest Number by @soaringornithopter | Rated T | cw: mild language
Easy by @runninriot | Rated T | cw: recreational drug use | tags: steve has a bad relationship with his parents, good uncle wayne appreciation, repressed feelings, steve has a crush on eddie, friends to lovers
there's something in your stare that greets me by @griefabyss69 | Rated T | cw: mentions of binge-drinking | tags: getting together, stuck in the UD together, hopeful/happy ending
If He Wanted To, He Would by @thisapplepielife | Rated T | cw: language | tags: eddie pov, modern setting, sports au, rockstar eddie, baseball player steve, very public love affair, corroded coffin, good uncle wayne munson
bad idea right by @steddieas-shegoes | Rated E | cw: alcohol, super mildly dubious consent because of the alcohol | tags: angst with a happy ending, post break up, exes to lovers, getting back together, sex
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(steddie | 2.4k | teen | tags: future fic, steddie in their 40s, second chances, mutual pining, happy ending | @steddielovemonth Love is the hope for a future together by@acasualcrossfade | AO3)
"I don't know, Robbie. I mean, it's been years! Even if there ever was a 'spark' between us, it's probably long gone."
He doesn't look over at Robin as he says this, pretending to be engrossed in grading papers. They both know that he hasn't made a single mark on the paper in front of him since Robin burst into his house with her spare key and announced, "Eddie's coming to the wedding."
"Inside voice," he had chided her, even though April was at her friend's house doing a school project. Old habits die hard.
Plopping down next to him at the kitchen table, Robin had happily ignored him as she continued, "Lucas just called me, it's going to be a surprise for Dustin. Eddie's finishing the tour two days early, so he's coming straight from the airport. But he will be there, Steve!"
Trying his best not to show how his heart had started beating faster as soon as Robin had mentioned Eddie's name, Steve had shrugged nonchalantly. "That's nice, Robbie. Dustin will be over the moon."
"That's nice, Robbie." She repeated in a surprisingly good imitation of his tone. They definitely spent too much time together. "You can act indifferent all you want, Steve. I was there when you refused to leave the house for a whole week when Eddie went to LA, remember? I held your hair when you puked your guts out after drowning your sorrows when Eddie brought what's-his-face to Max and Lucas' wedding. You two belong together, Steve! You just had bad timing. You've never both been single at the same time - until now. That must mean something. Maybe he's not just coming for Dustin, that's all I'm saying."
Which had actually led them to discuss whether Steve should put them all out of their misery by finally growing a pair (Robin's words) or decide that whatever had been between them that summer, when Eddie had recovered from almost being eaten alive by demobats, was long gone (Steve's words).
"I beg to differ, Dingus. I saw the way he looked at you at our little 'Fuck Off Upside Down' anniversary party. He spilled his beer when you walked in the room, Steve. No one else did."
"He's clumsy. You know that. I'm surprised he never fell off the stage," Steve jokes. He's not sure who he's trying to convince, Robin or himself.
Robin's expression changes to something more serious as she puts her hand on top of his, still holding his red grading pen in a white-knuckled grip. "Steve, listen. I'm not saying you have to do anything. You and Eddie have been friends for almost twenty years. We've all been. You're not going to lose him no matter what you decide. But," and here she takes a deep breath, "I just want you to be happy, Steve. You deserve to be happy. And I know that you're not unhappy, I know that. You've got April and you've got me and you've got the kids, even though they're scattered all over the country. But I also know that you've never stopped imagining a future with him, have you?"
"He kissed me," Steve blurts out, and to Robin's credit, she doesn't react except for her hand on his to twitch in surprise. She makes a questioning sound in her throat, clearly waiting for more.
"The night before he left. We had this big going-away bash, remember?" She nods. "We all got pretty drunk after the kids left and you and Vicky had gone to sleep in the guest room and I had offered to sleep on the couch so Eddie could have my bed. His back was still bothering him and he had a long drive ahead of him the next day. But he insisted on sharing and I was too drunk and tired to argue. The next morning he got up very early, probably thinking I was still asleep when he got dressed and left. Only he didn't leave. At least not right away. He came over to the bed and kissed me. On the mouth. And he said, 'You'll always be my almost, Stevie.'"
Robin looks at him with wide eyes, and Steve thinks that maybe he should have told her sooner, that maybe he violated some code between them because they tell each other everything. But something about this morning had felt, well, almost sacred in a way. As if putting it into words would make it less so.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Robbie. I just..."
"You had to keep it to yourself so it would always be the one dream you could turn to?" Robin suggests in a soft voice, and Steve wouldn't have said it like that, but she's right. Every date that didn't feel right, every relationship that went down the drain, hell, even when his marriage imploded on him, he thought of that one kiss and dreamed of a life where Eddie would have stayed. Or where Steve had followed him.
"Oh Dingus." Suddenly, Robin's arms wrapped around him in a hug, and it wasn't until he saw the wetness on her shirt that he realized he was crying. "I can't promise you it'll work, but I really think you should talk to him. Your life doesn't end at 40, Steve. You can still have the future you've always dreamed of."
Steve nods against her shoulder, tightening his grip on the best thing that has ever happened to him besides April.
Dustin and El's wedding is a small affair, just family and close friends, which is basically the same in their group.
Steve tries his best not to show his inner turmoil and mostly succeeds. There are handshakes that turn into tight hugs, hellos that turn into stories about kids and grandkids, neighbors, vacations, jobs, life. It's great to see everyone. It also helps distract him from the butterflies that have taken up permanent residence in his stomach for over a week now.
It works until everyone is about to take their seats and Eddie still hasn't shown up. He's supposed to be one of Dustin's groomsmen, along with Lucas and Mike and Will, while Steve is actually Dustin's best man. He only cried a little when Dustin asked him to.
Just as the officiant is ready to start without him, the heavy double doors open and Eddie walks in like Aragorn into Helm's Deep (Dustin insisted that Steve watch the movies if he didn't want to read the books, and Steve may have thought of Eddie more than once while watching Aragorn, sue him).
He rushes to his spot next to the other groomsmen, ruffles Dustin's hair as he passes him, and mumbles, "Sorry, shrimp, the airport lost my luggage." Then his eyes fall on Steve and he freezes for a moment before giving him a bright, dimpled smile. "Hey, Stevie," he whispers before stepping to the end of the line of groomsmen.
Steve is glad that Hopper is recording the whole ceremony, because he doesn't hear a thing that's being said.
Later, everyone gathers in the dining room and Hopper and Claudia each give a heartfelt speech before it's Steve's turn. He has everyone toast to Dustin and El's future, because while the past may have brought them together, it's the future that belongs to them and their love. He forces himself not to look at Eddie as he says this, knowing that his face would give away his thoughts.
And then Eddie stands up to say a few words as well, something no one expected him to do.
"I've known Dustin for 20 years now, and the only time I ever doubted that he was a genius was when he let El go without a fight. But you know what? I was wrong. Dustin and El may have taken the scenic route to get here," Eddie tells the guests, "but sometimes that's the best way to get somewhere. If you're willing to take the long and winding road, the road less traveled, as Frost would say, you know that whatever's at the other end is worth it."
Steve desperately wants to believe that Eddie is not just talking about Dustin and El, but he doesn't even look at Steve when he says that. He just sits down again next to Robin at the table right next to the one where Steve is sitting with Dustin and El and their parents, because Steve is part of the family, too, as Claudia had pointed out.
The rest of the evening is kind of a blur until everyone gets up to go to the ballroom where the dance floor has been set up. Dustin and El open with their first dance, "You and Me" by Lifehouse, and Steve has never been prouder of his little brother as he watches him lead El across the dance floor with the biggest, toothiest smile on his face.
"They've come a long way, huh?" says a voice next to him and Steve doesn't have to turn around to know it's Eddie.
"Yeah. I'm glad they made it." Steve agrees, his eyes never leaving the dancing couple. More and more people are joining them now, and Steve can feel the fond smile on his face grow.
Eddie's hand rests on his arm as he steps around Steve to face him. He extends his other hand to Steve, palm up, and asks, "May I have the pleasure of this dance with you?"
As if Steve could ever say no to Eddie.
Just as they step onto the dance floor, "You and Me" fades out and the next song begins. It's "Unchained Melody" and Steve suspects that Robin had a hand in it. It's the song Steve listened to a lot after Eddie left and she once complained that he ruined the song for her. Apparently not enough to put it on the playlist when he and Eddie hit the dance floor.
"I always kind of liked that song," Eddie tells him, and Steve snorts. "No, really! It's not really metal, but I don't know. I just feel it, you know? It's real." Eddie explains, veering close to rambling territory.
"Is that so?" Steve has to ask as he slowly sways, his hand in Eddie's and his arm wrapped around Eddie's waist.
Eddie hums quietly in agreement. "Back in '86, when I was trying to settle down in LA, I used to listen to it for hours." Eddie admits quietly and Steve's heart is suddenly in his throat. "I felt every single word and every single word made me think about what I was leaving behind."
"Eddie," Steve begins, only to be gently silenced by Eddie's finger against his lips.
"Please, Stevie, I have to say this now or I never will. So please, just listen, yeah?"
Steve crosses his eyes to look pointedly at Eddie's finger against his lips before looking back up at Eddie, who snorts at the gesture. "Brat," he teases, taking his finger away.
"Okay, I'm listening," Steve tells him, and mimics zipping his lips.
Eddie's eyes sparkle with amusement and affection, and something deeper. Something that makes the seeds of hope in Steve's chest tentatively open and reach for their sun.
"Stevie, sweetheart, you certainly know... I mean, you must know that I..." Eddie rambles and Steve has never seen him so lost for words. He doesn't say anything, but he brings their joined hands to his mouth and kisses Eddie's in silent reassurance.
Eddie's eyes find his and the expression in them is so unbearably soft that Steve almost has to look away. No one has ever looked at him like that before. "You were always the one who got away, Steve. My almost. Even when I was with other people, you were there. On every stage, in every hotel room, on every stretch of highway, you were there. And I almost told myself it just wasn't meant to be. I had you as a friend and that was a gift I never thought I would have, I shouldn't be greedy and ask for more."
He takes a deep breath, like he's steeling himself, gathering every ounce of that incredible courage Steve has seen time and time again, even as Eddie keeps insisting he's a coward. Steve knows better, and Eddie's next words prove him right once again.
"But the funny thing is, it never stopped me from hoping for a future with you."
They stop dancing, if you can call what they were doing dancing, and look at each other, eyes searching for answers. For reasons to hope.
Steve is the first to break the silence, a soft grin on his face. "May I speak now?"
That makes Eddie laugh softly and he nods.
"Is this what you want? A future with me? Because that means a future with a middle school teacher with a little pet tornado who's currently staying with her mom. You have to mean it for her as much as you mean it for me. This means being all in, Eddie."
Steve hates that he has to say this, that he can't just fall into Eddie's arms and kiss him senseless. But Eddie needs to know what a future with Steve means. If he wasn't sure he wanted that kind of future, then they couldn't have one together. At least not the way they both wanted it.
Eddie cupped Steve's cheek in his hand, his smile growing with every blink of his chocolate eyes. "Steve, I know who you are. I know what it would mean to be with you, and I want it so much that I can barely stand another day without it. I love your little pet Tornado, she's adorable and funny and she has great taste in music. No idea where she got that from, though," Eddie teases before sobering up. "I want to be a family. This tour was our last for at least two years. The guys need a break and so do I. And after that, we don't know yet, but whatever it is, it will be something we agree on together. You and me and April."
Maybe Steve should ask more questions, be more cautious. But he's waited twenty years for this, and he can't wait another second to finally kiss the man he's always been in love with.
Rating: General
CW: References to Sex
Tags: Established Relationship, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Marriage Proposals, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Future Fic, Dialogue Heavy
For the @steddielovemonth prompt: "Love is having hope for the future together."
💕—————💕
Steve was sitting at the dining table, hands spread out on the surface, staring down at a piece of mail when he heard Eddie clamber through the front door. Based on the string of things being dropped and Eddie not reacting negatively, just sighing a little bit and picking things up, must mean he was having a good day.
It’s funny, Steve thinks, that he knows the way in which Eddie’s emotions express when he comes through the front door of their shared space. They began renting an apartment in Chicago just a year or so after getting together. Tail end of 1986 meant sharing a bed and house by August of 1987. And it’s theirs. Filled with miscellaneous clutter—a bookshelf brimmed with books, coffee table layered with Sports Illustrated and Heavy Metal magazines, dice and keys and Topps baseball cards, and picture frames they dust and drawings from Eddie’s sketchbooks and ‘failed’ art projects of Steve’s that Eddie thought were masterpieces. Point is, they’ve made it their home. And they started their lives with a breath of fresh air.
And now it’s 1995, depending on one another’s reactions, this all may just crumble at their feet.
See, Eddie was out playing a demo tape for a small record company based here in Chicago. A little indie place that’s been looking to expand their music catalogue from contemporary to a broader lick of alternative genres. Which, it turns out, includes thrash and heavy metal. Which, Steve adores, Eddie is amazing at performing.
But, Steve? He’s been anxiously waiting all day for the mail to arrive. Biting down on his fingernails, chewing them up so much they bleed and he has to run his fingertips under lukewarm water. Pacing the carpet of the living room. Pushing down and peering through the eggshell blinds. Biting his fingernails, again. And then it came and now he’s at their dining table and now he’s waiting for Eddie to careen around the corner and kiss his hair and ask in his greeting Steve voice, “What’s this, baby?”
“What’s this, baby?” Steve hears from above him. He jumps a little bit. Maybe he should have put on music or something, try to get himself to stay grounded in the present. “Stevie?” Eddie calls.
“Oh, uh,” Steve stutters. “It’s a letter I got in the mail, but I—I wanna hear about your demo tape.” Eddie gives him a sidelong glance. A little furrow to his eyebrows, a frown. “The letter isn’t anything bad, I read it already. But I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”
Eddie hums, nodding in slow understanding. He slides into the dining seat across from Steve. Mirroring his position. Then, he realizes, based on whatever face Steve makes, that it’s only anxiety inducing. He sets his chin in his right palm, stretching the other onto the table for Steve to take. Waiting patiently. And says, when Steve actually grabs back, “It went really well, sweetheart. They offered me a contract.”
“That’s great news, Eds! What did—Did you sign it? Please tell me you signed it.”
Then, Eddie sighs. And Steve shrinks a little. “I did,” he tells slowly, as if testing the words for the first time. “I signed it. They’re keeping me based here. I’ll start recording next Saturday.” He squeezes at Steve’s hand.
“What’s the long face for, then?”
“I’m not making a face,” Eddie feebly argues.
“You are!” And Steve mocks him. Frowning, eyes distant to the surface of the table, bunching his eyebrows impossibly farther down his face. His shoulders slump. “That’s what you did! What happened? Were they pieces of shit to you or something? Did they like—Are they underselling your music prowess or something? Do I need to kick their—“
Eddie chuckles. His laughter like honey. “Babe, breathe for me,” he whispers. “My only issue is that—“ But he cuts himself off there. He leans in across the table. Eyes down at the letter in front of Steve. “That’s a letter from the community college, isn’t it?”
Steve pulls his hands back, laying them palm down on the paper. He swallows thickly. “It is. Why?”
“Did you get in?”
“I’m not telling you until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“You telling me determines whether or not I have a genuine problem. So…Did you get into the college that you’ve been looking at forlorn every time we drive by it? Or did you not and I need to go kick some old people ass?” His eyes are large in earnest. Grinning like the Cheshire Cat. His hair curtaining his face, making his facial features impossibly darker, shadowed by something tricky.
Steve chews on his lip. “I got in,” he mutters. “I got into their English literature program. And once I’m done with that, I transfer. And once I transfer, I start classes at a four year. I’ll be studying English literature and secondary education,” he rambles. His fingers tap over the letter. “Is that…Does that ruin your whole music dream? I don’t want to be the reason that you chase something else.”
For a moment, the room goes scary still and silent. Eddie’s facial features soften. And Steve’s heart rabbits against his ribcage. Hard enough that he slides a palm over his t-shirt, massaging at the rapid beating, hoping that he doesn’t have a heart attack on the third floor of their complex. That would suck, he thinks bitterly. And my future would be done for.
He sits back in his chair. Anxiety thrumming under his skin when Eddie still doesn’t say anything. Just keeps looking at him like he’s…Like he’s planning an entire five lifetimes with Steve. Like he’s about to sweep Steve off his feet, chuck him over the side of their mattress, give him hickeys until he’s a mottled lovesick mess, and then get down on one knee and surrender his heart to Steve’s hands. Like he’s gonna propose something wonderful like marriage. And, maybe, Steve lets himself believe something crazy like that.
“Remember when I told you that I consider marriage as a possibility?” Eddie asks abruptly.
And, goddamnit, if Eddie does something crazy and stupid like propose right now, Steve may just throw up out of excitement. How embarrassing, he thinks. And he chuckles despite that.
“I do,” he finds himself whispering. “What does this—“
“And I considered it with you. And I held you close and you cried against my lips and we made love like we were the only people in the universe? Remember all the times that you’d lay on top of me out of contentment? All the times I’d hold you close to my chest? All the times you kissed over my heart, like it was the only thing keeping us tethered to the moment?”
Nervously, Steve laughs. “Yes, Eddie. Yes, I remember all that. What is your point with—“
“Fucking margarita nights. You’re a sweet drunk, d’you know that? Like almost unbearably sweet.” Eddie scoots his chair around the table. Setting it next to Steve, on his left. And his hands come into Steve’s field of view. Gathering Steve’s palms in his, squeezing and caressing the skin. “All the times in which we thought that this apartment was all that we had.” He shakes his head, smirking, snickering like this intense reaction he’s having is something funny to Steve.
Fact of the matter, Steve is scared shitless right now. What if this is his way of breaking up, he can’t help himself from wondering. Cruel. He swallows against the lump in his throat. Words escaping him.
“I want to marry you so bad,” Eddie swears. “Wanna do the whole ceremony. And the paper signing. And the honeymoon, but in some little cabin on a mountain. Where we load the fireplace with wood and we huddle in for warmth and we sip at rich cups of Uncle Wayne’s hot chocolate. And then, in a few years time, when we’ve financially recovered from the wedding, we’ll buy a house.
“We’ll buy a house and paint it yellow,” he promises. Steve begins to cry, something silent, but can’t pinch his nose to stop himself. “It’ll be yellow because that’s your favorite color. With white shutters. And a big backyard for a dog or two. Wrap around porch so that we can sit and watch the sunrises and sunsets.” He takes a deep breath that sounds a little nasally. “I’ll make you breakfast every morning,” he continues, “serve you a fresh bowl of strawberries, ones that you grow under the big front window of our house. I’ll kiss you all over the face, like I do now, and you’ll grumble that it’s too early and then you’ll smell the bacon and you’ll give me your stupid sleepy smile that makes my heart do funny little flips and you’ll kiss me on the mouth and it’ll be disgusting because you haven’t brushed your teeth.
“And I’ll be a very happy man.” Eddie’s breath trembles in his chest. He swallows hard. Steve wonders if he can hear his own shaky breath. Or if he’s too involved in whatever this is. “I’ll be so happy,” he whispers, “And I’ll find myself thinking, how did I ever get so lucky? But it isn’t luck. And it isn’t fate. It was trauma that forced us together and I’ll laugh about it. But then I’ll sigh because who the fuck cares how we started all of this?
“You’ll be a funky middle school English teacher. With your nicely done hair and a sweater vest and some khakis. I’ll be a musician, hopefully. But, every day you’ll have a small lunch; an orange that I made you peel but I removed the pulp from, a tuna salad sandwich because you’re my fish loving dork, and a bottle of water. I’ll leave you a note everyday telling you how proud I am because I’ve never stopped being proud of you.
“I’m proud of you, Steve, d’you know that? So much.” He laughs wetly. His eyes staring down at their interlocked hands. “All this to say that I’m proud of you. That I’m happy. We’ve got a future, sweetheart. And I want to be your husband. Will you—“ He swallows once more, thick and heavy and almost painful looking. Can love hurt when it’s this sweet?
Eddie finally looks up. His eyes glistening and his cheeks wet and his skin tinted pink. His eyelashes stuck together. Nose dripping only slightly. He’s a messy crier, but Steve doesn’t fare any better. “Will you marry me, Steve? Stay by my side and we’ll accomplish our dreams together?” His voice is soft. Enamored.
Unbelievable, Steve swallows back. Because how did he get somebody like Eddie in his life? How did he manage to find love and have it promised back at him?
“Yes, Eddie,” he gasps out. “God, holy shit.” He drops his hands from Eddie’s hold, instead wrapping them around his torso. Muffled into Eddie’s shoulder, “All this just because I’m finally figuring my shit out? God.”
Eddie cackles, burying his own face in Steve’s hair. They sway a little. “I just—“ Eddie begins whispering. “I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while. Every time seemed right, but this one? Baby, this one was perfect.”
Steve sighs into the embrace. Content to not say anything else. Except, “I’m proud of you, too, honey. I love you so much and I’m so proud of you.”
“I love you too, love bug. God, Steve, I love you, too.”
For the first time since 1983, Steve allows himself to truly settle in for a future. A future, he knows, he’ll be especially proud of.
💕—————💕
Fun fact, I accidentally deleted this whole ficlet when I was copying and pasting. Hit the spacebar and watched it disappear in front of my eyes. But I figured out how to get it back, not before almost throwing up on myself out of anger. Love y'all <3
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